American students build “bread-loaf sized” satellite they will send to space

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Talk about an amazing science fair opportunity! A multidisciplinary team of undergraduate students led by the University of New Hampshire designed and built a mini satellite, known as a CubeSat, that will launch into space to gather data in collaboration with NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission. Satellites, power grids, GPS, and communication […]

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COP30 Is Designed to Confuse—So the Real Climate Blockers Stay Hidden

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The United States is here as the biggest donor to the World Bank, which is now the interim trustee and host of both the TFFF as well as the Loss and Damage Fund. So they hold the purse strings to some of the biggest parts of climate action. And at home, they're also using tariffs and economic sanctions to weaponize climate action and to prevent other countries from being able to take the action they need domestically to respond to the climate crisis. So the US is very much here. They've taken off the gloves and they're ready to throw down, as are their other fight club buddies Canada, Australia, Norway, and the EU.

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UNESCO’s virtual museum of stolen cultural objects

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Inside the virtual galleries, visitors will find everything from looted manuscripts to sacred sculptures to objects trafficked across borders and into private hands. Each artifact is accompanied by its backstory: where it was created, how it disappeared, what it meant to the community that once held it. Some pieces have known fates; others are still missing, possibly sitting on a shelf in a Dubai flat or a house in Spain. UNESCO wants to make these absences visible — to show the wounds as well as the artifacts.

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Chicken and beef plumping. Are You Paying For Meat, Or For Water?

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Even meat labeled organic may contain injected saline, because FSIS lists salt and water as organic. The FSIS allows selling injected meat as “natural” and “fresh” unless the added solution changes the product’s nature in ways that require different labeling. If you want to make absolutely sure that product is free of added salt and water, look for a statement on the label reading “no artificial ingredients,” “minimally processed,” or similar.

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Stoned and driving? High THC levels might not mean you are impaired

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Based on the results from the driving simulation, participants with elevated baseline concentrations of THC did no worse on a driving simulator compared with participants who were below per se cut-off points. Altogether, the results add to a growing body of evidence showing that current per se THC blood limit laws lack scientific credibility as face-value evidence of impairment.

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Can a jungle jam? Brazil percussionist finds out

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Scientists and sound artists have also translated plant electrical signals into audible frequencies, creating “plant music” that reveals hidden rhythms in living organisms. And Björk, through projects like Biophilia, has blended natural processes, digital ecosystems, and experimental instrumentation to explore how the environment can shape melody, structure, and emotional tone. Pantanal Jam emerges in this lineage but roots itself directly in a living biome, playing not about nature or around it, but with it in real time.

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Take me home, Roman roads

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Two thousand years ago, all roads led to Rome. Now, thanks to modern data science, they finally do again — this time in high resolution. A newly released digital atlas Itiner-e what they call a “Google Maps for Roman roads.”It is being hailed as a kind of “Google Maps for the ancient world”, charting nearly 300,000 […]

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Qatar builds its own oversight mechanism to monitor itself on climate — what could go wrong?

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Qatar, the world’s richest LNG exporter, is building its own climate “oversight” system — one that reports to itself. Through its government-run Global Accreditation Bureau and national MRV framework, Doha now claims to monitor, verify, and accredit its own greenhouse-gas emissions. On paper it looks like progress; in reality, it’s self-certified sustainability. With no free press or independent audit, Qatar’s climate watchdog is just another extension of state control. The result is a polished illusion of transparency masking continued gas expansion. As one analyst put it, “Qatar’s climate governance isn’t about measurement — it’s about marketing.”

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