Lifeboat Foundation

To define areas that must be protected to prevent the most likely and imminent extinctions, we propose Conservation Imperatives—16,825 unprotected sites spanning ~164 Mha of the terrestrial realm that harbor rare and threatened species. We estimate that protecting the Conservation Imperatives would cost approximately US$169 billion (90% probability: US$146—US$228 billion). Globally, 38% of the 16,825 sites are either adjacent to or within 2.5 km of an existing protected area, potentially reducing land acquisition and management costs. These sites should be prioritized for conservation action over the next 5 years as part of a broader strategy to expand the global protected area network.

Earth’s largest volcano is Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, a shield volcano with a volume of 18,000 cubic miles. Olympus Mons is 100 times larger. It covers an area 373 miles (600 kilometers) across, about the size of the state of Arizona, and its summit is 17 miles (27 kilometers) high. That is twice the altitude at which commercial jets fly on Earth. Those are both huge measurements for a volcanic feature, but the incredible surface area makes the height look less impressive.

“Normally we see Olympus Mons in narrow strips from above, but by turning the spacecraft toward the horizon we can see in a single image how large it looms over the landscape,” said Odyssey project scientist Jeffrey Plaut.

Odyssey has been orbiting Mars for more than 20 years, having arrived in 2001 to search for water ice buried under the surface. It has spent all these years looking straight down, but NASA fired the probe’s thrusters to reorient it to point the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) at the horizon. That’s how mission managers got the panorama below.

Early analysis of the asteroid Bennu sample, returned by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, offers surprising insights into the early solar system and the origins of life on Earth.

Fixing mankind’s furthest-flung spacecraft wasn’t as easy as sending an update to the App Store. Still, NASA engineers were able to extend the probe’s mission.

Recent reports have noted that Tesla Germany has received permission to expand Giga Berlin from the Brandenburg State Office for the Environment, as per the Ministry of the Environment. With the approval in place, Tesla could start construction work ahead of schedule.

The Ministry of the Environment noted that the early start of construction involves the buildout of an asphalted logistics area for new vehicles, the construction of underground lines and staircases at the press shop, and the installation of rooftop solar panels. As per German publication Stern, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has expressed his support for the Tesla Model Y factory’s expansion.

The approval for Giga Berlin’s expansion is expected to pave the way for the facility to increase its vehicle production output. It should be noted, however, that the approval that Tesla Germany was able to secure was only for expansion of the existing Giga Berlin facility. Further forest clearing activities, which are required for Tesla’s plan to build a railway station in the complex, still require permissions.

Biodefence experts have asked NASA to crack down on ‘space viruses’ and stop them from affecting humans as some viruses loitering in space have unknown potential and can put the entire civilization in danger, according to reports.

Pixelate the world.

One of the greatest mysteries of science could be one step closer to being solved. Approximately 80% of the matter in the universe is dark, meaning that it cannot be seen. In fact, dark matter is passing through us constantly—possibly at a rate of trillions of particles per second.

We know it exists because we can see the effects of its gravity, but experiments to date have so far failed to detect it.

Taking advantage of the most advanced quantum technologies, scientists from Lancaster University, the University of Oxford, and Royal Holloway, University of London are building the most sensitive dark matter detectors to date.

The complexity of the melodies of the most popular songs each year in the U.S.—according to the Billboard year-end singles charts—has decreased since 1950, a study published in Scientific Reports suggests.

Madeline Hamilton and Marcus Pearce analyzed the most prominent melodies (usually the vocal melody) of songs that reached the top five positions of the US Billboard year-end singles music charts each year between 1950 and 2022. They found that the complexity of song rhythms and pitch arrangements decreased over this period as the average number of notes played per second increased. They also identified two significant decreases in melodic complexity that occurred in 1975 and 2000, along with a smaller decrease in 1996.

The authors speculate that the melodic changes that occurred in 1975 could represent the rise of genres such as new wave, disco and stadium rock. Those occurring in 1996 and 2000 could represent the rise of hip-hop or the adoption of digital audio workstations, which enabled the repeated playing of audio loops, they add.