previously | Common News Update

Sep112021 by adminNo Comments

Global computing’s carbon footprint is bigger than previously estimated

Science

Sept. 10 (UPI) -- The world is more online than ever before, and as the digital economy continues to expand, so does the Internet's carbon footprint. According to a new study, published Friday in the journal Patterns, information and communications technology, or ICT for short, is responsible for a greater share of greenhouse gas emissions than previously estimated. When researchers at Lancaster University analyzed earlier attempts to calculate ICT's carbon footprint, they determined scientists had failed to account for the entire life-cycle and supply chain of ICT products and infrastructure. This would include, for example, the emissions produced by makers of ICT components, or the emissions linked with the disposal of ICT products. Scientists have previously pegged ICT's s...

Aug232021 by adminNo Comments

Overall risk for global pandemics higher than previously thought, study finds

Science

Aug. 23 (UPI) -- The COVID-19 pandemic may be the deadliest viral outbreak since the Spanish flu in 1918-19, but these events may not be as rare as previously thought, according to an analysis published Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The assessment of new disease outbreaks over the past 400 years found that the probability of a pandemic with similar impact to COVID-19 in a given year is about 2%, the data showed. This means that a person born in 2000 had about a 38% chance of experiencing a major outbreak by now, the researchers said. That probability is only growing, highlighting the need to adjust perceptions of pandemic risks and expectations for preparedness, they said. "The most important takeaway [of our study] is that large pandemics lik...

Mar62021 by adminNo Comments

US gives hope to previously denied asylum seekers in camp

World

MEXICO CITY -- In a camp at the U.S.-Mexico border, some asylum seekers were told by officials that the U.S. government may reopen their cases and they would eventually be able to enter the U.S. to wait out the asylum process.The new opening for people previously denied came as Mexican authorities worked to close the improvised camp along the banks of the Rio Grande, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, that has housed thousands of asylum seekers over the more than two years it existed.Late Friday night, an official with Mexico's Foreign Affairs Ministry said via Twitter that the last asylum seekers with active cases from the camp had been processed and the camp was closed. Others with closed asylum cases who were told their cases could be reopened were urged to move to a shelter. Bu...

Sep282020 by adminNo Comments

Modern humans moved into Western Europe 5,000 years earlier than previously thought

Science

Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Modern humans were occupying parts of Western Europe at least 38,000 to 41,000 years ago, 5,000 years earlier than previously thought. The discovery and analysis of ancient stone tools in a Portuguese cave -- detailed Monday in the journal PNAS -- suggests modern humans were along Europe's Atlantic Coast at the same time that Neanderthals occupied the region. Advertisement Paleontologists have been excavating the Portuguese cave known as Lapa do Picareiro for more than 25 years, but until now, researchers had failed to turn up evidence that modern humans might have arrived prior to the disappearance of local Neanderthals. During recent digs, researchers unearthed stone tools similar to those associated with early human populations at the other end of the continent, where...

May22020 by adminNo Comments

Mars’ magnetic field emerged earlier and lasted longer than previously thought

Science

May 1 (UPI) -- Mars' ancient magnetic field emerged earlier and persisted for longer than scientists previously thought, according to a new study. On Earth, the churn of molten metal deep in its core fuel's a powerful magnetic field. The phenomenon is what's known as dynamo. The Red Planet's dynamo has long been extinct, but new analysis -- published this week in the journal Science Advances -- suggests it was active for longer than researchers thought. "We find that the Martian dynamo operated at 4.5 billion and 3.7 billion years ago," first study author Anna Mittelholz, postdoctoral fellow in the University of British Columbia's department of earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences, said in a news release. "Dynamo timing is a big part of a planet's evolution, and what we find is very dif...