ScienceDaily: Top Science News

A new study strengthens the case that climate change has been the main cause of the growing amount of land in the western U.S. destroyed by large wildfires. And researchers say the trend is likely to worsen.

Scientists have built a plant that can produce carbon-neutral liquid fuels from sunlight and air. The next goal will be to take this technology to industrial scale and achieve competitiveness. Researchers now describe how this novel solar reactor functions and outline a policy framework that would provide incentives to expand the production of 'solar kerosene'.

To counter hacking, researchers have developed a new system based on the concept of 'zero-knowledge proofs', the security of which is based on the physical principle of relativity: information cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Thus, one of the fundamental principles of modern physics allows for secure data transfer.

Astronomers and geologists have made the first estimates of rock types that exist on planets orbiting nearby stars. After studying the chemical composition of 'polluted' white dwarfs, they have concluded that most rocky planets orbiting nearby stars are more diverse and exotic than previously thought, with types of rocks not found anywhere in our Solar System.

Can baby seals adapt their voices to sounds? Researchers have now studied seal pups only a few weeks old. The pups lowered the pitch of their voice when they heard louder noises. This vocal flexibility makes seals an excellent animal model for studying the evolution of human speech.