Headlines

Japan cities 'cruelly hot' for first time

Japanese cities are experiencing "cruelly hot days," a new meteorological term devised this year to warn people of intense heat above 40°C (104°F), with heatstroke alerts issued across nearly the entire country.

Droughts can boost inclusive institutions, social unity

Droughts have an immediate negative impact on agricultural production, but they can also trigger institutional and cultural transformations that help make societies more resilient to environmental crises. This is the main conclusion of the article "Climate shocks,

Electyrolyzer experiment designated ready-to-fly by NASA

A Southwest Research Institute and University of Texas at San Antonio experiment has passed a critical NASA review, designating it ready for parabolic flight testing. The two institutions will evaluate the performance of a patent-pending electrolyzer, the Mars Atmospheric

Leveraging social expectation for charitable donations

Avoiding guilt is a powerful motivator for charitable giving, according to a study in PNAS Nexus. Masahiko Haruno and colleagues ran two experiments to determine the most effective psychological framing to encourage donations to WaterAid, an NGO working to provide clean water

Universal patterns govern global fertility decline

By examining 200 years of demographic data from 237 countries and territories, Kenji Itao, of the RIKEN Center for Brain Science in Japan, discovered that universal mathematical laws describe how fertility declines as societies develop, providing a new framework for