A jaw-dropping 515-mile lightning bolt lit up the skies from Texas to Kansas City, smashing previous records and reshaping our understanding of extreme weather. Thanks to advanced satellite tech, scientists like Randy Cerveny and Michael Peterson are uncovering the mechanics of "megaflash" lightning—rare, colossal discharges that span hundreds of miles...
Scientists finally solve the mystery of what triggers lightning
A Penn State-led research team has unraveled the long-standing mystery of how lightning begins inside thunderclouds. Their findings offer the first quantitative, physics-based explanation for lightning initiation—and a glimpse into the stormy heart of Earth’s atmosphere.
Scientists just solved the 9-million-year mystery of where potatoes came from
About 9 million years ago, a wild interspecies fling between tomato-like plants and potato relatives in South America gave rise to one of the world’s most important crops: the potato. Scientists have now traced its roots to a rare natural hybridization that created the tuber, a storage organ that allowed...
Study Identifies Global Upswing in Photosynthesis Driven by Land, Offset by Oceans
The findings could inform planetary health assessments, enhance ecosystem management, and guide climate change projections and mitigation strategies.
Do You Want to Freeze a Cloud? Desert Dust Might Help
Dust particles from deserts promote ice formation in clouds.
Sun Exposure Changes Chemical Fate of Littered Face Masks
Masks physically degrade into nanoplastics, chemically change with exposure to sunlight, metals.
4,000-year-old teeth reveal the earliest human high — Hidden in plaque
Scientists have discovered the oldest direct evidence of betel nut chewing in Southeast Asia by analyzing 4,000-year-old dental plaque from a burial in Thailand. This breakthrough method reveals invisible traces of ancient plant use, suggesting psychoactive rituals were part of daily life long before written records.
Did drunk apes help us evolve? New clues reveal why we digest alcohol so well
Ape behavior just got a name upgrade — “scrumping” — and it might help explain why humans can handle alcohol so well. Researchers discovered that African apes regularly eat overripe, fermented fruit off the forest floor, and this habit may have driven key evolutionary adaptations. By naming and classifying this...
Researchers Map Where Solar Energy Delivers the Biggest Climate Payoff
Using advanced computational modeling, a Rutgers professor, in collaboration with researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Stony Brook University, reveal both the immediate and delayed climate benefits of solar power.
Researchers Measure a Record-Setting Megaflash
It was a single lightning flash that streaked across the Great Plains for 515 miles, from eastern Texas nearly all the way to Kansas City, setting a new world record.