Predictive model could help track deadly viruses back to their source

A new study published in the open-access Biodiversity Data Journal suggests that spider webs—particularly those incorporating environmental debris—can serve as natural, non-destructive collectors of fungal material in agricultural ecosystems. The findings show that viable fungi can be recovered from these structures, including lineages that may represent previously undocumented diversity.

Southwest Research Institute, or SwRI, is studying impact flashes generated by high-speed collisions. One application of understanding impact flashes is to remotely identify what materials are involved in the collisions. Advances in understanding optical impact flashes can be highly beneficial for missile defense, making it possible to determine the composition of an intercepted missile and its payload.

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX)—which recently completed the largest survey ever taken of the early universe—has released all of its immense, information-rich database to the public. Built from more than half a petabyte of raw and processed data, it will allow astronomers to study how the first galaxies formed and evolved, measure how gas and stars were distributed within these galaxies, map the large-scale structure of the cosmos, and investigate rare and unexpected o

The environmental footprint of data centers already rivals some of the world's largest countries, according to a United Nations University report, which also predicts their water and energy use and pollution will double in just four years as use of artificial intelligence grows.