Tag Archives: earth

Star Wars’ Showcase of AI Special Effects Was a Complete Disaster

Posted on by

Special effects house Industrial Light and Magic shared a new AI demo of Star Wars creatures that look absolutely awful.

If Disney leadership has its way, we'll all be drooling over endless Star Wars reboots, sequels, and spinoffs until the Sun explodes. And what better way to keep the slop machine humming than using good old generative AI?

Unfortunately, as highlighted by 404 Media, we just got a preview of what that might look like. Industrial Light and Magic, the legendary visual effects studio behind nearly every "Star Wars" movie, released a new demo showcasing how AI could supercharge depictions of the sci-fi universe.

And unsurprisingly, it looks absolutely, flabbergastingly awful.

The demo, called "Star Wars: Field Guide," was revealed in a recent TED talk given by ILM's chief creative officer Rob Bredow, who stressed that it was just a test — "not a final product" — created by one artist in two weeks. 

It's supposed to give you a feel of what it'd be like to send a probe droid to a new Star Wars planet, Bredow said. But what unfolds doesn't feel like "Star Wars" at all. More so, it's just a collection of generic-looking nature documentary-style shots, featuring the dumbest creature designs you've ever seen. And all of them are immediately recognizable as some form of real-life Earth animal, which echoes the criticisms of generative AI as being merely a tool that regurgitates existing art.

You can watch it here yourself, but here's a quick rundown of the abominations on display — which all have that fake-looking AI sheen to them. A blue tiger with a lion's mane. A manatee with what are obviously just squid tentacles pasted onto its snout. An ape with stripes. A polar bear with stripes. A peacock that's actually a snail. A blue elk that randomly has brown ears. A monkey-spider. A zebra rhino. Need we say more? 

"None of those creatures look like they belong in Star Wars," wrote one commenter on the TED talk video. "They are all clearly two Earth animals fused together in the most basic way."

Make no mistake: ILM is a pioneer in the special effects industry. Founded by George Lucas during the production of the original "Star Wars" movie, the outfit has innovated so many of the feats of visual trickery that filmmakers depend on today while spearheading the use of CGI. Its bona fides range from "Terminator 2," and "Jurassic Park," to "Starship Troopers."

Which is why it's all the more disheartening to see it kowtowing to a technology that bastardizes an art form it perfected. What ILM shows us is a far cry from the iconic creature designs that "Star Wars" is known for, from Tauntauns to Ewoks.

Sure, there's some room for debate about how much of a role AI should play in filmmaking — with labor being the biggest question — and Bredow broaches the subject by pointing out that ILM has always taken cutting-edge technologies and used them along with proven techniques. He assures the audience that real artists aren't going anywhere, and that "innovation thrives when the old and new technologies are blended together."

That's all well and good. But to jump from that sort of careful stance to showing off completely AI-generated creations sends a deeply conflicting message.

More on AI in movies: Disney Says Its "Fantastic Four" Posters Aren't AI, They Actually Just Look Like Absolute Garbage

The post Star Wars' Showcase of AI Special Effects Was a Complete Disaster appeared first on Futurism.

Read the rest here:
Star Wars' Showcase of AI Special Effects Was a Complete Disaster

Scientists Find Signs of Life Deep Inside the Earth

Posted on by

A groundbreaking new study of microbes underground is challenging everything we thought we knew about extreme environments.

Little Friends

We've heard of underground parties, but this is ridiculous. A new study by an international team of researchers has uncovered troves of microbes thriving in the hostile subsurface of the earth, far from the life-giving energy of the sun.

The findings, published in the journal ScienceAdvances, are the culmination of eight years of first-of-its-kind research comparing over 1,400 datasets from microbiomes across the world.

Chief among the findings is that the dank cracks of the planet's crust could be home to over half of microbial cells on Earth, challenging our previous — and logical — understanding that life gets less diverse and abundant the farther it gets from the sun.

"It’s commonly assumed that the deeper you go below the Earth’s surface, the less energy is available, and the lower is the number of cells that can survive," said lead author Emil Ruff, a microbial ecologist at the famed Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, in a news release about the research. "Whereas the more energy present, the more diversity can be generated and maintained — as in tropical forests or coral reefs, where there’s lots of sun and warmth."

"But we show that in some subsurface environments," he added, "the diversity can easily rival, if not exceed, diversity at the surface."

Breakthrough

That comparable diversity is the key to the group's breakthrough — the researchers wrote in their paper that "species richness and evenness in many subsurface environments rival those in surface environments," in what the team is calling a previously unknown "universal ecological principle."

The study is notable not only for its findings, but also for its methodology.

