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Rain & Shine: The Science of Nature
Available On Air Stations On Air Now Playing KVNF
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Generative AI makes fraud an existential threat to science
Stop judging researchers by their publications or risk a tsunami of fakes, warns Jorge Quintanilla The ability of generative artificial intelligence to produce text and images indistinguishable from the work of humans has both gripped the public imagination and caused alarm. In the creative professions, the strain…
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The Impact of Roads on Nature
The science of road ecology studies the influence of roads on nature. Their findings to date indicate that roads, even unpaved ones, impact the earth in every way and at every scale. But perhaps the most vexing is noise pollution, even more than roadkill, particulate pollution, and constraints on gene pools. Noise bleeds into its…
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BioBlitz creates community through scientific exploration of the natural world – The Brown Daily Herald
Back in 2000, when then Brown PhD candidate David Gregg PhD’00 was reading the Providence Journal over his fiancée’s shoulder, a small invitation caught his eye: The Rhode Island Natural History Survey wanted volunteers to join their first ever BioBlitz, a whole day of counting animal and plant species at Roger Williams Park. Gregg, a…
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Can aesthetics contribute to chemistry?
Chemistry is one of the most aesthetically expressive scientific practices. One need not study it at an advanced level to experience the beauty of coloured fire or the surprise when producing ‘elephant’s toothpaste’; to play with colour changes in redox reactions or create carbon snakes. There are many lists of favourite experiments online, and passionate…
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Theoretical tools for understanding the climate crisis from Hasselmann’s programme and beyond
Abstract Klaus Hasselmann’s revolutionary intuition in climate science was to use the stochasticity associated with fast weather processes to probe the slow dynamics of the climate system. Doing so led to fundamentally new ways to study the response of climate models to perturbations, and to perform detection and attribution for climate change signals. Hasselmann’s programme…
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Platform-controlled social media APIs threaten open science
Social media data enable insights into human behaviour. Researchers can access these data via platform-provided application programming interfaces (APIs), but these come with restrictive usage terms that mean studies cannot be reproduced or replicated. Platform-owned APIs hinder access, transparency and scientific knowledge. Social media (SM) data hold tremendous value for studying behavioural patterns over time…
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Measurement-based differentiation of low-emission global natural gas supply chains
A differentiated natural gas market is emerging as a key mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across global natural gas supply chains. Trust in such voluntary markets across civil society, industry and governments depends on a transparent framework for reporting independently verifiable and accurate emissions data. Energy and commodities markets globally have been transformed as…
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Physics or Doctor Who?
In November, we celebrate the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who and challenge our readers with a quiz to spot the real physics terms amid the science fiction. This November, Doctor Who, the longest-running science fiction television series in the world, celebrates its 60th anniversary, with three special episodes scheduled. Much of the show is iconic:…
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New explanation for infertility: eggs lacking a mysterious ‘lattice’
A human embryo at just three days old, implanted in the uterus. The cells need a store of proteins to kick start their development.Credit: Lennart Nilsson, TT/Science Photo Library For almost 60 years, scientists have puzzled over the purpose of bundles of fibres that were found floating in mammalian egg cells. A study1 published today…