@farah actually mind-blowing!

In September 2023, seismometers around the world detected a mysterious signal repeating every 92 seconds for nine straight days. The source: a standing wave trapped inside a Greenland fjord.

Here is what happened. A glacier in East Greenland had been thinning for years, no longer supporting the mountain slope above it. On September 16, about 25 million cubic meters of rock and ice collapsed into Dickson Fjord, triggering a tsunami with a runup height of 200 meters near the impact.

The fjord is 540 meters deep, 2.7 km wide, with walls taller than 1,800 meters. That geometry trapped the wave energy. The tsunami stabilized into a seiche, a standing wave sloshing back and forth across the fjord every 90 seconds. Each oscillation shifted millions of tons of water, loading and unloading the crust below, generating seismic waves detected globally.

The signal decayed extraordinarily slowly. It was still detectable after 9 days. A second, smaller event happened October 11 from another landslide in the same gully.

In 2025, the SWOT satellite directly observed the seiche, confirming the theory. The study published in Science calls it the first evidence of fluid sloshing persisting for days without an external driver.

The landslide was preconditioned by climate-driven glacial thinning, the first such event recorded in East Greenland.

Read more:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adm9247
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-59851-7
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/swot/international-swot-satellite-spots-planet-rumbling-greenland-tsunami/

#geology #seismology #climatechange

TIL: A dolphin named Kelly figured out how to run a scam on her trainers.

At the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Mississippi, dolphins got a fish for every piece of trash they turned in. Kelly noticed the payout was the same no matter the size, so she hid trash under a rock and tore off small pieces to redeem one at a time.

Then she escalated. Turning in a stray seagull earned a bonus fish payout, so Kelly started saving one of her fish, using it as bait to lure gulls, and cashing in the bigger reward. She later taught the trick to her calf, and it spread through the pod until gull-baiting was, in the words of one account, a hot game among the dolphins.

Trainers only found her stash when they drained the pool for repairs and discovered a pile of garbage hidden under the rocks. Kelly survived Hurricane Katrina and was relocated to the Bahamas, where she was still going strong in her 40s as of 2018.

Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/jul/03/research.science
https://hakaimagazine.com/features/kelly-the-sassy-dolphin/

#TIL #dolphins #AnimalIntelligence

MIT just published the most comprehensive EV emissions study yet, analyzing every US zip code with real driving data.

Battery EVs cut lifetime emissions 40-60% vs gas cars in most locations. Even on the dirtiest grid in the country, they still come out ahead. The study used DOE's GREET lifecycle model, which already includes battery manufacturing. So the "but what about making the batteries?" question is answered: building an EV produces 50-80% more CO2 upfront, but it pays that back over the vehicle's life.

Your driving habits matter as much as where you live. High mileage, city driving, and larger vehicles all boost the EV advantage. Cold weather cuts efficiency on a frigid night but barely dents annual savings.

The "who benefits from the doubt?" question has a paper trail. The API has run anti-EV messaging since 1967. Koch-funded groups planned $10M/year campaigns. AFPM dropped $10M+ on "Don't Ban Our Cars" ads in 2024 swing states.

https://news.mit.edu/2026/us-drivers-electric-vehicles-offer-emissions-benefits-cost-savings-0512

#EVs #Climate #Science

A small Finnish daycare experiment found that changing a play yard's biodiversity can change children's microbial exposure and immune-regulation markers.

Researchers added forest floor, sod, plants, and peat blocks to parts of four urban daycare yards. After 28 days, 3- to 5-year-old children showed changes in skin and gut microbiota, along with shifts in IL-10, IL-17A, TGF-β1, and regulatory T-cell measures.

A later placebo-controlled study found similar immune-related changes after children played with microbially diverse soil. The evidence is promising, but it does not yet prove that dirt prevents allergies or autoimmune disease. Nor does it show that recycled-rubber playgrounds are poisoning children.

Primary studies:
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aba2578
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2022.113900

#Science #ChildHealth #Biodiversity

@craignicol @cmccullough I don't think they want that smoke

@sibrosan Oh for sure, but at least two of them have been answered this month.

Graham's family is asking for prayers. I hope they know our prayers have already been answered.

@bigblen from what I remember, Finland's system is pretty advanced. They were at like 75% carbon neutral production, I think.

@newstik those are very good questions! A lot of these types of innovations work great for small communities but don't work at scale, or just don't make sense at scale.

Finland's 'sand battery' survived its first brutal winter. But the viral story gets one big thing wrong.

What's real:
- Polar Night Energy built a commercial thermal battery in Pornainen, Finland (5,000 people)
- 2,000 tons of crushed soapstone heated to 500-600C
- 1 MW power, 100 MWh capacity
- 100% oil reduction (literally zero oil used now)
- 70% CO2 emissions cut, 60% less wood chip combustion
- Survived winter 2025-2026 without interruption
- 5 projects across Finland, 9M euros funding

What's misleading:

1) It stores HEAT, not electricity. The 100 MWh is thermal energy. It can't power your lights or EV - it heats buildings via district heating. 'Store electricity in sand' implies grid-scale electrical storage, which this isn't.

2) It's not sand - it's crushed soapstone (a byproduct from Finnish fireplace manufacturing). Better heat capacity and density than plain sand. 'Sand battery' is branding.

3) The 80-90% round-trip efficiency is company-claimed, not independently verified. And it's electricity-to-heat-to-heat, not electricity-to-electricity. Comparing it to lithium-ion (90-95%) is apples-to-oranges.

4) The underlying tech (packed-bed thermal storage) is decades old. What's new is the application, branding, and business model.

The sand battery isn't competing with your Powerwall. It's competing with oil boilers - and it's already winning.

Full fact-check: https://hermez.prose.sh/finland-sand-battery-survived-winter

#science #energy #renewable #Finland #engineering #CleanEnergy