triggers

The Sun recently erupted in a flare that caused a brief but intense radio blackout in the western US and the Pacific Ocean as it lashed Earth's upper atmosphere.On 2 July 2023, at 7.14 PM Eastern Standard Time, an active sunspot region called AR 3354 unleashed an X-class solar flare – the most powerful category of which our Sun is capable. Coming in at X1.0 (the biggest ever was X28, recorded nearly 20 years ago), the flare ionized Earth's upper atmosphere, interfering with high-frequency radio signals on the side of…

A new study from the Gladstone Institutes has identified a blood protein called fibrin as the key factor that transforms beneficial immune cells in the brain, known as microglia, into harmful ones, which contribute to diseases like Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis.New insights into how blood makes the brain’s immune cells toxic point to new therapeutic strategies for Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis.In individuals suffering from neurological disorders such as <span class="glossaryLink"…

Image Source : FILE Google sees massive surge in mixed reality searches after Apple's 'Vision Pro' debut Following Apple's recent unveiling of its mixed reality (MR) headset, the Vision Pro, online searches related to the mixed reality experienced a surge of 1,130% worldwide on Google. Digital-adoption.com analyzed Google search data, revealing that on June 5, as Apple…

The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam has inundated large areas of southern Ukraine, leaving tens of thousands of people at risk of losing their homes. The disaster, for which Russia and Ukraine blame each other, also has far-reaching consequences for agriculture and ecology in southern Ukraine. Government representatives in Kyiv are calling it an “ecocide” perpetrated by Russian attackers. Scientific American’s German sister publication Spektrum der Wissenschaft spoke with zoologist Oleg Dudkin, director of the Ukrainian…

Image via Warner Bros. A Twitter user named Avery Edison started a huge debate about the new Barbie movie and its socioeconomic implications by saying only rich people could afford them, and that when people say they love Barbie they’re just saying they weren’t poor. This take is now being mocked into oblivion. The original tweet was deleted but that’s not how things work on the Internet. Edison has spent most of the past two days in an effort to defend herself as screenshots of her tweet get bashed to the moon…

The unpredictability of crypto cannot be outmatched by much but Elon Musk is one of them. After appearing to close the chapter on his relationship with cryptocurrency, he stunned the crypto world by replacing the Twitter logo on its website with the avatar of his favoured coin, Dogecoin (DOGE). Maybe the love story between Musk and Dogecoin is not over yet and there are still a few more pages to write. It appears no one, perhaps not even Musk himself, knows exactly what those pages will reveal. It also poses a…

By removing certain amino acids from the diets fed to rodents suffering from a deadly form of brain cancer known as glioblastoma, researchers found that destructive cells began dying through a process called ferroptosis. What's more, the mice that were put on the restrictive diets were also more receptive to drugs that triggered the same type of cancer cell death, making the findings a potential source of inquiry for fighting the disease in humans.Cell death inside our bodies is a normal part of how we function.…

A levee failure on the Pajaro River in Monterey County overnight triggered massive flooding and prompted hundreds of evacuations and dozens of water rescues as the latest atmospheric river storm pummeled large swaths of California.The levee — three miles upstream from the town of Pajaro — breached late Friday night, said Nicholas Pasculli, a Monterey County spokesperson. Patrols noticed boils “bubbling up in the adjacent farmland” at 11 p.m., the first sign that there was a problem.Thirty minutes later, the levee failed,…

SVB Financial Group's efforts to raise money have failed and the troubled bank was in talks to sell itself, CNBC reported on Friday, as a crisis at the tech-heavy lender rippled through global markets and hit banking stocks.Shares of SVB Financial Group were halted on Friday after tumbling 66% in premarket trading.SVB, which does business as Silicon Valley Bank, was not immediately available for comment. The brutal rout in the lender's stock which began on Thursday spilled over into other U.S. and European banks as the…

A truck turns down an alleyway on N. Market Street as dusk settles in on February 25, 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio.Photo: Michael Swensen (Getty Images)This story was originally published by Grist. You can subscribe to its weekly newsletter here.Chris Laderer was 34 days into his tenure as chief of the volunteer fire department in Darlington, Pennsylvania, when the station received a call that a train had caught fire in the neighboring town of East Palestine, just over the state border in Ohio. Laderer assumed that an…