Explosive volcanic eruptions can be as destructive as they are difficult to predict, launching pyroclasts—the fragments of magma and rock blasted from a volcano—into the air and surrounding areas. These particles can have wide-ranging impacts, as seen during this summer’s eruption of Mount Etna in Italy, when ash fell over the nearby city of Catania and closed its international airport for weeks. The size of erupted pyroclasts helps determine how far they travel and the hazards they pose. However, exactly how and where they form has remained poorly understood.

With the rapid development of 6G space–air–ground integrated communication networks, low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations, leveraging their advantages of wide-area coverage and freedom from geographic constraints, have become key infrastructure for achieving global seamless connectivity. However, due to the relative motion among satellites in different orbits, inter-satellite links (ISLs) exhibit periodic dynamic on–off characteristics, among which a portion of the interruptions are predictable topological changes. Conventional Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) protocols compute shortest paths solely based on link distance, without considering link effective duration or bandwidth constraints, rendering them inadequate for adapting to the dynamic topological characteristics of satellite networks. Although fast reroute strategies can address sudden link failures, they consume substantial bandwidth resources and cannot provide protection for all nodes across the entire network. Therefore, how to proactively switch service paths before predictable link interruptions occur, so as to minimize service disruption and resource overhead, has become a core issue in ensuring service continuity in LEO satellite networks.

In a discovery that challenges our understanding of dinosaur distribution during the Late Jurassic period, palaeontologists have identified the first evidence of the iconic Diplodocus outside North America.

Methane emissions from the New York City metropolitan area are largely driven by natural gas use, according to a new study published today in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics by researchers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, part of the Columbia Climate School. The findings may offer cities an overlooked pathway for reduce methane emissions while potentially saving consumers millions of dollars lost to wasted natural gas.

Four years of monitoring after the 2019 Brumadinho tailings dam collapse show that Brazil's Paraopeba River has not returned to a stable state. Bottom-dwelling invertebrate communities were reshuffled continuously at every site, and the reaches that received tailings show no sign of settling. Tributaries held most of the species, including many found nowhere else, and act as reservoirs that resupply the damaged channel. Protecting them is now the priority for restoring the basin.

A vast sheet of volcanic rock in the Andes has preserved clues to a buried landscape that existed 22 million years ago, according to a new study led by UCL (University College London) researchers.

Our oceans are in trouble and new research from Flinders University shows how changes in diatoms (microalgae) could further undermine the foundation of aquatic life’s food webs – as well as vital deep-sea carbon capture or sequestration.

A new study published in Marine Ecology used high-tech methods to test common microalgal species to assess how various stressors, including acidification from excessive carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels, affect absorption of trace metals and therefore undermine their overall health and role in Earth’s carbon cycling.