Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt urged prioritizing AI infrastructure over climate goals at a Washington AI summit this week. Schmidt, who led Google until 2011, argued that AI's rapid growth will outpace environmental mitigation efforts. "We're not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we're not organized to do it," Schmidt told attendees, addressing concerns about AI's surging energy demands.

Data centers powering AI are projected to consume 35 gigawatts annually by 2030, up from 17 gigawatts in 2023, according to McKinsey. Schmidt, now heading AI drone company White Stork, suggested AI could ultimately solve climate issues, stating, "I'd rather bet on AI solving the problem than constraining it."

In a rare disclosure, the U.S. Space Force announced that its secretive X-37B spaceplane will execute a series of maneuvers before returning back to Earth. SpaceNews reports: The reusable spacecraft, which has been in orbit since December 28, 2023, will perform aerobraking maneuvers to alter its trajectory around Earth, the Space Force said Oct. 10. This technique involves making multiple passes through the planet's upper atmosphere, using atmospheric drag to modify the vehicle's orbit while conserving fuel. These maneuvers also are intended to showcase responsible space operations, the Space Force said. The aerobraking enables the spaceplane to change orbits and comply with space debris mitigation rules by safely discarding the service module.

The X-37B, manufactured by Boeing, is jointly operated by the U.S. Space Force and the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. Since its launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the spaceplane has been conducting radiation effect experiments and testing space domain awareness technologies in a highly elliptical orbit. [...] After completing its aerobraking maneuvers, the X-37B will resume its testing and experimentation objectives. Once these are accomplished, the vehicle will de-orbit and return to Earth, utilizing its autonomous landing system to touch down horizontally like a conventional aircraft. The Space Force has not disclosed the expected duration of the current mission.

At Tesla's "We, Robot" event at Warner Bros. Studios tonight, Elon Musk unveiled the Tesla Cybercab, Robovan, and an updated version of the Optimus robot. Slashdot is at the event capturing photos and getting demos of everything announced. You can follow along on X. Below is a summary of each of the offerings.

Tesla Cybercab: The Tesla Cybercab is a futuristic, fully autonomous robotaxi designed without a steering wheel or pedals, positioned to revolutionize mass transit with extremely low operating costs. It features a sleek design with upward-opening butterfly doors and a compact cabin that seats two passengers. Musk said the Cybercab uses inductive charging instead of a traditional plug-in. "Something we're also doing is and it's really high time we did this is inductive charging. So the robotaxi has no plug it just goes over the inductive charger and charges so yeah, it's kind of how it should be." The vehicle is expected to cost under $30,000. Regulatory approval will be needed before it can go into production, which is projected to begin by 2026 or 2027. Tesla Robovan: The Tesla Robovan is a dustbuster-shaped electric passenger van featuring sliding glass doors, a bright interior, and carriage-style seating for up to 20 passengers. "One of the things we want to do and we've seen this with the CyberTruck is we want to change the look of the roads the future should look like the future," said Musk. Musk also claimed that autonomy will "turn parking lots into parks," as fewer cars will be needed and they won't sit idle for most of the day. Pricing and release details were not disclosed. Tesla Optimus: The updated Tesla Optimus robot is a humanoid designed to handle everyday tasks, such as retrieving packages or serving drinks. Optimus walked on stage and interacted with attendees, though its current capabilities are still limited. Elon Musk envisions the robot as a transformative product, with plans to produce millions of units at a price of around $20,000. "It'll be able to do anything you want. So it can be a teacher, babysit your kids, it can walk your dog, mow your lawn, get the groceries, just be your friend, serve drinks. Whatever you can think of, it will do." Optimus is expected to start performing useful tasks by the end of the year, with broader availability projected by the end of next year. In closing, Musk said: "I think this will be the biggest product ever of any kind. Because I think everyone of the 8 billion people of Earth, I think everyone's going to want their Optimus buddy." Developing...

