Science

A supermoon may sound exciting, but it’s a modest coincidence.

As the Moon orbits Earth, its distance from us varies from 357,000 to 407,000 kilometers. When the Moon and the Sun are in almost opposite directions from Earth, we get a full moon. A “supermoon” is a full moon where its position along its orbit is within 10% of its closest approach to Earth. That’s it.

Artificial intelligence (AI) prophets and newsmongers are forecasting the end of the generative AI hype, with talk of an impending catastrophic “model collapse”.

But how realistic are these predictions? And what is model collapse anyway?

Gaza has recorded its first polio case in 25 years, the Palestinian health ministry said on Friday, after UN chief Antonio Guterres called for pauses in the Israel-Hamas war to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children.

Tests in Jordan confirmed the disease in an unvaccinated 10-month-old from the central Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Ramallah said.

The Mediterranean Sea reached its highest surface temperature with a daily median of 28.9 degrees Celsius on Thursday, according to Spanish researchers, topping a previous record set last month. For two successive summers, the Mediterranean has been warmer than it was during the exceptional 2003 heatwave, when temperatures hit record highs that went unchallenged for 20 years.

The Mediterranean Sea reached its highest temperature on record Thursday, Spanish researchers told AFP on Friday, breaking the record from July 2023.

At Cambridge University Library, along with all the books, maps and manuscripts, there’s a child’s drawing that curators have titled “The Battle of the Fruit and Vegetable Soldiers.”

The drawing depicts a turbaned cavalry soldier facing off against an English dragoon. It’s a bit trippy: The British soldier sits astride a carrot, and the turbaned soldier rides a grape. Both carrot and grape are fitted with horses’ heads and stick appendages.

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

On Aug. 14, 2024, the World Health Organization declared mpox a public health emergency of international concern. There have been over 15,600 cases and over 530 deaths reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighboring countries in Africa. The disease had previously caused a global outbreak from 2022 to 2023.

Mpox – previously called monkeypox – isn’t a new disease. The first confirmed human case was in 1970, when the virus was isolated from a child suspected of having smallpox in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Though usually mild, mpox can still potentially cause severe illness. Health officials are concerned that more cases will arise with increased travel.

NASA needs to decide by the end of August whether to return two astronauts to Earth aboard Boeing's Starliner, which flew them to the International Space Station (ISS), or bring them home on a rival SpaceX craft, officials said Wednesday.

NASA astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Sunita "Suni" Williams blasted off for the ISS on Starliner on June 5 for what was meant to be an eight-day stay.

Prehistoric communities from Iceland to the Eurasian Steppe sacrificed horses as part of their funeral rites. These Baltic tribes, known as the Balts, sacrificed horses longer than anywhere else in Europe, up until the 14th century. Christians despised this practice, however, and it quickly fell out of favor once a community converted to Christianity.

Archaeologists have studied Baltic sacrificial deposits for nearly 200 years. Two characteristics had seemed settled – that stallions were exclusively sacrificed, and that the Balts sourced their horses from the local tarpan horse population, commonly known as “forest” or “wild” horses.

Launched in 2011, NASA’s NEOWISE mission operated in Earth’s orbit until late last week. It detected more than 3,000 near-Earth objects or NEOs – asteroids or comets whose orbits can bring them close to Earth, even with the possibility of a collision. NEOWISE was shut down on August 8.

Surveying the population of NEOs is central to the emerging concept of planetary defense. That is, understanding and mitigating the risk of collision from asteroids large enough to do significant damage to Earth.

Climate change played a key factor in torrential rains in India that triggered catastrophic landslides killing at least 200 people last month, a group of scientists said Wednesday.

Monsoon rains battered the southern coastal state of Kerala and triggered landslides on July 30, burying homes and residents in Wayanad district under tons of rock and soil.

SpaceX is aiming to break new barriers in polar exploration with the first manned space mission over the Earth's poles -- a private flight commanded by a crypto entrepreneur later this year, the company said Tuesday.

The mission, dubbed "Fram2" after a 19th century polar expedition schooner, is due to last between three to five days, and was purchased by Chun Wang, a wealthy bitcoin pioneer who founded f2pool and stakefish, for an undisclosed amount.