Science

In 2024, Nevada built a 1.8-million-panel solar farm in the Mojave; its panels helped a rare plant hold water longer and produce 10 times more fruit |

gplusindianews@gmail.com2 weeks ago06 mins

On the edge of the Mojave Desert, rows of solar panels now cover ground that once looked much like the surrounding landscape: pale sand, scattered vegetation and long stretches of exposed soil. The Gemini solar project, northeast of Las Vegas, was built across about 20 square kilometres and contains roughly 1.8 million panels. Before construction,…

Scientists covered 200 square metres of a Swiss glacier with sheep’s wool; early tests found it protected the ice about as well as plastic sheets, but only 0.02% of Swiss glacier ice is covered

gplusindianews@gmail.com2 weeks ago04 mins

A sheep wool-covered snow protection test site is pictured during a press conference presenting the results of the “Keep It Wool” glacier protection experiment in Les Diablerets, Switzerland A natural wool covering placed over 200 square metres of high-altitude Alpine ice has proved as effective at slowing summer melting as conventional synthetic tarpaulins, offering a…

China tested nanobubbles across a 3,300-square-metre section of Taihu Lake; within 20 days a key measure of cyanobacteria fell nearly 90% and ammonia nitrogen dropped sharply

gplusindianews@gmail.com2 weeks ago03 mins

China’s Taihu Lake sees improved water quality over past 10 years A field trial using a two-stage nanobubble treatment system across a 3,300-square-metre section of Taihu Lake in eastern China reduced a key measure of toxic cyanobacteria by nearly 90 per cent within 20 days. Published in the journal Environmental Research and indexed on PubMed,…

In 2023, Australia put a 330-square-metre floating wetland on a wastewater lagoon; two years later researchers found methane emissions had fallen by up to 66%

gplusindianews@gmail.com2 weeks ago04 mins

Floating wetlands slash wastewater greenhouse gas emissions Installing a floating wetland planted with native vegetation on an Australian municipal wastewater lagoon cut methane emissions by up to 66 per cent, according to the results of a two-year field trial. Published on 25 August 2026 in the Journal of Environmental Management, the peer-reviewed study looked at…

Quote of the day by Alexander von Humboldt: “The most important result of a rational inquiry into nature is… to establish the unity and harmony” |

gplusindianews@gmail.com2 weeks ago07 mins

Alexander von Humboldt spent much of his life travelling through landscapes that most Europeans of his era knew only from maps, then trying to understand what connected the things he encountered. He climbed mountains, measured temperatures and atmospheric pressure, recorded plants and minerals and compared conditions across different elevations. His work eventually led him to…

Science

What if your ‘lizard brain’ never existed? Scientists challenge a 70-year-old theory and uncover the wiring battle that may have shaped human intelligence

gplusindianews@gmail.com2 weeks ago04 mins

Published in Science Advances, the study draws on comparisons of biological brains and experiments on artificial neural networks to suggest a new framework for understanding the evolution of intelligence. For decades, the human brain was like some evolutionary skyscraper: ancient instincts on the bottom, emotions in the middle, and sophisticated reasoning on the top. That’s…

Affordable Housing Solutions: Dutch engineering students designed a solar-powered micro-factory that turns plastic waste into building bricks; the idea won a global engineering competition |

gplusindianews@gmail.com3 weeks ago04 mins

A team of Dutch engineering students has won first place at a major international hackathon with an idea that tackles two problems at once: plastic waste and a lack of safe, affordable housing. The project, ManufacturingBox, was developed by students from the University of Twente and took top honours at the World Federation of Engineering…

Southern California anglers are catching unusually large fish rarely seen this far north as Pacific waters warm

gplusindianews@gmail.com3 weeks ago03 mins

Southern California anglers are seeing an unusual number of warm-water fish as rising ocean temperatures linked to El Niño and marine heatwaves bring species typically found farther south into local waters.Fishermen working in Marina del Rey and Santa Monica are catching fish species, in larger sizes, that are rarely seen in the area. Tony Villanueva,…

In 2010, Thailand sank 25 retired battle tanks into the Gulf to rebuild fishing grounds; 9 years later, researchers found 53 fish species

gplusindianews@gmail.com3 weeks ago06 mins

Almost 10 years after the tanks went under, researchers from Ramkhamhaeng University in Bangkok did some diving to see what had grown up around the man-made reef sites. Battle tank is made for war. It is built to cross tough terrain, take a beating and dominate a battlefield. But what if the battlefield disappears and…

Scientists mixed waste coffee grounds with oyster shells to create a stronger construction material from two food wastes |

gplusindianews@gmail.com3 weeks ago04 mins

Waste coffee grounds and discarded oyster shells could be turned into a useful construction material. The mixture used spent coffee grounds (SCG) as its main filler, with oyster shells added to strengthen the granular structure and GGBS-based alkali-activated materials used as the binder. Because SCG particles are highly compressible, the researchers added oyster shells in…