Lifeboat Foundation

How much carbon dioxide (CO₂) do plants absorb from the atmosphere? This is what a recent study published in Nature hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated what’s known as the Terrestrial Gross Primary Product (GPP), which measures the amount of CO₂ that photosynthesis removes from the atmosphere. This study holds the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, legislators, and the public better understand the role that plants play in reducing carbon emissions, along with mitigating the effects of climate change worldwide.

“Figuring out how much CO₂ plants fix each year is a conundrum that scientists have been working on for a while,” said Dr. Lianhong Gu, who is a distinguished research scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and a co-author on the study. “The original estimate of 120 petagrams per year was established in the 1980s, and it stuck as we tried to figure out a new approach. It’s important that we get a good handle on global GPP since that initial land carbon uptake affects the rest of our representations of Earth’s carbon cycle.”

Petagrams are the standard measurement used for GPP, with one petagram equaling 1 billion metric tons, and the latter being the amount of CO₂ discharged from the total number of gas-powered passenger vehicles in the world, which is approximately 1.4 billion.

How does social media influence safety messages during a natural disaster? This is what a recent study published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction hopes to address as a pair of researchers from the Stevens Institute of Technology investigated how the perspectives of natural disasters and the corresponding government responses could be impacted by false or irrelevant information being shared across a myriad of social media platforms, specifically X (Twitter) and Facebook. This study holds the potential to help scientists, governments, disaster relief efforts, and the public better understand the ramifications of social media messages and discussions on responding to natural disasters worldwide.

“It’s like being at a crowded party—if everyone’s arguing loudly about politics, it’s hard to make yourself heard over the noise,” said Dr. Jose Ramirez-Marquez, who is an associate professor in the Stevens School of Systems and Enterprises and the sole co-author on the study.

For the study, the researchers examined online discussions that occurred during four recent hurricanes: Harvey, Imelda, Laura, and Florence. The goal of the study was to ascertain online discussion patterns, and which posts and comments got the most attention as the crises unfolded. For example, the researchers found that dogs being trapped by flooding comprised 24 of the 50 most active discussions compared to 7 of those 50 being comprised of public safety. During Hurricane Florence, it was found that more than half of the 50 top discussions involved politics or animals, whereas 19 of the 50 discussed public safety.

They’re not quite on our level, but they’re not as far off as you might think.

Saturday Morning Physics “The Many Worlds of Quantum Mechanics” Sean CarrollOctober 21, 2023Weiser Hall.

An exploration of alternative biochemistries, especially that of fluorine, and how the luminosities of stars may play into different forms of life.

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An exploration of ten scenarios related to the simulation hypothesis that speculate on the nature of what the simulation is, why it exists and who is doing the simulation.

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And exploration of whether we can solve the Fermi Paradox without ever discovering alien civilizations.

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An exploration of the question of whether the Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island live in a zoo hypothesis situation.

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