decimated

Once upon a time, I became a meme and didn’t even know it. It was the summer of 2016 and I was hanging out with friends after a long day of work. A few drinks in, we’re joking around and my friend Mike said to me, in an odd, cheeky way I didn’t quite understand—almost like he didn’t want to mention it but the booze had other plans—a simple, five-word sentence: “The Funko Pops were decimated.”Remake this Sci-Fi Film with Peter Capaldi!Huh? What did that mean? The words sounded familiar but I couldn’t quite place them. I…

It’s been nearly two years since Russia first invaded Ukraine, and in that time, the country’s research community has been left utterly decimated.That’s the conclusion of new research published this month in the journal Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. In 2020, Ukraine contributed one in every 20 of the top 10% most-cited academic research papers in the world. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said Ukraine’s scientific output was stronger than average in key fields like computer…

Even though the Amazon is still a powerhouse of plant and animal life, about 18% of it has been cut down since the 1970s. Seeking ways to help get some of that lost forestland back, researchers have turned to a rich soil created by the activities of the Amerindians thousands of years ago.About 2,000 years ago, as the Amerindian people were living their lives in what is now Amazonia, they inadvertently created an incredibly rich soil. Known as Amazonian dark earth (ADE) or terra preta, this soil was formed as the charcoal…

Apple experienced quite a reduction in the number of iPhones it shipped in the final quarter of 2022, but other smartphone makers had it even worse.New data shared by IDC (opens in new tab) shows that the holiday quarter of 2022 saw Apple ship 72.3 million iPhones — enough for it to manage almost a full quarter of the market. But that number was a significant fall compared to the same quarter in 2021 despite the launch of the iPhone 14 lineup.IDC's numbers have Apple's year-on-year change being a reduction of 14.9% for…

Social scientists have long known racially biased housing policies practiced decades ago helped shape U.S. cities. Now, ecologists are finding past racial discrimination has also left a lasting imprint on the diversity of urban forests. In Baltimore, a new study reveals neighborhoods classified as risky for mortgage lenders in 1930s—largely because the residents were Black and poor—now have smaller trees from fewer species than neighborhoods that didn’t…