Science

Australia on Friday launched a multi-million dollar effort to stop pesticide runoff and other water quality issues on the Great Barrier Reef, the latest effort to save the ailing natural wonder.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek unveiled a US$130 million bid to reduce nutrient and pesticide runoff, improve invasive species management, and support better land management across some of the most vulnerable spots along the reef.

Back in 1994, anthropologist Eugenie Scott (founder of the National Center for Science Education) coined a term for a debating technique favored by creationists: the "Gish gallop." That technique, named for creationist Duane Gish, has been used a lot by Christian fundamentalists since then, including those who are prominent figures in the Republican Party.

Writer Madhusudan Katti examines the use of the "Gish gallop" in an article published by Scientific American on August 20, arguing that it has had an extremely negative effect on U.S. politics.

Did you know that the bananas you eat today are not the same type as the ones people were eating a few generations ago? The banana you might have had with your breakfast today is a variety called the Cavendish banana, while the one that was in grocery stores up to the 1950s was a variety called Gros Michel, which was wiped out by a disease called Fusarium wilt of banana, or FWB.

FWB of Gros Michel was caused by Fusarium oxysporum race 1, a fungal pathogen that affects bananas. This fungal infection kills a plant by occupying its vascular system, blocking water and mineral transportation.

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.

In a plant nursery in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, hundreds of pine, eucalyptus, olive and pomegranate saplings grow under awnings protecting them from the fierce summer sun.

The nursery in Sarchinar in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah is part of efforts to battle the destructive effects of deforestation in the region.

Australia on Wednesday approved plans for a massive solar and battery farm that would export energy to Singapore, a project billed as the "largest solar precinct in the world".

Authorities announced environmental approvals for SunCable's US$24 billion project in Australia's remote north that is slated to power three million homes.

Four members of a SpaceX mission that will carry out the first ever private spacewalk arrived in Florida on Monday ahead of their takeoff next week.

The five-day expedition, named Polaris Dawn, will be led by US billionaire Jared Isaacman, who already chartered the first all-civilian orbital spaceflight in 2021, called Inspiration4.

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.