collapse

“Degradation means that you still have standing forest, but you are losing some of the structure, some of the functioning,” says Armenteras Pascual. “You might even look and think it’s really a beautiful forest, but it’s not so healthy.”Being degraded also makes a forest more prone to wildfire. And once a part of the Amazon burns, it’s more likely to catch fire again. “When a forest burns, trees die, releasing organic matter above the soil and opening the canopy,” says Flores. “Hence, more fuel is available and more…

March 10, 2023, should’ve been a day to celebrate for Eric Vogel. He was about to sign a funding deal for his recycling startup, Circularr, after five months of due diligence. The investor just wanted to talk to one last reference, a formality before the deal closed.That call never happened. “They didn’t show up because it was the day that Silicon Valley Bank went under and one of their main banking partners was SVB,” Vogel said.Elevate Your Tech Prowess with High-Value Skill CoursesOffering CollegeCourseWebsiteIndian…

Celebrity deaths have a way to pierce the pop culture landscape, as fans and loved ones alike mourn and honor their legacy. One major example of this is the death of late actor Heath Ledger, who passed away shortly after wrapping his role as Joker in The Dark Knight. The death happened back in 2008, but more information about that time is still trickling out. Ledger was working on a Blink adaptation at the point of his death, and it turns out his father called director Stephen Gaghan at his bedside. The filmmaker has…

In this illustration, seawater flows deep below the surface into an actively opening ice shelf rift in Antarctica. New research shows that such rifts can open very quickly, and that the seawater rushing in helps control the speed of ice shelf breakage. Credit: Rob Soto There's enough water frozen in Greenland and Antarctic glaciers that if they melted, global seas would rise by many feet. What will happen to these glaciers over…

Scientists are sounding the alarm that a crucial component of the planet’s climate system is in gradual decline and could one day reach a tipping point that would radically alter global weather patterns.The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, is a system of ocean currents that circulate water in the Atlantic Ocean like a conveyor belt, helping to redistribute heat and regulate global and regional climates. New research, however, warns that the AMOC is weakening under a warming climate, and could…

Intel Intel always competes against AMD, both make some of the best processors, and the sky is blue — what else is new? Well, it turns out that one of those statements might not be as true as it was just last week. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger revealed that Intel’s own fabs are open to making chips for some of the biggest companies in tech, and that even includes its long-standing rival AMD. Gelsinger spoke during the first Intel Foundry Direct Connect in San Jose, California, about the operations of its new fab, which…

Credit: CC0 Public Domain Australia's nickel industry has been granted access to billions of dollars in federal funding as well as relief from royalty payments after a collapse in the global price of nickel that threatens thousands of jobs. On Thursday BHP wrote down the value of its West Australian nickel division Nickel West to zero and said it was…

The Amazon rainforest is facing a barrage of pressures that might tip it into large-scale ecosystem collapse as soon as 2050, according to new research Wednesday warning of dire consequences for the region and the world.The Amazon, which holds more than 10 percent of the world's biodiversity, helps stabilize the global climate by storing the equivalent of around two decades of emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide.But stress from deforestation, drought, fire and rising temperatures have eroded the ability of the…

A major climate tipping point could be closer than we thought. Researchers say that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (AMOC) could be closer to collapse than we previously believed. If this current collapses, it would lead to catastrophic results all around the world.The new study that warns about this impending collapse was published in Science Advances. It’s an interesting study that highlights the current risk that AMOC is sitting at. This current is an important part of how our ocean moves warm and…

Last year a concerning study suggested one of Earth's major ocean currents is racing towards collapse. Unfortunately, new data now backs that up."The temperature, sea level and precipitation changes will severely affect society, and the climate shifts are unstoppable on human time scales," the authors of the latest study warn in an article for The Conversation.That's a terrifying prospect, and one of the most important parts of the new study is an early warning system, identified by Utrecht University oceanographer René…