Prior to the team's work, which began in 2016, there was little concerted effort to standardize microbial datasets from around the globe, due to differences in collection and analysis standards. That changed thanks to a survey led by Bay Paul Center molecular biologist Mitchell Sogin — also a coauthor of the new paper — who organized a drive to standardize microbial DNA datasets from researchers around the world.

The team's comparative work is built on these standardized datasets, allowing them to compare a sample sourced by a team at the University of Utah to that of a sample from the Universidad de Valladolid in Spain.

It's a captivating tale of international collaboration and deep-diving research — paving the way for a fascinating and previously overlooked avenue of research.

More on microorganisms: Researchers Say "Conan the Bacterium" Could Be Hidden Beneath Mars’ Surface

The post Scientists Find Signs of Life Deep Inside the Earth appeared first on Futurism.

Link:
Scientists Find Signs of Life Deep Inside the Earth

Strange Signal Coming From Dead Galaxy, Scientists Say

Posted on by

Astronomers say they've detected a mysterious type of signal known as a fast radio burst coming from an ancient, dead galaxy.

Radio Star

Astronomers say they've detected a mysterious type of signal known as a fast radio burst coming from an ancient, dead galaxy billions of light years away. Figuratively speaking, it makes for one hell of a sign of life. 

The findings, documented in two studies published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, upends the long held belief that FRBs — extremely powerful pulses of energy — originate exclusively from star-forming regions of space, as dead galaxies no longer support the birth of new stars. 

Adding to the seeming improbability of the FRB's origin, the researchers believe that the signal's source came from the furthermost outskirts of the galaxy, about 130,000 light years from its center, with only moribund stars at the end of their stellar evolution for company.

"This is both surprising and exciting, as FRBs are expected to originate inside galaxies, often in star-forming regions," said Vishwangi Shah, lead author of one of the studies and an astronomer at McGill University, said in a statement about the work.  "The location of this FRB so far outside its host galaxy raises questions as to how such energetic events can occur in regions where no new stars are forming."

Quick and the Dead

Though they're often only milliseconds in duration, FRBs are so powerful at their source that a single pulse emits more energy than our Sun does in an entire year. 

What could cause such staggering outbursts? Astronomers have speculated that they originate from magnetars, a type of collapsed, extremely dense stellar object called a neutron star that maintains an unfathomably potent magnetic field, perhaps trillions of times stronger than Earth's.

But that theory is now being challenged by this latest FRB, designed FRB 20240209A, because there are no young stars in the 11.3 billion year old galaxy that could form magnetars. Only extremely massive stars, which have short lifespans as a consequence of their size and thus would need to have been recently formed, possess enough mass to collapse into neutron stars in the first place. 

Outcasts Together

FRB 20240209A isn't the first to be found in such a remote location. In 2022, astronomers detected another signal originating from the outskirts of its galaxy, Messier 81, where no active star formation was taking place.

"That event single-handedly halted the conventional train of thought and made us explore other progenitor scenarios for FRBs," said Wen-fai Fong, a coauthor of both studies and an astrophysicist at Northwestern University, in the statement. "Since then, no FRB had been seen like it, leading us to believe it was a one-off discovery — until now."

Crucially, the M81 FRB was found in a dense conglomeration of stars called a globular cluster. Given their similar circumstances, it led the astronomers to believe that FRB 20240209A could be residing in a globular cluster, too. To confirm this hunch, they hope to use the James Webb Telescope to image the region of space around the FRB's origins.

More on space: Scientists Intrigued by Planet With Long Tail

The post Strange Signal Coming From Dead Galaxy, Scientists Say appeared first on Futurism.

Here is the original post:
Strange Signal Coming From Dead Galaxy, Scientists Say

Trump’s New NASA Head Announces Plans to Send Troops to Space

Posted on by

President-elect Donald Trump's pick for NASA administrator billionaire SpaceX tourist Jared Isaacman wants to send troops into space.

Space Soldiers

President-elect Donald Trump's pick for NASA administrator billionaire SpaceX tourist Jared Isaacman wants to send soldiers into space.

During the Space Force Association’s Spacepower 2024 conference in Orlando, Florida, Isaacman argued that troops in space are "absolutely inevitable."

"If Americans are in low Earth orbit, there’s going to need to be people watching out for them," he said, as quoted by the Independent.

"This is the trajectory that humankind is going to follow," he added. "America is going to lead it and we’re going to need guardians there on the high ground looking out for us."

Star Wars Kid

Isaacman's comments are eyebrow-raising for a number of reasons. Do US astronauts really need armed bodyguards in space? What exactly will these space troops do once they reach space? Will these troops be Space Force "Guardians" — who aren't trained to be astronauts — or will the Pentagon send troops from a different military branch?

