THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Dry conditions across Southern California in early January 2025 set the stage for a series of deadly wind-driven wildfires that burned thousands of homes and other structures in the Los Angeles area. Ming Pana hydrologist at the University of California-San Diego’s Center for […]
THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Humans have long wrestled with their conscience about killing and eating animals. The “meat paradox” (the conflict between people’s preference for meat and their concern for animals) may have inspired cave paintings from 37,000 years ago. Since then, many leading thinkers have eschewed […]
THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Christmas can be a time of togetherness, fun, and relaxation. Yet, it can also bring unique challenges—particularly for those who may struggle with food anxiety, weight concerns, or an eating disorder. There are many reasons why the holidays can be such a difficult […]
THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. The number of people who read for fun appears to be steadily dropping. Fifty percent of UK adults say they don’t read regularly (up from 42 percent in 2015) and almost one in four young people aged 16 to 24 say they’ve never […]
There is significant disagreement over whether to create a dedicated plastics fund, paid into by developed donor countries, or use existing mechanisms such as the Global Environment Facility. The draft treaty text mentions fees or taxes on plastic production, which many delegates felt was essential for raising enough money to implement the global treaty. This […]
More than 2 million years ago, a mutation reduced the power of the chewing muscles in human ancestors. That may indicate they were doing more food preparation, but also possibly making more controlled use of their mouths. Expanded nerve outlets in the thoracic vertebrae appeared in Homo erectusindicating the millisecond control of breathing that is […]
THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. We crafted our first rodent car from a plastic cereal container. After trial and error, my colleagues and I found that rats could learn to drive forward by grasping a small wire that acted like a gas pedal. Before long, they were steering […]
THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Clouds form when water vapor—an invisible gas in the atmosphere—sticks to tiny floating particles, such as dust, and turns into liquid water droplets or ice crystals. In a newly published study, we show that microplastic particles can have the same effectsproducing ice crystals […]
In fact, bubble bursts caused by wave energy can release 100,000 metric tons of microplastics into the atmosphere each year. Since dolphins and other marine mammals breathe at the water’s surface, they may be especially vulnerable to exposure. Where there are more people, there is usually more plastic. But for the tiny plastic particles floating […]
THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. A little bit of alcohol was once thought to be good for you. However, as scientific research advances, we’re gaining a clearer picture of alcohol’s effect on health—especially regarding cancer. The complex relationship between alcohol and cancer was recently highlighted in a new […]
