Changing sounds reveal impact of Amazon fires on animal life

Recordings reveal that the Brazilian Amazon sounds different after it has been burned several times, suggesting acoustic monitoring as a tool to measure ecosystem degradation Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2269731-changing-sounds-reveal-impact-of-amazon-fires-on-animal-life/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

How Facebook Silenced an Enemy of Turkey To Prevent a Hit To the Company’s Business

Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shares this report from ProPublica: As Turkey launched a military offensive against Kurdish minorities in neighboring Syria in early 2018, Facebook’s top executives faced a political dilemma. Turkey was demanding the social media giant block Facebook posts from the People’s Protection Units, a mostly Kurdish militia group the Turkish government had targeted. Should Facebook ignore the request,…

Saturday’s strong earthquake in Japan called ‘aftershock’ of deadly 2011 quake

No fatalities have been reported in the February 13, 2021 strong earthquake in Japan, which occurred off Japan’s east coast, near the epicenter of the 2011 9.0-magnitude Tohoku earthquake. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/feb-13-2021-7-magnitude-quake-japan-aftershock-2011…

Another terrible year for wildfires and smoke in the US in 2020

Wildfires burned more than 10 million acres in the United States during the 2020 season. It was the worst season on record. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/us-2020-wildfire-season-record-bad…

Jamie Zawinski Calls Cinnamon Screensaver Lock-Bypass Bug ‘Unconscionable’

Legendary programmer Jamie Zawinski has worked on everything from the earliest releases of the Netscape Navigator browser to XEmacs, Mozilla, and, of course, the XScreenSaver project. Now Slashdot reader e432776 writes: JWZ continues to track issues with screensavers on Linux (since 2004!), and discusses a new bug in cinnamon-screensaver. Long-standing topics like X11, developer interaction, and code licensing all feature. Solutions…

2020 tied for warmest year on record

2020 was Earth’s hottest year in the 140-year record, effectively tying 2016, the previous record-holder. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/2020-tied-for-warmest-global-year-on-record…

The myths behind the southern and northern lights

For millennia, humans have viewed the northern and southern lights – aurora borealis and aurora australis – and created myths and folklore to explain the dancing lights they saw in the sky. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/legends-folklore-myths-northern-southern-lights-auroras…

Was 2020 the World’s Warmest Year Ever?

“New data from EU satellites shows that 2020 is in a statistical dead heat with 2016 as the world’s warmest year,” reports the BBC (in an article shared by long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo):
The Copernicus Climate Change Service says that last year was around 1.25C above the long-term average. The scientists say that unprecedented levels of heat in the Arctic and Siberia…

Uber Wasted $100 Million On Useless Digital Ad Campaigns

Uber apparently squandered an estimated $100 million on third-party digital advertising campaigns. Input Mag reports: Former Sleeping Giants alum and co-founder of Check My Ads, Nandini Jammi, caught most of us up on the whole situation yesterday in a lengthy Twitter thread detailing just how Uber, the poster child of startup capitalism’s unethical robber baron mentality, managed to recently waste a…

2020 in review: Extreme weather seen around the world as climate warms

Climate change is having a clear impact on the weather, as storms, floods and fires are all becoming more likely and records keep tumbling Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24833130-100-2020-in-review-extreme-weather-seen-around-the-world-as-climate-warms/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…