A new analysis of a small rock called the Hypatia Stone, presumed to be a fragment from a comet, reveals that it might either be from outside the Solar System, or older than the Sun itself.

Discovered in 1996 in the same region of the Eastern Sahara as the odd phenomenon known as Libyan Desert glass, a 2013 analysis of the Hypatia Stone discovered that it was of extraterrestrial origin, and was hypothesized to be a fragment of a cometary nucleus. However, a new analysis has found that the stone’s odd atomic composition doesn’t even match any known meteorite samples, implying that it is either from outside the Solar System, or it predates the formation of the Solar System itself.
read more

Europe’s Copernicus Programme has announced that 2017 was the world’s second hottest year on record, coming in at only 0.1ºC cooler than 2016’s El Niño-influenced record at 1.2ºC (2.2ºF) above pre-industrial levels, with 2017 actually being the hottest year on record for a year that was "not influenced by warming El Niño conditions in the tropical Pacific," according to their report. On top of this, 2017’s temperature record occurred "despite cooling La Niña conditions both early and late in the year over the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean."
read more

On January 3, a group of cybersecurity experts announced the existence of two security flaws affecting virtually every microprocessor on the planet, codenamed ‘Meltdown’ and ‘Spectre’: the Meltdown exploit affects computer processors that were built by Intel over the past decade, used in the majority of consumers’ personal computers, and over 90 percent of the world’s computer servers; Spectre is somewhat less dangerous, but is more widespread, as it affects not only Intel processors, but also those of their main competitor, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Britain’s Advanced RISC Machine (ARM) chips. These vulnerabilities could potentially allow hackers to access personal data from computers, mobile devices, smart TVs, and cloud servers around the world.
read more

The Beaufort Gyre is a wind-driven circular current in the western half of the Arctic Ocean, that alternates between a clockwise and counter-clockwise motion: when it circulates clockwise, it traps ice and melted freshwater, and when it spins counter-clockwise, it releases that freshwater and ice into the North Atlantic Ocean, southward past the east coast of Greenland. This trap-and-release cycle typically reverses every five to seven years, usually when a cyclonic storm in the North Atlantic moves into the Arctic, reversing the Gyre’s direction.read more