The Gamespot Phenomenon
I expect we’ll be exploring, unscrambling, pontificating, and dealing with what is happening with Gamespot (GME) for a while. If you are reading this in the future and want some historical context for the rest of this post, this chart from the.....»»
Engineers describe how fluid suspensions exhibit different behaviors at different scales
Honey is already a thick liquid, but let it begin to crystalize and it can become downright clumpy. The sugar crystals in suspension seem to increase its viscosity. This phenomenon occurs throughout the natural and constructed world: From mudflows to.....»»
Amazon rainforest foliage gases affect the Earth"s atmosphere
Plant-foliage-derived gases drive a previously unknown atmospheric phenomenon over the Amazon rainforest, according to a recent study by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)......»»
Scientists reveal source of supersonic downflows into sunspots
Solar transition region supersonic downflows (SDs) are downward falling mass flux toward the sunspots. This phenomenon commonly exists above most sunspots. In IRIS spectra, SDs are often observed as strongly redshifted secondary emission peaks with a.....»»
Like college roommates, vampire bats bond when randomly paired
Social bonding between randomly assigned college roommates is not only a human phenomenon, a new study on vampire bats suggests......»»
The Exotic Legend of the Dark Knight Alien Satellite Meets Mundane Reality
Slashdot reader alaskana98 writes: In what has become a stubborn sibling to the 'Face on Mars' phenomenon, the legend of the Dark Knight alien satellite has persisted for years and is the fascinating story of a seemingly mundane NASA photo tied toget.....»»
Researchers discover source of super-fast electron rain
UCLA scientists have discovered a new source of super-fast, energetic electrons raining down on Earth, a phenomenon that contributes to the colorful aurora borealis but also poses hazards to satellites, spacecraft and astronauts......»»
Gaps found in research on "climate gentrification"
Climate change, and policies related to it, are displacing vulnerable communities. But a new analysis of research on this phenomenon—called "climate gentrification"—finds that there is a lack of long-term research that examines these issues. What.....»»
Taking a break from news: A five-nation study of news avoidance in the digital era
News avoidance is a topical phenomenon. Now amidst the distressing news from the war in Ukraine, many people may wish to skip news altogether or at least temporarily......»»
The "hot hand" is a real basketball phenomenon, but only some players have these basket-making streaks
March Madness is here, and basketball fans are making predictions: Who will be the Cinderella story of the college tournament? Which teams will make a run to the Final Four? And of course, which player is going to get "hot" and carry their team to a.....»»
Novel theory of entropy may solve materials design issues
A challenge in materials design is that in both natural and manmade materials, volume sometimes decreases, or increases, with increasing temperature. While there are mechanical explanations for this phenomenon for some specific materials, a general u.....»»
Anticipation and accents: Talking like a southerner even if you"re not
Have you ever found yourself unintentionally imitating how a friend, television character, or media personality talks after listening to them for a while? This is a well-established phenomenon that linguists call linguistic convergence, which refers.....»»
Study maps stress changes around fault activated by hydraulic fracturing
Researchers were able to observe stress changes before and during an earthquake induced by hydraulic fracturing in Alberta, Canada, with the help of a phenomenon called seismic anisotropy......»»
Study explores how India and Pakistan communicate their nuclear strategies
A new study published by the Centre for Science and Security Studies (CSSS) at King's College London offers insight into the phenomenon of miscommunication in deterrence. By looking at Indian and Pakistani deterrence through a lens of language and co.....»»
A New Type of Aurora Found on Saturn Resolves a Planetary Mystery
The discovery of the first wind-driven aurora sheds light on a strange phenomenon playing out below Saturn’s stormy atmosphere......»»
Jacques Vallée Still Doesn’t Know What UFOs Are
After six globe-trotting decades spent probing “the phenomenon,” the French information scientist is sure of only one thing: The truth is really, really out there......»»
How El Niño and drought affected the transatlantic slave trade
El Niño, an oceanic phenomenon that affects worldwide weather patterns, significantly affected the number of enslaved Africans transported from West Africa to the Americas between the mid-1600s and mid-1800s, according to a study from the University.....»»
Teams collaborate to reach a better understanding of symmetry breaking
In an international collaboration, AMOLF researchers have theoretically described and experimentally observed spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) in two laser-driven coupled optical cavities. SSB is a universal phenomenon that occurs in many physical.....»»
How the Physics of Resonance Shapes Reality
The same phenomenon by which an opera singer can shatter a wineglass also underlies the very existence of subatomic particles......»»
Traces of Viking raids remain visible in contemporary Russian economy and politics
Vikings were not a uniform phenomenon in ancient Scandinavia. They were part of a complex system of a plunder economy that existed in Europe until the early Middle Ages. With royal power rising, independent raiders either joined the new power, or mov.....»»
Physicists discover that clouds of ultracold atoms can form “quantum tornadoes”
The effect is similar to the macroscale phenomenon of Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds. Enlarge / (l-r) A quantum gas appears first as an elongated rod. As it rotates, it becomes helical, then it breaks up into blobs, each a swirling mass. Betw.....»»