Carbon credits are flawed, but they can still help save forest

 

Image courtesy of Heikki Valve, CC BY-SA 3.0

Joel Kontinen

Carbon credits are wrong, but they can save forests that is good for the environment.

In 1986, an energy CEO heard a briefing about climate change and felt guilty that his company was building a coal-fired power plant in Connecticut. The company eventually paid to plant trees for timber in Guatemala so farmers would stop cutting down intact forest, in theory compensating for the coal plant’s carbon emissions.

The idea would develop into markets that allow companies to offset their emissions by buying “voluntary” carbon credits that help avoid deforestation, among other measures. Advocates say land users should be paid to leave a forest standing. Critics say maybe the land users weren’t going to cut down the forest anyway.

Source:

 Alec Luhn 2026 Carbon credits are flawed, but they can still help save forests | New Scientist12 May 

Space storms could switch train signals and cause serious accidents

 

Joel Kontinen

Critical safety equipment in many train systems is vulnerable to disruption by space weather, which could lead to fatal accidents. Space storms can  wreak havoc in some UK train stations.

A number of electrical systems in the railways of many countries, including the UK, are vulnerable to space weather. In the worst case, a red signal could be turned green, potentially causing a deadly train crash, says Cameron Patterson at Lancaster University in the UK.

“You could have disruptions to signalling systems, which are crucial to railway safety,” he says. “We have to prepare for these things now, and getting that message across, I think, is really important.”

A number of electrical systems in the railways of many countries, including the UK, are vulnerable to space weather. In the worst case, a red signal could be turned green, potentially causing a deadly train crash, says Cameron Patterson at Lancaster University in the UK.

“You could have disruptions to signalling systems, which are crucial to railway safety,” he says. “We have to prepare for these things now, and getting that message across, I think, is really important.”

Source:

 Michael Le Page 2026 Space storms could switch train signals and cause serious accidents | New Scientist 26 May 

Millions of planets might form around supermassive black holes

 

Massive amounts of dust swirl around active nuclei at the centres of galaxies, and these discs could give rise to vast numbers of rocky planets, some even the size of stars. Image courtesy of NASA and M. Weiss/Chandra X-ray Center

Joel Kontinen

What does black holes done for planets? According to a recently published study, they form planets around supermassive black holes.

The active centres of galaxies might be regions of extraordinary planet formation, where millions of worlds are born.

Most galaxies in the universe, such as our own Milky Way, host a supermassive black hole at their centre. Most of the time, these black holes are quiescent, as there is no matter falling into them. But occasionally they become active and consume huge amounts of dust and gas, perhaps from a merger with another according to evolution, becoming an active galactic nucleus for millions of years.

Source:

By Jonathan O’Callaghan 2026 Millions of planets might form around supermassive black holes | New Scientist 28 May

Weird and wonderful sea pen found on Mystery Ridge

 

Image courtesy of Paul Satchell/The Nippon Foundation/Nekton Ocean Census/Schmidt Ocean Institute.

Joel Kontinen

An ongoing census of sea life in the South Atlantic has identified over 1000 new creatures, including a new species of sea pen.

Odd creatures are found in the depths of the sea.  If you think this picture looks a bit like a feather pen, then you’d be correct. Except it’s not the type that you can write with. It is a type of coral that is found  805  metres below the sea level.

Sea pens are a type of coral that live on the sea floor and are made up of several specialised polyps. This particular sea pen is new to science, and was discovered at a depth of 805 metres on Mystery Ridge off the South Sandwich Islands, a chain of islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. It was found thanks to the Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census, a global programme aiming to discover 100,000 new marine species over the seas.

Source:

Michael Dalton 2026 Weird and wonderful sea pen found on Mystery Ridge | New Scientist 26 May 

 

Israel News: Why Javier Milei, the President of Argentina have closed relation with Israel?

Why Javier Milei, the President of Argentina have closed relation with Israel? 

There's a new T. rex from the dinosaur age — and it ruled the seas with a skull-crushing bite

 

An artist's reconstruction of Tylosaurus rex swimming in the Cretaceous seas of North America. Image courtesy of Alderon Games/Path of Titans.

Joel Kontinen

There's a new T. rex in town.  However,  this one didn't hunt on land. It ruled the ancient seas.

Scientists have described a new species of mosasaur, a member of a marine reptile group that lived at the same time as dinosaurs during the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago). The newly named species fits into an already known genus: Tylosaurus. But its new species name, Tylosaurus rex — T. rex, for short — sets it apart from the other mosasaur species in the group.

The species name means "king of the tylosaurs," according to a new study published  May 21 in the journal Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. According to evolution, the fossils are about 80 million years old and were discovered mostly in northern Texas decades ago.

The mosasaur T. rex measured up to 13 meters) long, or about the length of a tour bus. It had finely serrated teeth, unusually powerful jaws, and evidence on its fossils of violent combat with its own species.

While examining a fossil in the American Museum of Natural History's collection, Zietlow noticed that a specimen labeled as Tylosaurus proriger — a well-known mosasaur species first described in 1869 — didn't quite match others of its kind. The unusual fossil was discovered in 1979 near an artificial reservoir outside Dallas.

After comparing the specimen with the original name-bearing fossil of T. proriger held at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, Zietlow and her colleagues found that it belonged to a newfound species

Compared with T. proriger, the newly described T. rex was  4 metres longer, had finely serrated teeth (which T. proriger lacked) and lived several million years later. Most T. proriger fossils were discovered in what is now Kansas and are roughly 84 million years old, while the fossils now identified as T. rex are mostly from Texas and date to about 80 million years ago. At that time, the Western Interior Seaway stretched from the Gulf of Mexico up to the Arctic and was home to many sea creatures, including mosasaurs.

But the dates in the millions of years are inflated.  

Source:

Kenna Hughes-Castleberry 2026 There's a new T. rex from the dinosaur age — and it ruled the seas with a skull-crushing bite | Live Science May 21

 

 

 

 

The ‘doomsday’ glacier’s giant ice shelf is about to break away

 

Image courtesy of Chang W. Lee/New York Times/ Redux/eyevine

Joel Kontinen

The floating ice shelf of world’s widest glacier – Thwaites glacier in Antarctica – is detaching, with worrying implications for global sea-level rise.

Can global warming spell doom for in Antarctica? Some say that the climate was established by God at the end pf the global flood in Noah's time but others are  more sceptical. They say that men can destroy the planet.

Antarctica’s most threatened glacier is about be further destabilised, as the floating ice shelf in front of Thwaites glacier is set to break away.

“Its final demise could happen suddenly, and to avoid being caught on the hop, we have already prepared an ‘obituary’ press release,” says Rob Larter at the British Antarctic Survey.

Dubbed the “doomsday glacier”, Thwaites is about the size of Britain, but it is shrinking rapidly and is already responsible for 4 per cent of all global sea-level rise. Worse still, its collapse is expected to set off a domino effect in the entire West Antarctic ice sheet, ultimately resulting in a calamitous sea-level rise of 3.3 metres and changing the coastline of the entire planet.

Source:

Alison George 2026 The ‘doomsday’ glacier’s giant ice shelf is about to break away | New Scientist 18 May