Amazon community files lawsuit against Chinese firm over gas flaring

Indigenous Waorani from Ecuador's Amazon filed a lawsuit Thursday against state-owned Chinese oil company PetroOriental, accusing it of contaminating their ancestral lands by burning off natural gas from oil wells in a process known as flaring.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-amazon-lawsuit-chinese-firm-gas.html

Mass extinctions of land-dwelling animals occur in 27-million-year cycle

Mass extinctions of land-dwelling animals—including amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds—follow a cycle of about 27 million years, coinciding with previously reported mass extinctions of ocean life, according to a new analysis published in the journal Historical Biology.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-mass-extinctions-land-dwelling-animals-million-year.html

EU leaders spar over climate in marathon summit

EU leaders debated through the night into Friday trying to agree more ambitious climate targets, despite earlier winning a victory for unity in unblocking the bloc's two trillion euro budget and recovery fund.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-eu-leaders-struggle-deadlock-climate.html

Window opens for Virgin Galactic test flight from spaceport

The window opens Friday for Virgin Galactic's first rocket-powered test flight from Spaceport America in southern New Mexico as the company prepares for commercial flights next year.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-window-virgin-galactic-flight-spaceport.html

Disney unveils plans to stream a galaxy of new series, films

The Walt Disney Co.'s streaming plans shifted into hyper speed Thursday, as the studio unveiled a galaxy's worth of new streaming offerings including plans for 10 "Star Wars" series spinoffs and 10 Marvel series that will debut on Disney+.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-disney-unveils-stream-galaxy-series.html

COVID lockdown causes record drop in CO2 emissions for 2020

The global COVID-19 lockdowns caused fossil carbon dioxide emissions to decline by an estimated 2.4 billion tonnes in 2020—a record drop according to researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA), University of Exeter and the Global Carbon Project.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-covid-lockdown-co2-emissions.html

CSIRO maps Darwin's hot spots and heat-health vulnerability

On the back of Darwin's record-breaking November heat, scientists from Australia's national science agency CSIRO have released two reports, one mapping the city's surface temperatures and one providing strategies to deal with urban heat.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-csiro-darwin-hot-heat-health-vulnerability.html

Ghosts of glaciers past hint at future climate challenges

In order to predict how glaciers will respond to climate change in the future, scientists first need to understand how they've responded in the past. A team of scientists in the Cosmogenic Nuclide Lab at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have taken on the challenge by studying glacial remains all around the world, from Patagonia to the Arctic.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-ghosts-glaciers-hint-future-climate.html

Sea anemones find sweet arrangement with under-skin algae for emergency food source

Every species needs a backup strategy when food is difficult to find. For sea anemones, Plan B is their symbiotic relationship with tiny algae living under their skin. University of California, Irvine biologists have published findings describing how anemones control this remarkable interaction. Their discovery provides new insights into ways organisms form associations that make them more successful than if they lived by themselves. The team's research appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-sea-anemones-sweet-under-skin-algae.html

eROSITA finds large-scale bubbles in the halo of the Milky Way

Gigantic hot gas structures above and below the galactic disc are probably due to shock waves generated by past energetic activity in the center of our galaxy.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-erosita-large-scale-halo-milky.html

Aboriginal group urges mining 'reset' after ancient site destroyed

Aboriginal landowners have called for a "reset" in Australia's lucrative mining sector after an inquiry pilloried Rio Tinto for blowing up a 46,000-year-old heritage site to expand an iron ore mine.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-aboriginal-group-urges-reset-ancient.html

Sony to buy US anime giant Crunchyroll for $1.17 bn

Japan's Sony said Thursday it has agreed to buy US anime streaming giant Crunchyroll, which has more than three million paying subscribers, in a deal worth $1.17 billion.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-sony-anime-giant-crunchyroll-bn.html

China's foreign coal push risks global climate goals

China's plan to fund dozens of foreign coal plants from Zimbabwe to Indonesia is set to produce more emissions than major developed nations, threatening global efforts to fight climate change, environmentalists have warned.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-china-foreign-coal-global-climate.html

Finland's muddy fight over super-polluting peat energy

On a barren expanse of bog in southeast Finland the size of 180 football pitches, Taisto Raussi's yellow harvester hoovers up a thin layer of rich peat and deposits it in a heap, to be sold as fuel.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-finland-muddy-super-polluting-peat-energy.html

'My ambition? Another Nobel prize' says chemistry laureate

Winning the Nobel prize is often the peak of professional achievement, but chemistry laureate Emmanuelle Charpentier, who received the coveted award this week, has her sights set on repeating her success.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-ambition-nobel-prize-chemistry-laureate.html

