All Stories by Nikk Ogasa
- Life
50 years ago, flesh-eating screwworms pushed scientists to mass produce flies
"Fly factories” dreamed up in the early 1970s have helped North and Central America keep screwworms in check for decades.
- Planetary Science
Jupiter’s lightning bolts contort the same way as Earth’s
Jovian lightning extends in jagged steps as it does on Earth, data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft suggest. The finding might aid the search for life.
- Tech
Deblina Sarkar is building microscopic machines to enter our brains
The ultratiny devices can communicate wirelessly from inside living cells and may one day help cure brain diseases.
- Planetary Science
Saturn’s rings may be no more than 400 million years old
An analysis of data from NASA’s defunct Cassini probe suggests Saturn's rings materialized more than 100 million years after trilobites appeared on Earth.
- Environment
More than half of the world’s largest lakes are drying up
Satellite data from 1992 to 2020 reveal that 53 percent of the world’s largest freshwater bodies shrank during that period while only 24 percent grew.
- Climate
Thawing permafrost may unleash industrial pollution across the Arctic
As the frozen ground warms due to climate change, industrial pollutants could flow free from thousands of sites across the Arctic.
- Planetary Science
Seismic waves crossing Mars’ core reveal details of the Red Planet’s heart
NASA’s InSight lander observed a quake and an impact on the farside of Mars, allowing researchers to measure physical properties of the planet’s core.
- Planetary Science
Baby Jupiter glowed so brightly it might have desiccated its moon
During its infancy, Jupiter may have glowed about 10 thousand times brighter than it does today, which may explain why its moon Io is completely dry.
- Agriculture
Martian soil may have all the nutrients rice needs
Experiments hint that in the future, we might be able to grow the staple food in the soils of the Red Planet.
- Earth
A moon-forming cataclysm could have also triggered Earth’s plate tectonics
Deeply buried remnants of a hypothetical planet that slammed into Earth 4.5 billion years ago might have set subduction into motion.
- Climate
Wildfires in boreal forests released a record amount of CO2 in 2021
Boreal forests store about one-third of the world’s land-based carbon. With wildfires increasing there, fighting climate change could get even harder.
- Climate
An incendiary form of lightning may surge under climate change
Relatively long-lived lightning strikes are the most likely to spark wildfires and may become more common as the climate warms.
