ScienceDaily: All - December 08, 2023
Today's top research news
Climate change will increase wildfire risk and lengthen fire seasons
Wildfires are some of the most destructive natural disasters in the country, threatening lives, destroying homes and infrastructure, and creating air pollution. In order to properly forecast and manage wildfires, managers need to understand wildfire risk and allocate resources accordingly.
Fernando Astasio Avila/shutterstock.com
Coral reefs in peril from record-breaking ocean heat
Record breaking marine heatwaves will cause devastating mass coral bleaching worldwide in the next few years, according to a coral reef scientist.
Scholars say it's time to declare a new epoch on the moon, the 'lunar Anthropocene'
According to anthropologists and geologists, it's time to acknowledge humans have become the dominant force shaping the moon's environment by declaring a new geological epoch for the moon: the Lunar Anthropocene. They argue the new epoch may have dawned in 1959 when the USSR's unmanned spacecraft Luna 2 alighted on the lunar surface.
New genes can arise from nothing
The complexity of living organisms is encoded within their genes, but where do these genes come from? Researchers resolved outstanding questions regarding the origin of small regulatory genes, and described a mechanism that creates their DNA palindromes. Under suitable circumstances, these palindromes evolve into microRNA genes.
ChatGPT often won't defend its answers -- even when it is right
ChatGPT may do an impressive job at correctly answering complex questions, but a new study suggests it may be absurdly easy to convince the AI chatbot that it's in the wrong.
Discrimination during pregnancy may alter circuits in infants' brains
Racial discrimination and bias are painful realities and increasingly recognized as detrimental to the health of adults and children. These stressful experiences also appear to be transmitted from mother to child during pregnancy, altering the strength of infants' brain circuits, according to a new study.
