megacities

Ruins in Indus Valley.According to recent findings by Cambridge University researchers, an ancient stalagmite from a Himalayan cave contains evidence of multiple prolonged and severe droughts that may have led to the collapse of the Indus Civilization during the Bronze Age.The onset of the dry spell, which began roughly 4,200 years ago and persisted for over 200 years, coincided with the reorganization of the Indus Civilization, a sprawling urban civilization that encompassed parts of present-day Pakistan and India.The…

A section through the Dharamjali stalagmite that the authors studied. Credit: Alena Giesche New research involving Cambridge University has found evidence—locked into an ancient stalagmite from a cave in the Himalayas—of a series of severe and lengthy droughts which may have upturned the Bronze Age Indus Civilization. The beginning…

The sea level changes simulated by CESM1-LE. The 40 gray lines are the sea level changes simulated at one grid point by the 40-members of the CESM1-LE historical simulations over 1920–2005. The expected sea level change is measured by Δ, Δ¯ and ICVCESM1−LE, which are computed as described in the text. Credit: Nature Climate Change (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-023-01603-w Sea level rise this century may disproportionately affect…

There’s an extra edge to being in a crowd these days. Once we might have asked, will this crowd jostle or crush me? Now we ask, will this crowd make me sick? Will this crowd kill me? As new waves of Covid and new variants keep coming, we wonder: will we ever feel truly comfortable in crowds again?Richard Tognetti, artistic director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, has spent the last few years thinking about crowds. From his home in Sydney, the musician and composer has been working on a new production with director…

It’s also not clear what problem they are solving, says Singhal, as most kiranas already take orders via WhatsApp and deliver to customers’ doorstep. The only explanation, he says, is a global glut of capital groping around for investment opportunities in an era of low interest rates. “To me, this excitement is on account of this unshackled pressure of money, which is forcing these entrepreneurs to defy economic sense,” he says. There are few signs the money taps will shut off soon, says Anand Ramanathan, a partner at…

The figure shows a strong homogeneity in the distribution and formation pathways of OOMs across China's megacities including Hong Kong, Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai. Credit: HKUST Prof. Wang Zhe, assistant professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)'s Division of Environment and Sustainability, has collaborated with international scientists to reveal the significant roles of anthropogenic…