Sihanoukville, Cambodia (AFP) April 16, 2025
Once a collection of sleepy fishing villages, vast Chinese investments have transformed Cambodia's Sihanoukville into a half-finished gambling resort with signs everywhere in Mandarin. China is the largest investor and trading partner in Cambodia, much of it directed towards the Gulf of Thailand port, a key strategic location in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) championed by leader Xi Jinp

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Apr 10, 2025
While sunrise is constant, the intensity of sunlight that reaches Earth's surface is not. A new perspectives article by an international research team reveals that this solar variability occurs over decades, and is closely linked to air pollution trends and environmental policy. Published March 15 in Advances in Atmospheric Science, the study outlines the global phenomena of "dimming" and "brigh

Beijing, China (SPX) Apr 16, 2025
How gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the most powerful and spectacular explosions known in the universe since the Big Bang, fuel their high-energy radiations? What kind of physical reactions can trigger and sustain such violent, energetic outflow? This has captivated astronomers. Over the past decades, thousands of GRBs have been observed; however, the origin and the product of the burst - the central c

Berkeley CA (SPX) Apr 16, 2025
Astronomers tallying up all the normal matter - stars, galaxies and gas - in the universe today have come up embarrassingly short of the total matter produced in the Big Bang 13.6 billion years ago. In fact, more than half of normal matter - half of the 15% of the universe's matter that is not dark matter - cannot be accounted for in the glowing stars and gas we see. New measurements, howe

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Apr 10, 2025
A new study led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has unveiled a detailed geochemical model of TOI-270 d, an exoplanet roughly midway in size between Earth and Neptune, suggesting it may be a massive rocky world blanketed by an extremely hot and dense atmosphere. Located just 73 light years away, TOI-270 d may serve as a crucial reference point for understanding the vast class of sub-Neptun

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Apr 10, 2025
A new study led by the Southwest Research Institute offers groundbreaking insights into TOI-270 d, an exoplanet orbiting 73 light years from Earth. The planet, falling between Earth and Neptune in size, may be a rocky super-Earth cloaked in a dense, scorching atmosphere. Researchers believe TOI-270 d could serve as a key reference point for understanding sub-Neptune exoplanets-a planetary class

London, UK (SPX) Apr 10, 2025
Researchers at the University of Southampton have engineered a groundbreaking optical device that mimics the light-trapping properties of black holes and the theoretical expulsion behavior of white holes, offering an innovative analog to these cosmic entities. The team based their design on the concept of coherent perfect absorption, enabling the device to either fully absorb or repel ligh

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Apr 10, 2025
Gravitational waves, the faint tremors in spacetime triggered by cataclysmic cosmic phenomena like black hole collisions and stellar explosions, have opened a groundbreaking observational frontier in astrophysics. But detecting these elusive signals demands precision instruments whose design complexity has long challenged scientists. Now, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science o

Berkeley CA (SPX) Apr 16, 2025
Imagine a Slushee composed of ammonia and water encased in a hard shell of water ice. Now picture these ice-encrusted slushballs, dubbed "mushballs," raining down like hailstones during a thunderstorm, illuminated by intense flashes of lightning. Planetary scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, now say that hailstorms of mushballs accompanied by fierce lightning actually exi

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Apr 10, 2025
A new study led by the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) offers a compelling explanation for Mars' puzzling magnetic field distribution, revealing that the planet's ancient magnetism may have originated from a hemispheric field generated by a molten core. Mars once boasted a global magnetic field strong enough to protect its atmosphere, much like Earth's. Today, that shie