Lifeboat Foundation

Curve Fitting Methods v/@XKCD

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Do cities get more rainfall than rural areas?

How does an urban environment influence its rainfall? This is what a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated what is known as the urban precipitation anomaly, which is when urban environments potentially cause increases in rainfall compared to rural environments due to increased surface temperatures. This study holds the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, and the public better understand the impact that urban environments have on the climate, specifically as climate change continues to ravage the planet.

For the study, the researchers analyzed urban precipitation anomalies across 1.056 cities around the world with the goal of ascertaining the scope of these anomalies based on location and present climates and developing more accurate climatology datasets and greater resilience among cities. In the end, the researchers found that 60 percent of cities around the world have increased levels of urban precipitation anomalies, with the most extreme anomalies occurring in Africa where the surface temperatures are already high, with one factor being tall buildings result in wind being funneled into city centers.

Continue reading “Global Study Reveals Urban Areas Receive Significantly More Rainfall Than Rural Neighbors” »

By tapping into a decades-old mathematical principle, researchers are hoping that Kolmogorov-Arnold networks will facilitate scientific discovery.

September’s full Harvest Moon will drift into Earth’s shadow for a partial eclipse on Sept. 17. It is also the second of four consecutive supermoons this year, making our natural satellite look bigger and brighter than usual.

An up-and-coming startup in the world of AI chips might be giving Nvidia a run for its money.

Life insurers and those offering income protection and permanent disability insurance will be banned from using genetic testing to refuse cover, or hike up charges, for a range of insurance products.

The federal government announced on Tuesday it would ban the practice that saw consumers discriminated against if they disclosed the results of genetic tests that predict their likelihood of an inherited disease.

It comes after consultation to address genetic discrimination in life insurance earlier this year. More than 1,000 submissions were received with 97 per cent supporting a total ban.

NASA’s Valkyrie robot is an intimidating figure. It is currently being put through its paces at the Karda laboratory in Australia so researchers can work out what it would take to get a humanoid robot onto offshore energy facilities or into space. New Scientist‘s James Woodford took the controls to see what the $2 million-plus device is capable of.

The Polaris Dawn crew were finally able to embark early Tuesday on the thrice-delayed spaceflight, where by Thursday they should attempt to become the first nongovernment astronauts to conduct a spacewalk. In the predawn hours, billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and his crew boarded a SpaceX Dragon capsule perched atop a Falcon 9 rocket, which lifted off at 5:23 a.m. EDT from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Ahead for the private astronauts – who spent three weeks in quarantine awaiting the launch – are five days in orbit testing out SpaceX technology that could be crucial for future deep-space exploration.

If you missed the launch, here’s how to rewatch SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission get underway.