Giant iceberg breaks off Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica

A giant iceberg, about twice the size of Chicago, broke off from Antartica’s Brunt Ice Shelf in late February 2021. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/giant-iceberg-breaks-off-antarctica-brunt-ice-shelf…

A new way of forming planets

In the last 25 years, scientists have discovered over 4000 planets beyond the borders of our solar system. From relatively small rock and water worlds to blisteringly hot gas giants, the planets display a remarkable variety. This variety is not unexpected. The sophisticated computer models, with which scientists study the formation of planets, also spawn very different planets. What the models…

Will iceberg twice the size of NYC break off Antarctica this year?

A crack on the Antarctic ice shelf grew dramatically in late 2020 into 2021. Scientists are watching to see if the rapidly accelerating crack will cause the shelf to rip apart before Antarctica’s sunlit summer season – going on now – comes to an end. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/iceberg-brunt-ice-shelf-antarctica-break-off…

Crazy, Not Insane review: Why do people become murderers?

True-crime shows focusing on the act of murder are booming. Alex Gibney’s new documentary Crazy, Not Insane instead looks at what might spawn a killer Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24833100-400-crazy-not-insane-review-why-do-people-become-murderers/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

SpaceX Starship as a trash collector in Earth orbit?

SpaceX Starship’s many tasks may include launching humans into space, carrying satellites into orbit and — perhaps — removing troublesome pieces of space debris. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/spacex-starship-clean-up-space-junk…

Human-linked Earth vibrations dropped 50% during Covid-19 lockdown

Between March and May 2020, many people across Earth went into lockdown. During those months, seismographs recorded a drop in human-linked vibrations in the solid Earth, by an average of 50%. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/covid19-lockdown-2020-caused-50-percent-global-reduction-human-linked-earth-vibrations…

Global warming is influencing where tropical cyclones rage

While the global average number of tropical cyclones each year hasn’t budged from 86 over the last 4 decades, climate change has been influencing the locations of these deadly storms. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/study-climate-change-tropical-cyclones-hurricanes-location…

Will Comic Books Survive Coronavirus?

As Marvel cuts staff and publishers stop selling new titles, artists, shop owners and writers worry for the future of an industry worth billions. From a report: There are no new comic books. Steve Geppi, head of Diamond Comic Distributors, which distributes nearly every comic sold in the anglophone world (or used to), announced this on 23 March, though senior industry…

The Sandboxie Windows Sandbox Isolation Tool Is Now Open-Source

Cybersecurity firm Sophos announced today that it has open-sourced the Sandboxie Windows sandbox-based isolation utility 15 years after it was released. Bleeping Computer reports: Sandboxie was initially developed by Ronen Tzur and released on June 26, 2004, as a simple utility to help run Internet Explorer within a secure and isolated sandbox environment. Later, Tzur upgraded Sandboxie to also support sandboxing…

Surfing space dust bunnies spawn interplanetary magnetic fields

A 40-year-old enigma about ghostly magnetic fields in interplanetary space may have finally been solved by new data from a constellation of 12 satellites in near-Earth space. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-02-surfing-space-bunnies-spawn-interplanetary.html…