Science

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Lake effect snow develops when frigid Arctic air masses sweep across the unfrozen expanse of a large lake. This setup occurs most often during late fall and early winter.Exploring the science of lake effect snow.(KCTV5)As this cold, dry air races over the warmer water, it eagerly siphons heat and moisture from the lake’s surface. This injection of warmth and humidity causes the lowest layer of air to become significantly warmer and less dense than the air above it, prompting it to rise in buoyant plumes or bubbles—a process known as convection. Exploring the science of lake effect snow.(KCTV5)As these warm, moist air parcels ascend, they encounter cooler temperatures. This cooling causes the water vapor to condense, forming clouds, and as the air continues to cool...

Google announced its November software update for Pixel phones, called Pixel Drop — a quarterly feature release that brings new capabilities to existing devices — with features including notification summaries, a power-saving mode for the Maps app, prompt-based edits for Photos, and Gemini Nano-powered photo edits in Messages. Apple introduced notification summaries with its Apple Intelligence suite of features last year. Now, Google is catching up with its own notification summaries for longer chats and conversations on Pixel 9 and later devices. The company said that in December, it will roll out a feature that would silence low-priority notifications. By comparison, Apple has a Priority Notification feature that highlights important notifications. Image credits: Google Google is int...

The deep sea is a foreboding, almost impenetrable, place for us surface dwellers; darkness prevents photosynthesis, and animals at great depths must withstand extremely low temperatures, high pressures, and scarce nutrients. Yet, ecosystems just beneath the seafloor contain an estimated 15 percent of Earth’s living biomass—in the form of wildly resourceful microbes that make do in the abyss.Hardy communities of microbes inhabit the ocean’s crust, clustered around hydrothermal vents, which spew life-giving minerals in superheated streams of water. Now, a study in Communications Earth & Environment announces marine microbial life that even further pushes the limits of environmental tolerance.University of Bremen researchers and colleagues searched for evidence of microbes in two sediment...

Alongside the November 2025 Feature Drop, Google announced Private AI Compute to make Magic Cue on the Pixel 10 more powerful while remaining secure. Private AI Compute is Google’s new “AI processing platform” that combines the power of cloud models with on-device processing’s privacy.  It specifically is a “secure, fortified space for processing” sensitive user data that Google cannot access. This system takes advantage of Google’s end-to-end AI stack including CPUs and Cloud TPUs. Your phone is connected to the “hardware-secured sealed cloud environment” via encryption and remote attestation. This is a joint effort from Google’s Platform and Devices (the hardware team), DeepMind, and Cloud divisions. In general, Google says AI that “can anticipate your needs with tailored su...

NEW YORK (AP) — Space weather forecasters issued an alert on Tuesday for incoming severe solar storms that could produce colorful northern lights and temporarily disrupt communications. In the past few days, the sun has burped out several bursts of energy called coronal mass ejections that could reach Earth Tuesday night and early Wednesday. The potential severe geomagnetic storms could disrupt radio and GPS communications, according to forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. READ MORE: Wondering why the aurora borealis was visible so far south last night? Here’s why it’s all thanks to the sun How bright the auroras are and how far south they are visible will depend on when the solar bursts get here and how they interact with Earth’s atmosphere. The vibrant di...

With the November 2025 Pixel Feature Drop, Google announced that Messages is adding a Remix editing for photos that will be available on all Android phones.  Powered by the Nano Banana image generation and editing model that’s already available in the Gemini app and AI Mode, Remix in Google Messages lets you pick a photo and prompt.  “Remix” will appear as a new pill-shaped button in the bottom-left corner of images you long-press in the conversation view, or select in the gallery. Specifically, you “Describe the changes you want,” with a banana-themed enter button. Google will give you a list of “Suggested ideas” like “Make a custom mini figure” or “Make a photo look like instant film.” Google Messages is using the existing gallery interface...

My name is Wave Moretto, and I absolutely love SCUBA diving, science communication, marine conservation, and all things kelp forest ecology. I’m a marine ecologist currently pursuing my PhD in fisheries science at Oregon State University. As a kid, Wave had a strong love for marine life and the ocean. The Seymour Center is where I was first introduced to what careers in marine science could look like. My favorite memory at the Seymour Center was getting to meet a harbor seal named Sprouts. I got to brush his teeth during Ocean Explorers!  Today, Wave researches how kelp forests support Oregon’s fisheries. When I began volunteering at the Seymour Center in high school, I had consistent exposure to the scientists and students working at UC Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Lab. T...

Today is Microsoft's November 2025 Patch Tuesday, which includes security updates for 63 flaws, including one actively exploited zero-day vulnerability. This Patch Tuesday also addresses four "Critical" vulnerabilities, two of which are remote code execution vulnerabilities, one is an elevation of privileges, and the fourth is an information disclosure flaw. The number of bugs in each vulnerability category is listed below: 29 Elevation of Privilege Vulnerabilities 2 Security Feature Bypass Vulnerabilities 16 Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities 11 Information Disclosure Vulnerabilities 3 Denial of Service Vulnerabilities 2 Spoofing Vulnerabilities When BleepingComputer reports on the Patch Tuesday security updates, we only count those release...

Last term, Drexel University faculty members were recognized for their scholarly research and prolific academic and professional contributions. This update offers a snapshot of activity courtesy of the Office of the Provost.  Sponsored Research  Margaret Finley, PhD, associate professor of physical therapy and rehabilitation sciences and interim chair, and Laura Baehr, DPT, PhD, assistant professor of physical therapy and rehabilitation sciences, both from the College of Nursing and Health Professions, received a $3.2 million Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Research Program Clinical Trial Award from the U.S. Department of Defense. Funded through a pa...

Google is releasing an update for Pixel phones with an interesting feature in the mix: notification summaries. Apple notably had plenty of trouble implementing its version of this AI-powered feature, and Google is taking a cautious first step by deploying it only for chat conversations. It’ll arrive as part of this month’s Pixel update for Pixel 9 series phones and newer — with the exception of the Pixel 9A.Android Authority’s Mishaal Rahman shared a deep dive of the feature in August when code for it appeared in an Android 16 beta. As Rahman described, summaries are limited to chat apps for now, and only for longer conversations. As AA’s C. Scott Brown points out, limiting summaries to longer pieces of information means the system has more context to work with and could reduce the kind of...