Any breach of what climate scientists agree is the safer limit on global warming would result in "irreversible consequences" for the planet, said a major academic study published on Wednesday. From a eport: Even temporarily exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius before bringing temperatures back down -- a scenario known as an "overshoot" -- could cause sea level rises and other disastrous repercussions that might last millenia. This "does away with the notion that overshoot delivers a similar climate outcome" to a future where more was done earlier to curb global warming, said Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, who led the study co-authored by 30 scientists.

The findings, three years in the making, are urgent, as the goal of capping global temperature rises at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is slipping out of reach. Emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases must nearly halve by 2030 if the world is to reach 1.5C -- the more ambitious target enshrined in the 2015 Paris climate accord.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Wikipedia's "Timeline of the Far Future" is one of my favorite webpages from the internet's pre-slop era. A Londoner named Nick Webb created it on the morning of December 22, 2010. "Certain events in the future of the universe can be predicted with a comfortable level of accuracy," he wrote at the top of the page. He then proposed a chronological list of 33 such events, beginning with the joining of Asia and Australia 40 million years from now. He noted that around this same time, Mars's moon Phobos would complete its slow death spiral into the red planet's surface. A community of 1,533 editors have since expanded the timeline to 160 events, including the heat death of the universe. I like to imagine these people on laptops in living rooms and cafes across the world, compiling obscure bits of speculative science into a secular Book of Revelation.

Like the best sci-fi world building, the Timeline of the Far Future can give you a key bump of the sublime. It reminds you that even the sturdiest-seeming features of our world are ephemeral, that in 1,100 years, Earth's axis will point to a new North Star. In 250,000 years, an undersea volcano will pop up in the Pacific, adding an extra island to Hawaii. In the 1 million years that the Great Pyramid will take to erode, the sun will travel only about 1/200th of its orbit around the Milky Way, but in doing so, it will move into a new field of stars. Our current constellations will go all wobbly in the sky and then vanish.

Some aspects of the timeline are more certain than others. We know that most animals will look different 10 million years from now. We know that the continents will slowly drift together to form a new Pangaea. Africa will slam into Eurasia, sealing off the Mediterranean basin and raising a new Himalaya-like range across France, Italy, and Spain. In 400 million years, Saturn will have lost its rings. Earth will have replenished its fossil fuels. Our planet will also likely have sustained at least one mass-extinction-triggering impact, unless its inhabitants have learned to divert asteroids.

The Hera spacecraft, launched by the European Space Agency on Monday, is on a mission to study the aftermath of NASA's 2022 test that successfully knocked the Dimorphos asteroid off course by intentionally crashing a probe into it. It's scheduled to arrive in December 2026. The BBC reports: The Hera craft launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 10:52 local time (15:52BST) on Monday. [...] The Hera mission, which is run by the European Space Agency, is a follow-on from Nasa's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) project. Dimorphos is a small moon 160m-wide that orbits an asteroid close to Earth called Didymos in something called a binary asteroid system. In 2022 Nasa said it successfully changed Dimorphos's course by crashing a probe into it. It altered the rock's path by a few meters, according to Nasa's scientists. The asteroid was not on course to hit Earth, but it was a test to see whether space agencies could do it when there is genuine risk. When it arrives in two years, the Hera craft will look at the size and depth of the impact crater created on Dimorphos. Two cube-shaped probes will also study the make-up of the asteroid and its mass.

This week the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed charges over a "scheme to commit fraud" in carbon markets, which they say fraudulently netted one company "tens of millions of dollars" worth of credits — which led to "securing an investment of over $100 million."

MarketWatch reports: Ken Newcombe had spent years building a program to distribute more environmentally friendly cookstoves for free to rural communities in Africa and Southeast Asia. The benefit for his company, C-Quest Capital, would be the carbon credits it would receive in exchange for reducing the amount of fuel people burned in order to cook food — credits the company could then sell for a profit to big oil companies like BP.

