Abstracts: Coral Reefs, Coolants, the Cosmos, and More
• Last weekend, more than 170 countries came together in Kigali, Rwanda to arrange a new agreement to combat climate change. This new accord aims to decrease the emission of chemical coolants used in air-conditioners and refrigerators around the globe. (New York Times)
• Twitter became a battleground last week after Outside Magazine published an irreverent “obituary” for the Great Barrier Reef. Scientists and social media users alike are in an uproar, since the article promotes a misconception that the reef is officially deceased. (CNN)
• NASA’s spacecraft Juno, tasked with exploring Jupiter, is slowly degrading due to radiation. This could result in fewer orbits, scientists say. (Ars Technica)
• This week’s Weird Animal Question reveals the largest insect that ever lived. Hint: imagine a wingspan nearing 27 inches. (National Geographic)
• Two trillion galaxies and counting — new estimates suggest the universe may hold ten times more galaxies than previously thought. (Nature)
• You can learn a lot from tiny glass spheres buried in the ground. Namely, that a comet impact 56 million years ago could have prompted increasing temperatures on Earth. (Christian Science Monitor)
• The lesser-known opioid carfentanil, used to cut heroin, can be difficult to combat with medications normally used to reverse overdoses, further exacerbating the opioid crisis. (Scientific American)
• Over 200 extraterrestrial civilizations have announced their existence via light signals — or so say two astronomers. It is no surprise the duo has received some pushback from the scientific community for these claims, and verification is underway. (New Scientist)
• And finally: officials in Chicago, Lyons, Milwaukee and Lafayette Parish are using data related to gun use to predict and prevent shootings before they happen. (Wired)