Huge volcanic eruption offers clues to fighting climate change - Science News

Around 7,300 years ago, one of Earth’s largest volcanic eruptions devastated prehistoric Japan, triggering severe population declines in certain regions while communities elsewhere continued to grow, according to new research. “This eruption must have been devastating,” said Peter Jordan, senior author and professor of archaeology at Lund University.

If you're just a wee fish swimming around the big, scary ocean, it can help to have a bit of muscle on your side. For some fish, that's the protection offered by stinging coral. For others, it's adhering to the sandpaper skin of a deadly shark. And for one species of fish, it may be cozying up to one of the most enigmatic denizens of the deep – the giant phantom jellyfish (Stygiomedusa gigantea). During an ROV dive into mesopelagic waters off the coast of Argentina, marine researchers beheld a rare and stunning sight. They witnessed a majestic jelly languidly pulsing through the darkness, and with it, an entire entourage of juvenile rudderfish (Centrolophus niger), flitting beneath its bell and among its enormous, trailing arms. It's an interspecies relationship scientists have suspected for more than 50 years – and now, hundreds of meters below the waves off Patagonia, here it is. "Both are poorly known and rarely observed cosmopolitan mesopelagic species, representing the first documented observation of this association in the deep ocean," writes a team led by marine ecologist María Emilia Bravo of the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

Discovered in an Indigenous grave in Georgia nearly 150 years ago, the "Birdman" copper plate may actually depict a woman ceremonially dressed as a warrior.

Momentick’s results in a Nature study suggest that remote sensing can help identify relatively small leaks without equipment installed at each site. Better detection could help energy companies reduce lost gas and provide insurers with more information about environmental risks. CTech12:52, 19.10.26 An Israeli startup has demonstrated that satellite imagery can be used to detect a methane emission estimated at less than 10 kilograms per hour, in a large international experiment published in the scientific journal Nature. The result highlights the potential for satellite-based monitoring to identify leaks that might otherwise go undetected, although the study also found significant differences in performance between satellite systems and analytical methods. Momentick participated in the year-long study, led by researchers at Stanford University with colleagues from the University of Michigan and other institutions. The researchers conducted 746 test events in Arizona, including 481 controlled methane releases and 265 control cases with no emissions.