But when Newcombe tried to ramp up the program, federal prosecutors said in an indictment made public Wednesday, he quickly realized that the stoves wouldn't deliver the emissions savings he had promised investors. Rather than admit his mistake, he and his partners cooked the books instead, prosecutors said... That allowed them to obtain carbon credits worth tens of millions of dollars that they didn't deserve, prosecutors said. On the basis of the fraudulently gained credits, prosecutors said, C-Quest was able to secure $250 million in funding from an outside investor.

"The alleged actions of the defendants and their co-conspirators risked undermining the integrity of [the global market for carbon credits], which is an important part of the fight against climate change," said Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
From announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office: U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said... "The alleged actions of the defendants and their co-conspirators risked undermining the integrity of that market, which is an important part of the fight against climate change. Protecting the sanctity and integrity of the financial markets continues to be a cornerstone initiative for this Office, and we will continue to be vigilant in rooting out fraud in the market for carbon credits...."

While most carbon credits are created through, and trade in compliance markets, there is also a voluntary carbon market. Voluntary markets revolve around companies and entities that voluntarily set goals to reduce or offset their carbon emissions, often to align with goals from employees or shareholders. In voluntary markets, the credits are issued by non-governmental organizations, using standards for measuring emission reductions that they develop based on input from market participants, rather than on mandates from governments. The non-governmental organizations issue voluntary carbon credits to project developers that run projects that reduce emissions or remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

CQC was a for-profit company that ran projects to generate carbon credits — including a type of credit known as a voluntary carbon unit ("VCU") — by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. CQC profited by selling VCUs it obtained, often to companies seeking to offset the impact of greenhouse gases they emit in the course of operating their businesses.
The company itself was not charged due to "voluntary and timely self-disclosure of misconduct," according to the announcement, along with "full and proactive cooperation, timely and appropriate remediation, and agreement to cancel or void certain voluntary carbon units.

The Washington Post on scientists who "discovered that bacteria commonly found in wastewater can break down plastic to turn it into a food source, a finding that researchers hope could be a promising answer to combat one of Earth's major pollution problems." In a study published Thursday in Environmental Science and Technology, scientists laid out their examination of Comamonas testosteroni, a bacteria that grows on polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, a plastic commonly found in single-use food packaging and water bottles. PET makes up about 12 percent of global solid waste and 90 million tons of the plastic produced each year... Unlike most other bacteria, which thrive on sugar, C. testosteroni has a more refined palate, including chemically complex materials from plants and plastics that take longer to decompose.

The researchers are the first to demonstrate not only that this bacteria can break down plastic, but they also illuminate exactly how they do it. Through six meticulous steps, involving complex imaging and gene editing techniques, the authors found that the bacteria first physically break down plastic by chewing it into smaller pieces. Then, they release enzymes — components of a cell that speed up chemical reactions — to chemically break down the plastic into a carbon-rich food source known as terephthalate...

The bacteria take a few months to break down chunks of plastic, according to Rebecca Wilkes [a lead author on the study and postdoctoral researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory]. As a result, if the bacteria are going to be efficient tools, a lot of optimization needs to take place to speed up the rate at which they decompose pollutants. One approach is to promote bacterial growth by providing them with an additional food source, such as a chemical known as acetate.
A senior author on the study (and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University) tells the Washington Post that "The machinery in environmental microbes is still a largely untapped potential for uncovering sustainable solutions we can exploit."

Days after a hurricane struck America's southeast, Florida's state's fire marshall "confirmed 16 lithium-ion battery fires related to storm surge," according to local news reports. "Officials said six of those fires are associated with electric vehicles and they are working with fire departments statewide to gather more data." (Earlier this year America's federal transportation safety agency estimated that after a 2022 hurricane "about 36 EVs caught on fire. In several instances, the fire erupted while the impacted EVs were being towed on their flatbed trailers.")

