Elephants found to have the highest volume of daily water loss ever recorded in a land animal

A team of researchers from Duke University, the University of the Witwatersrand and Hunter College has found that elephants have the highest volume of daily water loss ever recorded in a land animal. In their paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the group describes experiments they conducted with captive elephants to measure how much water they lose.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-elephants-highest-volume-daily-loss.html

Sediment cores from Dogger Littoral suggest Dogger Island survived ancient tsunami

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in the U.K. has found evidence that suggests the ancient Dogger Island survived a tsunami approximately 8,150 years ago. In their paper published in the journal Antiquity, the group describes their analysis of core samples taken from the sea bed where Dogger Island was once located and what they found.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-sediment-cores-dogger-littoral-island.html

China's space ambitions: robot on Mars, a human on the moon

China's landing of its third probe on the moon is part of an increasingly ambitious space program that has a robot rover en route to Mars, is developing a reusable space plane and is planning to put humans back on the lunar surface.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-china-space-ambitions-robot-mars.html

How lessons from bees, leaves and our own blood may help us save civilization

Once upon a time, everything theoretically could be managed with neatly functioning human inventions: wars could be won, diseases cured, weather predicted, crops improved. These days, things seem to be spinning out of control: violent weather, catastrophic wildfires, political upheavals, a global pandemic—all in a world increasingly crowded and interconnected by modern technology and transport, where one failure threatens to cascade into many.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-lessons-bees-blood-civilization.html

Why there's a lot more to love about jacarandas than just their purple flowers

Every spring, streets across Australia turn purple with the delicate, falling flowers of jacarandas. This year, they'll likely be flowering over Christmas.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-lot-jacarandas-purple.html

In the far future, stellar flybys will completely dismantle the solar system

Consumption and disintegration.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-future-stellar-flybys-dismantle-solar.html

Scientists discover new way to measure turbulence of large planets and exoplanets

The swirls, eddies, and wavy bands of Jupiter and Saturn may remind us of a soothing, starry, starry night—but they reveal these two gas giants to be stormy, turbulent places. The turbulence produces energy cascades, a non-linear transfer of energy between different scales of motion. These are as fundamental to understanding planetary dynamics as the cardiovascular system is to understanding the human body.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-scientists-turbulence-large-planets-exoplanets.html

Researchers develop new electrode structure for all-solid-state secondary battery

South Korean researchers have developed a new type of electrode structure for all-solid-state secondary batteries. If this technology is adopted, the energy density of the batteries could increase significantly when compared to existing technologies, contributing tremendously to the development of high-performance secondary batteries.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-electrode-all-solid-state-secondary-battery.html

China spacecraft collects moon samples to take back to Earth

A Chinese spacecraft took samples of the moon's surface Wednesday as part of a mission to bring lunar rocks back to Earth for the first time since the 1970s, the government said, adding to a string of successes for Beijing's increasingly ambitious space program.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-china-spacecraft-moon-samples-earth.html

Second cyclone in a week threatens Sri Lanka, India

Sri Lanka and southern India battened down the hatches for the second time in a week on Wednesday ahead of the scheduled arrival of another cyclone from the Bay of Bengal.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-cyclone-week-threatens-sri-lanka.html

Germany's Bild newspaper tops half a million online paid subscribers

Germany's biggest-selling newspaper, Bild, topped half a million online subscribers, it said Wednesday, with more readers opting for its digital format during the pandemic.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-germany-bild-newspaper-tops-million.html

EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

European Union lawmakers on Wednesday voted in favor of a "right to disconnect" from the internet and email, with around one third of people now working from home across the 27-nation bloc due in large part to coronavirus restrictions.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-eu-disconnect-home.html

Review: Some of the best cars cost less than $399 per month

The COVID-19 pandemic initially slowed car sales, but now many new-car buyers are making more expensive purchases than ever before, according to sales data from Edmunds.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-cars-month.html

No country 'immune' to COVID-19 economic shock, but Asian nations will bounce back faster

Global GDP will drop three percent below pre-pandemic estimates by the end of 2021, with many Western nations seeing "deeper and longer-lasting" effects compared to China and other Asian economies, a study suggests.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-country-immune-covid-economic-asian.html

China's 'space dream': A Long March to the Moon and beyond

China's landing this week of a probe on the Moon—the first attempt by any nation to retrieve lunar samples in four decades—underlined just how far the country has come in achieving its space dream.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-china-space-moon.html

'Don't leave trash in the desert': Utah monolith removal explained

The mystery of how a metal monolith appeared in the Utah desert remains, but the riddle of its removal seems to have been solved—and sadly, has nothing to do with aliens.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-dont-trash-utah-monolith.html

Lab developing device to help Earth dodge asteroids

In a corner of the campus at Riga Technical University, a team of scientists is working on technology that could one day stop asteroids from smashing into Earth.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-lab-device-earth-dodge-asteroids.html

New Zealand symbolically declares climate emergency

Joining more than 30 countries, New Zealand on Wednesday took the symbolic step of declaring a climate emergency.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-zealand-declares-climate-emergency.html

Salesforce buying work-chat service Slack for $27.7 billion

Business software pioneer Salesforce.com is buying work-chatting service Slack for $27.7 billion in a deal aimed at giving the two companies a better shot at competing against longtime industry powerhouse Microsoft.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-salesforce-work-chat-slack-billion.html

Wildlife advocates sue US agency to protect Canada lynx

Wildlife advocates sued the federal government Tuesday in a bid to force officials to do more to conserve Canada lynx, a snow-loving cat that has struggled to survive in parts of the U.S. West.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-wildlife-advocates-sue-agency-canada.html

Keeping California a powerhouse of almond production

A favorite healthy snack, almonds are a staple on grocery store shelves worldwide. More than 80% of these almonds are grown in California. As permanent crops, almond trees have unique needs and challenges for farmers.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-california-powerhouse-almond-production.html

After 100 years, Cornell University plant pathologists revisit fire blight hypothesis

Historically credited as being the first bacterium ever characterized as a plant pathogen, fire blight is a bacterial disease that leads to significant losses of pear and apple. The role of insects in the spread of this disease has been long studied. In a new study, plant pathologists based at Cornell University and Cornell AgriTech take a hypothesis that has been more or less ignored for 100 years and provided support for its validity.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-years-cornell-university-pathologists-revisit.html