Climate warming has accelerated the decomposition of wood by termites.

Biologists have estimated the rate at which termites decompose dead wood in different climates and found that the insects became more active by more than 6.5 times for every 10 degrees Celsius increase in temperature. This means that as termites warm up, they will play an increasingly important role in the carbon cycle, and their populations will spread around the world.

Four-dimensional ultrasound has proven that people react to taste and smell even in the womb.

The study involved a hundred women at 32-36 weeks of pregnancy. On the day of the study, the women were not allowed to eat or drink flavored beverages before visiting the doctor. 20 minutes before the scan, they received a capsule of carrot or cabbage powder. After that, doctors took pictures of the facial expressions of as yet unborn children. Scientists believe that the mother's diet during pregnancy can affect the taste preferences of children. Also, the right diet of a woman is able to form healthy eating habits for a child.

iPhone 14 proved to be more repairable than five previous models.

iFixit dismantled the new Apple flagship and was pleasantly surprised - the design of the phone implies an easier repair. In particular, you can easily remove not only the front of the smartphone with a display, but also the rear glass. This has never happened in the modern history of Apple - now you can approach the replacement of the necessary parts from two sides.

The Greenwich Observatory has announced the winners of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2022.

More than 3,000 submissions from 67 countries were reviewed. The big winner was Gerald Rehmann with his photograph of Comet Leonard, which was discovered in 2021. Now she is rapidly leaving our solar system and, according to scientists, will never return.

Standing behind the cash register during a robbery reduced the risk of injury for salespeople.

Psychologists from Canada and the United States studied videos of attacks on 760 US stores to understand how the behavior of the seller depends on the risk of injury during a robbery. It turned out that if at the beginning of the attack the victim is behind the cash register, then the risk of using weapons by the perpetrator is reduced. How the raid ends for the seller depends 6-11 percent on the place where the employee meets the beginning of the incident.

VR glasses helped to reduce the dose of anesthetic during surgery.

Immersion in VR allowed anesthesiologists to reduce the dose of propofol required for sedation during hand surgery. Also, patients who used VR glasses took less time in the postoperative department of the clinic compared to patients from the control group.

Satellite Internet from Starlink has become available on all continents of the Earth.

Starlink's broadband Internet service is now available on all continents of the Earth, said company founder Elon Musk. SpaceX has launched 54 more Starlink satellites into orbit, and now the size of the company's satellite constellation has exceeded 3 thousand.

The James Webb telescope is broken.

Problems began with the main device - the MIRI mid-infrared camera. The saddest thing is that the camera itself works without deviations, and the spectrograph began to act up. It was he who was the main element of the telescope and allowed to "sniff" other planets and galaxies, recognizing their chemical composition.

Self-driving cars were offered to communicate with pedestrians with a glance.

Japanese engineers have proposed equipping unmanned vehicles with movable eyes. They allow the car to indicate by eye contact that it has seen a pedestrian and is ready to let it pass, similar to how drivers do.

The Japanese came up with an apparatus for brewing instant noodles.

Thanko introduced a gadget similar to a coffee machine, but instead of capsules, you need to insert cups of noodles into it. The novelty independently heats the water to the desired temperature, fills the bowl with noodles and informs the sloth after cooking. Makasetei costs only $45.

Canadians are building a maglev train that can accelerate to 997 km/h.

Startup TransPod decided to implement the concept of an electric maglev train with a Veillance Flux engine. Inside the airtight tunnel, vehicles will be able to reach speeds of up to 1000 kilometers per hour, that is, more than even a jet aircraft. In cities, the train will operate as a maglev monorail, but outdoors it is designed to break through vacuum tubes like the Hyperloop. TransPod announced the construction of a 320-kilometer train line between the cities of Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta, Canada. Passenger tickets are promised to be 44% cheaper than a plane ticket.

The Dutch company puts transparent double submarines into production.

U-Boat Worx began serial production of NEMO 1 submarines (single) and NEMO 2 (double). Capsules operate up to 8 hours on one recharging. Their speed is 5.56 km/h, and the immersion depth is up to 100 m. The cost of a single $ 545,000, and a double - $ 590,000.

Former girl Ilona Mask sold his old things and photos for $ 165,000.

Jennifer Gwinn and a billionaire met in the 90s, before his departure to California. One of the lots was a necklace of 14-carat gold with a small green emerald, which was bought for $ 51 thousand. Gwinn will spend the proceeds on training his stepson, and part will send to charity.

Astronauts will be able to use Martian soil for 3D printing.

This will reduce the cost of flights, because all kinds of details can be done directly on the red planet. Researchers mixed different amounts of simulated Martian soil with titanium alloy. They also tried to create material for 3D printing from pure modeled soil. As a result, scientists have found that the mixture, which contains 5% of the Martian soil, is stronger and stronger than the usual titanium alloy. But clean soil did not fit for 3D printing - the objects received from it cracked when cooling. But its astronauts can be used to cover radiation shields that do not affect cracks.

Chinese scientists are the first in the world to clone an Arctic wolf.

The cub was born on June 10, 2022 by order of the Harbin Polar Park. According to Mi Jidong, this achievement was "a breakthrough in the field of protection and breeding of endangered wild animals." At birth, the weight of the wolf cub was 520 grams, and the body length was 22 centimeters. After 11 days, the animal weighed more than a kilogram, after two months - 4.5 kilograms. In the next two or three days, another wolf cub will be born. Individuals bred using cloning technology retain the ability to reproduce and may have offspring.

The United Arab Emirates announced the launch of a lunar rover in November.

The Arab apparatus will fly on a Falcon 9 rocket. And Japanese technology will land it on the surface of the satellite.

Biologists have created a "living" synthetic cell for the first time.

Scientists have created a synthetic eukaryotic cell that performs all the main functions of the original. Including - produces energy and expresses genes. This is a significant breakthrough in biotechnology. New synthetic cells will be useful for biomodelling, development of biotechnology and medicine.

There was a way to measure the level of oxygen in the blood using a smartphone camera.

American scientists have figured out how to use a smartphone camera to measure saturation - the level of oxygen saturation in the blood. Usually, doctors use a pulse oximeter for this - a small device that resembles a clothespin and is worn on a finger. To measure saturation with a smartphone, you need to put your fingertip on the camera. There, flashes of red, green and blue will turn on in turn. The process will take about 15 minutes. The camera will record how, with each heartbeat, blood flows over the illuminated part of the finger and absorbs the light from the flash. Based on this data, specially trained artificial intelligence will calculate the level of oxygen in the blood.

Thailand urged not to sell kidneys to buy iPhone 14.

Sophon Mekton, managing director of the Thai Red Cross Organ Donation Center, denounced a photo showing three people with bloody bandages on their stomachs, allegedly selling their kidneys to buy a new Apple iPhone 14.

In Singapore, they learned to "grow" meat from mushrooms on beer waste.

Protein for the product is cultivated from champignons grown on food waste (wheat stalks and brewer's grains). Such a product becomes more useful than vegetable meat from the usual ingredients (soy, chickpeas, wheat gluten). By 2024, large manufacturers will introduce this technology into production.