But Tuesday, when over 1 million Americans were without electricity, the Atlantic pointed out the other side of the story. "EV owners are using their cars to keep the lights on." When Hurricane Helene knocked out the power in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Friday, Dustin Baker, like many other people across the Southeast, turned to a backup power source. His just happened to be an electric pickup truck. Over the weekend, Baker ran extension cords from the back of his Ford F-150 Lightning, using the truck's battery to keep his refrigerator and freezer running. It worked so well that Baker became an energy Good Samaritan. "I ran another extension cord to my neighbor so they could run two refrigerators they have," he told me.

Americans in hurricane territory have long kept diesel-powered generators as a way of life, but electric cars are a leap forward. An EV, at its most fundamental level, is just a big battery on wheels that can be used to power anything, not only the car itself. Some EVs pack enough juice to power a whole home for several days, or a few appliances for even longer. In the aftermath of Helene, as millions of Americans were left without power, many EV owners did just that. A vet clinic that had lost power used an electric F-150 to keep its medicines cold and continue seeing patients during the blackout. One Tesla Cybertruck owner used his car to power his home after his entire neighborhood lost power.
One Louisiana man just ran cords straight from the outlets in the bed of his Tesla Cybertruck, according to the article. "We were able to run my internet router and TV, [plus] lamps, refrigerator, a window AC unit, and fans, as well as several phone, watch, and laptop chargers." Over the course of about 24 hours, he said, all of this activity ran his Cybertruck battery down from 99 percent to 80 percent...

Bidirectional charging may prove to be the secret weapon that sells electrification to the South, which has generally remained far behind the West and the Northeast in electric-vehicle purchases. If EVs become widely seen as the best option for blackouts, they could entice not just the climate conscious but also the suburban dads in hurricane country with a core belief in prepping for anything. It will take a lot to overcome the widespread distrust of EVs and anxiety about a new technology, but our loathing of power outages just might do the trick.
The article notes that Tesla has confirmed all its electric vehicles will support bidirectional charging by 2025.

Plant cover across the Antarctic peninsula has soared more than tenfold over the last few decades, as the climate crisis heats up the icy continent. From a report: Analysis of satellite data found there was less than one sq kilometre of vegetation in 1986 but there was almost 12km2 of green cover by 2021. The spread of the plants, mostly mosses, has accelerated since 2016, the researchers found. The growth of vegetation on a continent dominated by ice and bare rock is a sign of the reach of global heating into the Antarctic, which is warming faster than the global average. The scientists warned that this spread could provide a foothold for alien invasive species into the pristine Antarctic ecosystem. Greening has also been reported in the Arctic, and in 2021 rain, not snow, fell on the summit of Greenland's huge ice cap for the first time on record.

"The Antarctic landscape is still almost entirely dominated by snow, ice and rock, with only a tiny fraction colonised by plant life," said Dr Thomas Roland, at the University of Exeter, UK, and who co-led the study. "But that tiny fraction has grown dramatically -- showing that even this vast and isolated wilderness is being affected by human-caused climate change." The peninsula is about 500,000km2 in total. Roland warned that future heating, which will continue until carbon emissions are halted, could bring "fundamental changes to the biology and landscape of this iconic and vulnerable region." The study is published in the journal Nature Geoscience and based on analysis of Landsat images.

Private equity firms are using US public sector workers' retirement savings to fund fossil fuel projects pumping more than a billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere every year, according to an analysis. From a report: They have ploughed more than $1tn into the energy sector since 2010, often buying into old and new fossil fuel projects and, thanks to exemptions from many financial disclosures, operating them outside the public eye, the researchers say. In many cases they are mortgaging workers' futures by taking the money they have put away for old age and investing it in assets that risk serious damage to the climate, the report claims.

"Public sector workers' money, through national, state, and retirement pensions, provides much of the capital for private equity firms' energy investments, but there is limited disclosure to the pension fund managers that the deferred earnings of their beneficiaries have potential climate impacts," it says. Researchers at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, Global Energy Monitor and Private Equity Stakeholder Project assessed the holdings of 21 private equity firms, overseeing a combined $6tn in assets under management. Together, the analysis found that the 21 firms were funding projects responsible for releasing more than 1.17bn tons of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e) a year.

