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The massive corpse of an initially unidentified sea creature washed up on the shore of Indonesia’s Seram Island, prompting worldwide speculation as to what the mysterious creature was. Initially called a giant squid by the Jakarta Globe, the 15-meter (50-foot) carcass has since started to fill the area with a rotting smell, prompting the local villagers to ask the government for assistance in removing the mess.
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An engineering research team in Japan has developed a new solar cell that may be able to raise the efficiency of photovoltaic cells above 50 percent, and theoretically as high as 63 percent under certain conditions. This is important as consumer-grade cells are hindered by a lower maximum efficiency of around 26 percent, with most cells on the market only boasting an efficiency of 12 to 18 percent. If that value can be improved, it will make for greater accessibility for consumers looking toward renewable energy sources, and drastically improve the output of commercial solar farms.
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The World Meteorological Organization is forecasting a possible return of the El Niño phenomenon to the Pacific Ocean later this year, hot on the heels of the 2015-2016 back-to-back El Niño events, with only a short-lived, milquetoast La Niña cooling period having occurred in between.

The WMO, drawing on recent observations, climate models and historical trends, predicts that there is a 50-60 percent chance of a reoccurrence of El Niño before 2017 ends. Regional El Niño-associated warming in the Eastern Pacific has already caused heavy rains in Peru and Ecuador, leading to extensive flooding. The sea surface temperatures in the far eastern tropical Pacific have been 2ºC above normal during February and March.
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A series of power outages across the continent that occurred on April 21 may have been caused by a geomagnetic storm. Coordinated cyberattacks were initially blamed for the events, although a fire caused by an overloaded circuit breaker in one of the major outages ruled out that theory. However, it is possible that a geomagnetic storm may have caused the near-simultaneous outages, as there had been an ongoing solar storm at the time.
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