omfglearntoplay shares a report from ScienceAlert: Playing through the greenery and litter of a mini forest’s undergrowth for just one month may be enough to change a child’s immune system, according to a small new experiment. When daycare workers in Finland rolled out a lawn, planted forest undergrowth such as dwarf heather and blueberries, and allowed children to care for crops…
Tag: forest
The Arctic hasn’t been this warm for 3 million years
The last time CO2 concentrations reached today’s level was 3 million years ago, during the Pliocene Epoch. Hear from geoscientists who see evolving conditions in the Arctic as an indicator of how climate change could transform the planet. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/arctic-warmest-3-million-years…
A Massive Spam Attack Is Ruining Public ‘Among Us’ Games
Just days after US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez played Among Us to an audience of more than 435,000 viewers, InnerSloth, the developer of the popular multiplayer title, is struggling to contain a spam attack that is affecting most of the game’s community. Engadget reports: The hack started to spread through the game’s userbase on Thursday evening. It causes players to spam their…
Artificial rope bridges help stop rare primates jumping to extinction
A landslide created a perilously wide gap in the forest canopy on China’s Hainan Island, so researchers made rope bridges to help the endangered Hainan gibbons get across Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2257483-artificial-rope-bridges-help-stop-rare-primates-jumping-to-extinction/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Software Engineer Catches Intelligent Bot Posting on Reddit
“The posts were appearing at a rate of about one per minute, and the posts were lengthy, most around six paragraphs long…” writes software engineer Philip Winston. I read through some of the posts. The quality was incredibly good, no machine could have written these even a few years ago. However there were some flaws and tells that suggested they were…
Inside the secret lives of synchronous fireflies
In the Smoky Mountains, thousands of fireflies flash in unison. Researchers want to know how. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/inside-secret-lives-synchronous-fireflies-video…
Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Is ‘Very Likely To Work,’ Studies Suggest
JoshuaZ writes: Recent research into the Sparc fusion reactor design make it seem likely to work. Unlike some other fusion reactor designs, Sparc uses high-temperature superconductors which are capable of much stronger magnetic fields in a more closely-confined location. Sparc will be much smaller than large-scale international project ITER, which after multiple delays is now not scheduled to even start fusion…
2020 Arctic sea ice minimum 2nd lowest on record
On September 15, 2020, Arctic sea ice reached its annual minimum extent, the 2nd-lowest on record. The Arctic region in general is warming 3 times faster than the rest of the planet. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/arctic-sea-ice-2020-minimum-2nd-lowest-on-record…
With New Security and Free Internet Issues, What Did the TikTok Deal Really Achieve?
Though the U.S. government averted a shutdown of TikTok through a new Oracle/Walmart partnership, that leaves much bigger questions unresolved. The biggest issue may be that banning apps “defeats the original intent of the internet,” argues the New York TImes. “And that was to create a global communications network, unrestrained by national borders.” “The vision for a single, interconnected network around…
Amazon River from space
Video tour – via satellite – of the Amazon River meandering through the Amazon rainforest in South America. Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/amazon-river-satellite-image…