Jimmy Carter reached his 100th birthday Tuesday, the first time an American president has lived a full century and the latest milestone in a life that took the son of a Depression-era farmer to the White House and across the world as a Nobel Peace Prize-winning humanitarian and advocate for democracy. Associated Press: Living the last 19 months in home hospice care in Plains, the Georgia Democrat and 39th president has continued to defy expectations, just as he did through a remarkable rise from his family peanut farming and warehouse business to the world stage. He served one presidential term from 1977 to 1981 and then worked more than four decades leading The Carter Center, which he and his wife Rosalynn co-founded in 1982 to "wage peace, fight disease, and build hope."

"Not everybody gets 100 years on this earth, and when somebody does, and when they use that time to do so much good for so many people, it's worth celebrating," Jason Carter, the former president's grandson and chair of The Carter Center governing board, said in an interview. "These last few months, 19 months, now that he's been in hospice, it's been a chance for our family to reflect," he continued, "and then for the rest of the country and the world to really reflect on him. That's been a really gratifying time."

James Earl Carter Jr. was born Oct. 1, 1924 in Plains, where he has lived more than 80 of his 100 years. He is expected to mark his birthday in the same one-story home he and Rosalynn built in the early 1960s -- before his first election to the Georgia state Senate. The former first lady, who was also born in Plains, died last November at 96. President Joe Biden, who was the first sitting senator to endorse Carter's 1976 campaign, praised his longtime friend for an "unwavering belief in the power of human goodness." "You've always been a moral force for our nation and the world (and) a beloved friend to Jill and me and our family," the 81-year-old president tells Carter in a tribute video filmed in front of Carter's presidential portrait at the White House.

The world's tallest mountain is getting taller. Mount Everest, also known as Chomolungma, has grown about 15 to 50 meters (50 to 164 feet) higher over the past 89,000 years than expected, according to a modeling study released Monday. From a report: The culprit is a nearby river eroding and pushing down land, causing the ground under Mount Everest to rebound and lift. "It's a new additional component of uplift of Mount Everest," said Matthew Fox, study co-author and geologist at University College London. He expects this spurt of Everest and its surrounding peaks to continue for millions of years. He added "the biggest impact is probably on the climbers that have to climb another 20 meters or so to the top." The additional height may also lead to the growth of more ice at the higher elevations.

Mount Everest, part of the Himalayan mountain range, towers along the Nepal-Tibet border at around 8,850 meters (29,000 feet) high. Not only is it the tallest worldwide, it leaves its surrounding peaks in the dust -- rising around 250 meters above the next tallest mountain in the Himalayas, the 8,611-meter (28,251-foot) K2 mountain. But what could cause Everest's anomalous height compared to its neighbors? These extra meters on Mount Everest can be chalked up to a relatively rare "river capture event" from 89,000 years ago, according to the authors' computer models. During such an event, one river changes it course, interacts with another and steals its water, Fox said. In this case, the team said the Arun river network -- about 75 kilometers east of Mount Everest -- stole water from a river flowing north of Everest. Fox said the capture could have been initiated by a dramatic flood, which rerouted the water to a new drainage network. Today, the Arun River is a main tributary to the Kosi River to the south.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Switzerland and Italy have redrawn part of their border in the Alps due to melting glaciers, caused by climate change. Part of the area affected will be beneath the Matterhorn, one of Europe's tallest mountains, and close to a number of popular ski resorts. Large sections of the Swiss-Italian border are determined by glacier ridgelines or areas of perpetual snow, but melting glaciers have caused these natural boundaries to shift, leading to both countries seeking to rectify the border. Switzerland officially approved the agreement on the change on Friday, but Italy is yet to do the same. This follows a draft agreement by a joint Swiss-Italian commission back in May 2023.

