An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Two scientific studies of the number of insects splattered by cars have revealed a huge decline in abundance at European sites in two decades. The survey of insects hitting car windscreens in rural Denmark used data collected every summer from 1997 to 2017 and found an 80% decline in abundance. It also…
Tag: Shape
Star-hop: Pegasus to Andromeda galaxy
The 4 stars of the Great Square of Pegasus are easy to find. Ready? Let’s star-hop! Source: https://earthsky.org/tonight/star-hop-from-great-square-of-pegasus-to-andromeda-galaxy…
Chance fossil discovery reveals ancient marine reptile
Scientists raced against a rising tide to recover a tantalizing fossil on an island in southeast Alaska. It turned out to be a species new to science. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/alaskan-fossil-reveals-new-marine-reptile-species…
Pine Island Glacier spawns PIGlets
Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier – known as ‘PIG’ for short – has just spawned a huge iceberg. At over 115 square miles (300 square km), this huge berg quickly broke into many ‘PIGlet’ pieces Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/pine-island-glacier-piglet-icebergs…
Great Backyard Bird Count begins on Valentine’s Day
Show your love for birds by joining the 2020 Great Backyard Bird Count. It is free and easy to participate in this 4-day event. Find out how here. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/register-participate-great-backyard-bird-count…
CHEOPS space telescope takes its first pictures
The tension was high: In front of a large screen at the house near Madrid where members of the Consortium participating in the commissioning of the satellite live, as well as at the other institutes involved in CHEOPS, the team waited for the first images from the space telescope. “The first images that were about to appear on the screen were…
Facebook To IRS: Refund Me, I’m Irish!
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: Among the techniques featured in a 2012 City Pages story on The 10 Most Corrupt Tax Loopholes was pretending to be Irish. Chris Parker wrote, “Most people associate such exhaustive money-laundering with drug cartels. But it’s now standard practice at firms like Eli Lilly, Google, Microsoft, Pfizer, and Facebook. The only difference is that when drug…
Go 1.15 Planning Will Not ‘Try’ Error Handling
The Go team is planning for a February release of Go 1.14, and “Per the process outlined in the Go 2, here we come! blog post, it is again the time in our development and release cycle to consider if and what language or library changes we might want to include for our next release, Go 1.15, scheduled for August of…
Today in science: Launch of Explorer 1
Can you believe it’s been 62 years since the United States launched its 1st satellite? Explorer 1 advanced the space race between the US and the Soviet Union. It led to the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belts. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/launch-of-explorer-1-jan-31-1958…
Elnath is close to the galactic anticenter
Elnath, the 2nd-brightest star in Taurus, is the closest bright star to the galactic anticenter – the point in space directly opposite of our Milky Way’s center. Source: https://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/elnath-taurus-the-bulls-second-brightest-star…