Shrinking

With Indian startups facing the brunt of a long funding winter, a listing on the SME board can be a potential route for new-age technology companies to raise funds, early-stage investor Blume Ventures said in a report.In its latest Indus Valley report 2024, the venture capital firm said startups which are not witnessing a lot of interest from growth investors, or hitting a growth ceiling and “feel better to build profitably than burn for growth”, should be exploring initial public offerings and their listing on the SME…

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Millions of dollars are being spent to add sand to Southern California beaches—but a new study suggests technology can give a better understanding of how sand moves, offering data decision-makers could use in planning how to fix the eroding coastline. A new paper published recently by University of California, Irvine…

It's hard to spot from Earth, but the Moon is shrinking in size as it continues to cool down.At about 45 meters (more than 150 feet) every few hundred million years, it's hardly a rapid change, though a new study by researchers in the US suggests it might be enough to be responsible for landslides and quakes near the lunar South Pole.What makes this research particularly important is that the study area happens to be where NASA is thinking of landing astronauts in the future. If we're going to build a space station on…

For many families, extended relatives are a core part of caregiving. Grandparents, aunts and uncles can help parents look after young children. In turn, siblings and cousins may help care for aging parents. But the availability of such support—which many cultures have depended on for millennia—is quickly dwindling: a new study predicts extended families around the world will keep getting smaller as people live longer and have fewer children.Using international demographic data, researchers recently projected the structure…

The epicenter of one of the strongest moonquakes recorded by the Apollo Passive Seismic Experiment was located in the lunar south polar region. However, the exact location of the epicenter could not be accurately determined. A cloud of possible locations (magenta dots and light blue polygon) of the strong shallow moonquake using a relocation algorithm specifically adapted for very sparse seismic networks are distributed near the pole. Blue boxes show locations of proposed Artemis III landing regions. Lobate thrust fault…

Do not scratch your eyes: the Moon is slowly shrinking, causing quakes on its surface that complicate NASA’s plans for landing Artemis 3, the first Artemis mission that will make a crewed landing on the Moon, and more ambitious missions geared towards maintaining a prolonged human lunar presence. China's Plan to Land Astronauts on the MoonYes, there are plenty of tremors on other bodies in our solar system. On the Moon, they’re moonquakes. On Mars, they’re marsquakes, over 1,300 of which were detected by NASA’s InSight…

Snowpack is shrinking across the Northern Hemisphere thanks to climate change, and many communities could soon face a “snow-loss cliff,” according to the most comprehensive assessment yet.  The effects of climate change can vary dramatically from place to place, which is why it’s been difficult to suss out the bigger picture with snowpack until recently. Now we can see that many of the hardest hit places also happen to be those that depend on snowpack for their water. Other communities that have seen relatively little…

Many great shows ended this year, from Succession to Reservation Dogs, but it brought plenty of exciting newcomers as well So far this month, we’ve crowned the 10 best TV shows of 2023, the 10 best episodes, and the 10 best TV performances. That’s pretty exhaustive, no? But as discussed in the intro to the first list, this was an unusual year that saw the conclusion of lots of acclaimed, award-winning series like Succession, Barry, Reservation Dogs, and Ted Lasso. At the same…

Updated Dec. 12, 2023 5:04 pm ETListen to article(1 minute)The average store size in the U.S. is the smallest it’s been in at least 17 years, reflecting profound changes in the way Americans now shop.The rise in e-commerce and a growing distaste for giant emporiums are softening demand for department stores and other big-box space. Restaurants and coffee shops, meanwhile, are gobbling up small storefronts as Americans spend more time dining out, ordering at drive-throughs or using food-delivery apps. Copyright ©2023Dow…

NASA scientists have been puzzling over a group of planets that seem to be shrinking. The culprit might be radiation.All kinds of worlds exist beyond our solar system. Faraway alien planets, called exoplanets, can be gas behemoths like Jupiter, rocky globes about the size of our planet, or even "super-puffs" with the density of cotton candy.But there's a mysterious gap where there should be planets about 1.5 to two times the width of Earth.A mysterious gap where there should be planetsAmong over 5,000 exoplanets that…