Statistics published last September showed that Switzerland's glaciers lost 4% of their volume in 2023, the second biggest loss ever after 2022's record melt of 6%. An annual report is issued each year by the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (Glamos), which attributed the record losses to consecutive very warm summers, and 2022 winter's very low snowfall. Researchers say that if these weather patterns continue, the thaw will only accelerate. On Friday, Switzerland said that the redefined borders had been drawn up in accordance with the economic interests of both parties. It is thought that clarifying the borders will help both countries determine which is responsible for the upkeep of specific natural areas.

Swiss-Italian boundaries will be changed in the region of Plateau Rosa, the Carrel refuge and Gobba di Rollin -- all are near the Matterhorn and popular ski resorts including Zermatt. The exact border changes will be implemented and the agreement published once both countries have signed it. Switzerland says that the approval process for signing the agreement is under way in Italy.

Newsweek writes that the missing atmosphere of Mars "may be locked up in the planet's clay-rich surface, a new study by MIT geologists has suggested." According to the researchers, ancient water trickling through Mars' rocks could have triggered a series of chemical reactions, converting CO2 into methane and trapping the carbon in clay minerals for billions of years...

The dominant explanation relies on an interaction between the sun's rays and gases in the atmosphere. Mars lost its protective magnetic field billions of years ago, likely allowing high-energy solar particles to strike the upper atmosphere, kicking molecules off into space, according to NASA... But this might not be the whole story. The researchers focused on a type of clay mineral called smectite, known for its ability to trap carbon. These minerals, abundant on Mars, contain tiny folds that can store carbon molecules for aeons. The study was published in the journal Science Advances.

"There is plenty of evidence for a thick clay layer on the Martian surface. Almost 80 percent of satellite spectra detect these high-surface-area clay minerals on the Martian surface. Clay has been detected in craters as deep as 17 kilometers [10.5 miles]," [lead author Joshua] Murray said... Their model suggested that Mars' surface could contain up to 1.7 bar of CO2 — roughly 80 percent of its early atmospheric volume — sequestered as methane within clay deposits. This methane could still be present today, lying beneath the planet's dry and barren crust. "We know this process happens, and it is well-documented on Earth. And these rocks and clays exist on Mars," Oliver Jagoutz, the study's author, said in a statement. "So, we wanted to try and connect the dots."

The discovery that Mars' ancient atmosphere could be hidden within its surface clays offers a new perspective on the planet's history and raises intriguing possibilities for future exploration. For example, if the sequestered carbon could be recovered and converted, it could serve as a propellant for future space missions between Earth, Mars and beyond.
"In some ways, Mars' missing atmosphere could be hiding in plain sight," says the study's lead author — and the article adds that this raises some interesting possibilities.

"For example, if the sequestered carbon could be recovered and converted, it could serve as a propellant for future space missions between Earth, Mars and beyond..."

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Los Angeles Times: In recent years — as longstanding efforts to recycle plastics have faltered — Exxon Mobil has touted advanced recycling as a groundbreaking technology that will turn the tide on the plastic crisis. But despite its seemingly eco-friendly name, the attorney general's lawsuit denounced advanced recycling as a "public relations stunt" that largely involves superheating plastics to convert them into fuel.

At Exxon Mobil's only "advanced recycling" facility in Baytown, Texas, only 8% of plastic is remade into new material, while the remaining 92% is processed into fuel that is later burned. [California attorney general Rob] Bonta's lawsuit seeks a court order to prohibit the company from describing the practice as "advanced recycling," arguing the vast majority of plastic is destroyed. Many environmental advocates and policy experts lauded the legal action as a major step toward ending greenwashing by Exxon Mobil — the world's largest producer of single-use plastic polymer... Advanced recycling, which is also called chemical recycling, is an umbrella term that typically involves heating or dissolving plastic waste to create fuel, chemicals and waxes — a fraction of which can be used to remake plastic. The most common techniques yield only 1% to 14% of the plastic waste, according to a 2023 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Exxon Mobil has largely used reclaimed plastic for fuel production while ramping up its virgin plastic production, according to Bonta.
The executive director of California Communities Against Toxics complains Exxon Mobil's "advanced" recycling is "the same technology we've had since the Industrial Revolution... a blast furnace." (The article also quotes her as asking "How is that better than coal?") And a UCLA researcher who studied the issue blames misperceptions about plastic recycling on "an industry-backed misinformation campaign." He agrees that the reality is "having to burn more oil to turn that plastic back into oil, which you then burn."