Besides, where will they stay? With the retirement of the International Space Station in 2030, the Pentagon will also have a hard time coming by accommodations for armed forces in orbit.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Isaacman had few details to share regarding his plans to send troops into space, let alone how much such an initiative would cost. He did hint at the possibility of sending soldiers into space around the time NASA hopes to settle on the surface of the Moon, according to the Independent.

Isaacman also said he's hoping to turn outer space into an economic opportunity.

"Space holds unparalleled potential for breakthroughs in manufacturing, biotechnology, mining, and perhaps even pathways to new sources of energy," he told audiences during the conference. "There will inevitably be a thriving space economy — one that will create opportunities for countless people to live and work in space."

The tech entrepreneur has been to space twice over the last three years, both times on board SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft.

But given his new desk job in Washington, DC, Isaacman may have to give up on future opportunities to visit space as part of the Polaris program he organized.

"The future of the Polaris program is a little bit of a question mark at the moment," Isaacman admitted at the event, as quoted by Reuters. "It may wind up on hold for a little bit."

More on Isaacman: The New Head of NASA Had an Interesting Disagreement with the Space Agency

The post Trump's New NASA Head Announces Plans to Send Troops to Space appeared first on Futurism.

Excerpt from:
Trump's New NASA Head Announces Plans to Send Troops to Space

SpaceX Spotted Scooping Pieces of Starship Out of Ocean After Impact

Posted on by

Footage shows SpaceX crews retrieving debris belonging to the upper stage of SpaceX's enormous Starship rocket.

Breaking Things

There's always something you can learn from failure. Sometimes failure looks like your rocket blowing up after crashing into the ocean — but it's a learning opportunity nonetheless.

In the case of SpaceX, that means retrieving the watery remains of said rocket, Starship, to determine what went wrong during the less-than-perfect performance of its latest suborbital test flight. And so SpaceX employees traveled to the waters off the western coast of Australia, where the rocket's upper stage splashed down, to collect the debris.

These were the findings of SpaceX-focused content creator Interstellar Gateway, which gathered footage of the crews dredging up some of the spacecraft's hardware, including heat shield tiles and various tanks.

But there could be more than meets the eye. Based on Interstellar Gateway's sleuthing, the next retrieval mission could bring back the entire spacecraft in one piece.

"This was the first flight we've seen a vessel rigged specifically for towing... leading us to the realization that they may be attempting to return Starship back to port," Interstellar Gateway told Gizmodo. "Upon our investigation during their port operations, we noticed all of the needed lines and rigging materials needed to pull Starship back, as well as a staging area prepped with a crane, ready to remove Starship from the water."

Explosive Progress

SpaceX stunned the world with its fifth orbital flight test of Starship in October. After reaching space, the rocket's lower stage, the Super Heavy booster, made a controlled descent down to the Earth's surface, guiding itself back to its launch tower where it was caught midair by a pair of mechanical arms — an astonishingly precise feat of engineering.

The rocket couldn't repeat the feat, however, during its latest test in November. Just four minutes into the flight, SpaceX had to call off the booster catch, forcing the rocket to make a rough splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, where it immediately exploded into flames.

By contrast, the upper stage, the Starship spacecraft itself, demonstrated it could relight one of its engines in space and made a much softer, controlled splashdown in the ocean. Still, it did catch fire and fall apart after the landing, though nowhere near as dramatically as with the booster.

Safe and Sound

Besides the reusability factor, there's a huge incentive for SpaceX to recover the Starship spacecraft in one piece.

"There is only so much data SpaceX can get from Starship via StarLink transmissions as it has always sank shortly after splashdown," Interstellar Gateway told Giz. "Similar to the valuable data being used from the first caught and intact booster, there are tons of structural and out of view faults that can be found from an intact Starship returning to land."

With any luck, that'll soon be the case. The next Starship launch is reportedly slated for no earlier than January 11 next year — so keep an eye out.

More on Starship: Video Shows Robot Welding SpaceX Starship

The post SpaceX Spotted Scooping Pieces of Starship Out of Ocean After Impact appeared first on Futurism.

Read the rest here:
SpaceX Spotted Scooping Pieces of Starship Out of Ocean After Impact

Scientists Intrigued by Planet With Long Tail

Posted on by

Astronomers have discovered an unusual exoplanet with a long

Being Tailed

Astronomers have discovered an unusual exoplanet with a long "tail" of gas trailing behind it, not unlike a giant comet.