Big data offers promise of better groundwater management in California

To ensure that California's groundwater is sustainably managed in the future and over the long-term, current state definitions of what constitutes groundwater may need to be revised, according to research published this week in PNAS. A McGill University-led research team has analyzed big data of more than 200,000 groundwater samples taken from across the state and found that there are problems with the guidelines used for groundwater management. Known as the 'Base of Fresh Water', the guidelines are close to fifty years old and don't reflect current uses, knowledge, concerns or technologies related to managing groundwater in this coastal state with a multi-billion-dollar agricultural industry.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-big-groundwater-california.html

California Academy scientists describe 213 species in 2020

This past year, researchers at the California Academy of Sciences added 213 plant and animal species to the tree of life, providing deeper insight into the rich biodiversity of our planet and helping to inform global conservation strategies. The new species include 101 ants, 22 crickets, 15 fishes, 11 geckos, 11 sea slugs, 11 flowering plants, eight beetles, eight fossil echinoderms, seven spiders, five snakes, two skinks, two aphids, two eels, one moss, one frog, one fossil amphibian, one seahorse, one fossil scallop, one sea biscuit, one fossil crinoid (or sea lily), and one coral. More than two dozen Academy scientists—along with many more collaborators throughout the world—described the new species.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-california-academy-scientists-species.html

Cataloging nature's hidden arsenal: Viruses that infect bacteria

Scientists are continually searching for new and improved ways to deal with bacteria, be it to eliminate disease-causing strains or to modify potentially beneficial strains. And despite the numerous clever drugs and genetic engineering tools humans have invented for these tasks, those approaches can seem clumsy when compared to the finely tuned attacks waged by phages—the viruses that infect bacteria.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-nature-hidden-arsenal-viruses-infect.html

Toxic pollutants can impact wildlife disease spread

Exposure to toxic pollutants associated with human activities may be influencing the spread of infectious diseases in wildlife, according to a new study from the University of Georgia. The findings, just published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, have implications for both human health and wildlife conservation.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-toxic-pollutants-impact-wildlife-disease.html

Ecologists study how soil fungi respond to wildfire

In the wake of the 2017 North Bay fires, the golden hills of Santa Rosa, California, were unrecognizable. Smoky, seared and buried under ash, the landscape appeared desolate, save for some ghostly, blackened—but still alive—oak trees. For Stanford University graduate student, Gabriel Smith, whose family lives in Santa Rosa, the devastation was heartbreaking, but it also offered a unique scientific opportunity: a natural experiment on the effects of wildfires on the microbes that live in soil, which Smith studies in the form of fungi.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-ecologists-soil-fungi-wildfire.html

The role of platform protection insurance in the sharing economy

Researchers from Temple University, Tsinghua University, and Fudan University published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that explores the business impact of PPI on buyers' purchase behaviors and sellers' sales activities.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-role-platform-economy.html

Johns Hopkins: Census records show founder owned slaves

Johns Hopkins University, whose researchers have been at the forefront of the global response to COVID-19, announced on Wednesday that its founder owned slaves during the 19th century, a revelation for the Baltimore-based school that had taken pride in the man purportedly being a staunch abolitionist.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-johns-hopkins-census-founder-slaves.html

Delta asks more workers to take leave as travel slump widens

Delta Air Lines has managed to avoid furloughs but is now asking more employees to take unpaid leaves of absence, a sign of the deepening slump in air travel as coronavirus cases increase across the United States.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-delta-workers-slump-widens.html

Airbnb, resilient in pandemic, goes forward with IPO

Airbnb proved its resilience in a year that has upended global travel. Now it needs to prove to investors that it sees more growth ahead.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-airbnb-resilient-pandemic-ipo.html

Google CEO says company will review AI scholar's abrupt exit

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has apologized for how a prominent artificial intelligence researcher's abrupt departure last week has "seeded doubts" in the company.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-google-ceo-company-ai-scholar.html

Researchers say new species of beaked whale found off Mexico

Researchers looking for an elusive species of beaked whale said Wednesday they think they have found another new, previously unknown species off Mexico's western Pacific coast.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-species-beaked-whale-mexico.html

SpaceX launches Starship on highest test flight, crash-lands

SpaceX launched its shiny, bullet-shaped, straight-out-of-science fiction Starship several miles into the air from a remote corner of Texas on Wednesday, but the 6 1/2-minute test flight ended in an explosive fireball at touchdown.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-spacex-starship-highest-flight-crash-lands.html

First woman, next man on moon will come from these NASA 18

NASA has named the 18 astronauts—half of them women—who will train for its Artemis moon-landing program.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-woman-moon-nasa.html

France imposes 135 mn euros in fines on Google, Amazon

France's CNIL data privacy watchdog said Thursday it had fined two Google units a total of 100 million euros and an Amazon subsidiary 35 million euros over advertising cookies.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-france-imposes-mn-euros-fines.html