California's attorney general "alleges Exxon Mobil has had a patent for this technology since 1978, and the company is falsely rebranding it as 'new' and 'advanced'... It recently reemerged after the company learned that the term 'advanced recycling' resonated with members of the public..."

Scientific American has surprising news about the possibility of black holes the size of an atom but containing the mass of an asteroid — the so-called "primordial black holes" formed after the birth of the universe which could solve the ongoing mystery of the missing dark matter.

These atom-sized black holes "may fly through the inner solar system about once a decade, scientists say... And if they sneak by the moon or Mars, scientists should be able to detect them, a new study shows." If one of these black holes comes near a planet or large moon, it should push the body off course enough to be measurable by current instruments. "As it passes by, the planet starts to wobble," says Sarah R. Geller, a theoretical physicist now at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and co-author of the study, which was published on September 17 in Physical Review D. "The wobble will grow over a few years but eventually it will damp out and go back to zero."

Study team member Tung X. Tran, then an undergraduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, built a computer model of the solar system to see how the distance between Earth and nearby solar system objects would change after a black hole flyby. He found that such an effect would be most noticeable for Mars, whose distance scientists know within about 10 centimeters. For a black hole in the middle of the mass range, "we found that after three years the signal would grow to between one to three meters," Tran says. "That's way above the threshold of precision that we can measure." The Earth-Mars distance is particularly well tracked because scientists have been sending generations of probes and landers to the Red Planet...

In a coincidence, an independent team published a paper about its search for signs of primordial black holes flying near Earth in the same issue of Physical Review D. The researchers' simulations found that such signals could be detectable in orbital data from Global Navigation Satellite Systems, as well as gravimeters that measure variations in Earth's gravitational field.
"For decades physicists thought dark matter was likely to take the form of so-called weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs)," the article points out. "Yet generations of ever more sensitive experiments meant to find these particles have come up empty."

California astrophysicist Kevork Abazajian tells the site that now in the scientific community, "Primordial black holes are really gaining popularity."

J. Doyne Farmer is the director of the complexity economics program at the Institute for New Economic Thinking in Oxford's research and policy unit. And he reminds us that solar and wind energy "are very likely to get even less expensive and grow quickly," pointing out that "the rate at which a given kind of technology improves is remarkably predictable." The best-known example is Moore's Law... Like computer chips, many other technologies also get exponentially more affordable, though at different rates. Some of the best examples are renewable energy technologies such as solar panels, lithium batteries and wind turbines. The cost of solar panels has dropped an average of 10% a year, making them about 10,000 times cheaper than they were in 1958, the year of their pioneering use to power the Vanguard 1 satellite. Lithium batteries have cheapened at a comparable pace, and the cost of wind turbines has dropped steadily too, albeit at a slower rate.

Not all technologies follow this course, however. Fossil fuels cost roughly what they did a century ago, adjusted for inflation, and nuclear power is no cheaper than it was in 1958. (In fact, partly due to heightened safety concerns, it's somewhat more expensive.)

