K2-18b, detected in 2015, orbits a star 124 light years away. Though it is over 800% as large as Earth, its space in the habitable zone of its star, like where we are, means the possibiliy that liquid water could exist on its surface.
The science community calls it The Goldilocks Zone. Like the character in the children's story who wanted porridge neither too hot nor too cold, a Goldilocks planet that might have life we could recognize would need to be in a similar narrow band.
What? Another boring chess game?
Buzz off, this is my blog, and if I feel like posting a chess game, that's what is going to happen. But if you like the game, stay here - this is a nice game.
Again played after hiours today, and again on a 5' online blitz server (chess.com). What amazes me is that these days I seem to have a sort of touch for nice attacks and brilliant combinations. Let me show you why I am saying this.
The starting position arose after the following opening sequence:
tommasodorigo - UTOPII841, chess.com April 16 2025
In a bizarre
experiment, scholars declared that survivors of one of California's annual wildfires instead suffered PTSD due to climate change.
It was a small group, 27 who had been near a fire in 2018, 21 who had seen smoke, and 27 in the control group. Participants had EEG brain scans taken while they engaged in behavior which could provide monetary rewards. The scholars also subjectively scored their Win-Stay behavior, basically how often they sought the highest long-term rewards.
After a very intense day at work, I sought some relaxation in online blitz chess today. And the game gave me the kick I was hoping I'd get. After a quick Alapin Sicilian opening, we reached the following position (diagram 1):
As you can see, black is threatening a checkmate with Qxg2++. However, the last move was a serious error, as it neglected the intrinsic power of my open files and diagonals against the black king. Can you find the sequence with which I quickly destroyed my opponent's position?
1. Qc2!
Recently there are appeared a paper showing how Physics - Iron–Helium Compounds Form Under Pressure. which suggests that there might be helium from the original nebula from which the Sun and solar system formed still locked up in the Earth’s core.
This association of helium with iron might be connected with this item from Minnesota: UPDATE | High helium concentration buried deep in Iron Range - YouTube which opens the prospect of the USA being less dependent on other countries for its supply of helium, which is most often encountered in toy balloons but is essential in its liquid form for many of the body scanners use in medicine.
The highest-mass subnuclear particle ever observed used to the the top quark. Measured for the first time by the CDF experiment in 1994, and subsequently confirmed by CDF and D0 in 1995, the top quark is the heaviest elementary particle we know of, and it is a wonderful physical system per se, which has been studied with momentum in the past thirty years at the Tevatron and at the LHC colliders.
The top quark
President Donald Trump is about to sign an executive order restarting coal leasing on federal lands while classifying coal as a critical mineral.
Social media critics, and academics being quoted in media, are declaring the end of the world due to American pollution. Are they correct?
When the Proposition 65 referendum, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, was being debated, concerns about abuse and high cost were dismissed by the lawyers behind it with the assurance that lawyers wouldn't decide what products would be deemed carcinogens, the state would abdicate that to France's International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Duckweed split into different species 59 million years ago, when the climate was more extreme than even the most aggressive climate simulation produced now.
A new study, genome sequences for five duckweed species, reveals how duckweed can essentially farm itself, and because it can double in mass after two days what that might mean for the future of food science.
A French team conducted experiments using sparrow chicks and
write in Environmental Research that their tests led to slower growth, with females impacted most.
They targeted the common fungicide tebuconazole, popular on food crops because it can stop everything from necrotic ring spot to blights, mildews, and smuts. They compare it to the popular weedkiller glyphosate, which they claim has caused a decline in birds in Europe, despite scientists showing the top reason for bird population changes in various areas has been land use changes and not the use of pesticides lacking an Organic™ label.