The global deployment of technologies follows another pattern, called an S curve, increasing exponentially at first and then leveling out. Careful analysis of the spread of many technologies, from canals to the internet, makes it possible to predict the pace of technological adoption. When a technology is new, predictions are difficult, but as it develops, they get easier. Applying these ideas to the energy transition indicates that key technologies such as solar, wind, batteries and green-hydrogen-based fuels are likely to grow rapidly, dominating the energy system within the next two decades. And they will continue to get cheaper and cheaper, making energy far more affordable than it has ever been. This will happen in electricity generation first and then in sectors that are harder to decarbonize, including aviation and long-range shipping.
And in addition, "The future savings more than offset present investments to the extent that the transition would make sense from a purely economic standpoint even if we weren't worried about climate change.

"The sooner we make investments and adopt policies that enable the transition, the sooner we will realize the long-term savings."

Past studies have suggested a major ocean current could collapse, quickly changing temperatures and climate patterns, reports the Washington Post.

"But scientists disagree on whether the the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is already slowing, and questions remain as to whether a variety of proxy measurements actually indicate a slowdown" — including a new analysis arguing that the current "has remained remarkably stable." One way to detect AMOC weakening is to monitor the strength of its components such as the Florida Current, which flows swiftly from the Gulf of Mexico into the North Atlantic. The current is a "major contributor" to the AMOC, the researchers write, and a slowdown of the current might indicate a slowdown of the AMOC. Scientists have been tracking its strength since the 1980s using a submarine cable that measures the volume of water it transports.

In the current study, researchers reconsider the data, correcting for a gradual shift in Earth's magnetic field that they say affected the cable measurements. Previous assessments of the uncorrected data showed a slight slowing in the Florida Current. But when they corrected for the shift in Earth's magnetic field, the researchers write, they found that the current "has remained remarkably stable" and not declined significantly over the past 40 years.
The researchers' announcement acknowledges that "It is possible that the AMOC is changing without a corresponding change in the Florida Current..."

How were the Pyramids built? NBC News reported on "a possible answer" after new evidence was published earlier this year in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

The theory? "[A]n extinct branch of the Nile River once weaved through the landscape in a much wetter climate." Dozens of Egyptian pyramids across a 40-mile-long range rimmed the waterway, the study says, including the best-known complex in Giza. The waterway allowed workers to transport stone and other materials to build the monuments, according to the study. Raised causeways stretched out horizontally, connecting the pyramids to river ports along the Nile's bank.

Drought, in combination with seismic activity that tilted the landscape, most likely caused the river to dry up over time and ultimately fill with silt, removing most traces of it.

The research team based its conclusions on data from satellites that send radar waves to penetrate the Earth's surface and detect hidden features. It also relied on sediment cores and maps from 1911 to uncover and trace the imprint of the ancient waterway. Such tools are helping environmental scientists map the ancient Nile, which is now covered by desert sand and agricultural fields... The study builds on research from 2022, which used ancient evidence of pollen grains from marsh species to suggest that a waterway once cut through the present-day desert.
Granite blocks weighing several tons were transported hundreds of miles, according to a professor of Egyptology at Harvard University — who tells NBC they were moved without wheels. But this new evidence that the Nile was closer to the pyramids lends further support to the evolving "canals" theory.

In 2011 archaeologist Pierre Tallet found 30 different man-made caves in remote Egyptian hills, according to Smithsonian magazine. eventually locating the oldest papyrus rolls ever discovered — which were written by the builders of the Great Pyramid of Giza, describing a team of 200 workers moving limestone upriver. And in a 2017 documentary archaeologists were already reporting evidence of a waterway underneath the great Giza plateau.

Slashdot reader Smonster found an alternate theory in this 2001 announcement from Caltech: Mory Gharib and his team raised a 6,900-pound, 15-foot obelisk into vertical position in the desert near Palmdale by using nothing more than a kite, a pulley system, and a support frame... One might ask whether there was and is sufficient wind in Egypt for a kite or a drag chute to fly. The answer is that steady winds of up to 30 miles-per-hour are not unusual in the areas where the pyramids and obelisks are found.
"We're not Egyptologists," Gharib added. "We're mainly interested in determining whether there is a possibility that the Egyptians were aware of wind power, and whether they used it to make their lives better."