As NASA details in a recent article about the discovery, the planet, dubbed WASP-69 b, is steadily shedding its atmosphere of hydrogen and helium particles, which are being shaped into the astonishing tail by harsh stellar winds blowing its way.

WASP-69 b is a hot Jupiter, which means it's a gas giant roughly the mass of Jupiter but orbits its host star in the Aquarius constellation — some 164 light-years away from earth — at a much shorter distance, causing its surface temperatures to soar.

The sheer amount of radiation from its host star causes lightweight gases including hydrogen and helium to "photoevaporate" into outer space, trailing the planet in an epic wake.

"Strong stellar winds can sculpt that outflow in tails that trail behind the planet," University of California astrophysicist Dakotah Tyler, lead author of a paper published in the journal The Astrophysical Journal, told NASA.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)

Breaking Wind

Tyler and his colleagues found that the exoplanet is losing an estimated 200,000 tons of gas per second. While that may sound like a lot, we're talking about planetary scales; every one billion years, the team found, the planet is losing the mass equivalent to planet Earth, which means it's unlikely to ever run out of gas in its atmosphere (WASP-69 b is roughly 90 times the mass of Earth.)

The exoplanet's tail is astonishingly long, extending more than 7.5 times its radius behind it, or 350,000 miles, which is roughly 1.5 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

But as the stellar winds shift, WASP-69 b's unusual appendage's size and shape can change, and astronomers are only beginning to understand this unusual phenomenon.

"Studying the escaping atmospheres of highly irradiated exoplanets is critical for understanding the physical mechanisms that shape the demographics of close-in planets," the paper reads.

More on exoplanets: Cornell Astronomer Hoping the James Webb Will Confirm Alien Life in 2025

The post Scientists Intrigued by Planet With Long Tail appeared first on Futurism.

Continue reading here:
Scientists Intrigued by Planet With Long Tail

Scientists Horrified by "Mirror Life" That Could Wipe Out Biology As We Know It

Posted on by

A group of scientists have called for an immediate halt on creating

A group of the world's leading biologists have called for an immediate halt on a technology you've probably never even heard of — but is so dangerous, they say, that it could upend the order life itself on this planet, if not wipe it out.

In a nearly three-hundred page technical report published this month, the scientists describe the horrifyingly existential risks posed by what's known as mirror life: synthetic organisms whose DNA structures are a mirror image to that of all known natural organisms.

Mirror lifeforms are probably a few decades away from being realized. But the risk they pose is unfathomably serious, according to the scientists.

"The consequences could be globally disastrous," report coauthor Jack W. Szostak, a Nobel-prize-winning chemist at the University of Chicago, told The New York Times.

The famous DNA double helix is considered right-handed, meaning its spiral strands — a sugar-phosphate backbone — twist to the right. (To picture this, make a thumbs-up with your right hand; your thumb is the vertical axis and your curled-up fingers represent the direction of the spiral.) On the other hand, proteins, the building block of cells, are left-handed.

Why this is the case remains a matter of scientific debate. But this so-called homochirality is the state of nature on the planet — and it's gotten us this far.

Yet in our infinite human arrogance lies the capacity to defy that order. What happens if we make mirror organisms with left-handed DNA and right-handed proteins?

Proponents of pursuing this research argue that such mirror cells could have incredible medical applications. Scientists have already forged mirror proteins and discovered that they are much more resilient than natural ones because the enzymes that are designed to break them down can't bind to them. This could be a breakthrough in treating chronic diseases, since many therapeutic drugs are broken down too quickly to have a lasting effect without simply taking more of them.

The problem, however, is that mirror organisms could act unpredictably when interacting with natural cells. We simply don't know what would happen when mirror life clashes with ours. And in a void of information, you plan for the worst.

What if, for example, an experimental mirror bacteria was accidentally released into the world? Our biology would have no idea how to deal with these synthetic organisms. They could bypass detection by our immune system, easily infect a host, and spread a deadly pandemic. The risk applies to all lifeforms, too — not just humans.

To drive the point home, think of how invasive species have totally annihilated native ones. Now supercharge that deadly advantage with organisms that are completely alien to all life on Earth, and we may not stand a chance.

"Unless compelling evidence emerges that mirror life would not pose extraordinary dangers, we believe that mirror bacteria and other mirror organisms, even those with engineered biocontainment measures, should not be created," the report authors wrote in an accompanying letter published in Science. "We therefore recommend that research with the goal of creating mirror bacteria not be permitted, and that funders make clear that they will not support such work."

More on deadly biology: UN Deploys Investigators as Mysterious "Disease X" Continues to Spread

The post Scientists Horrified by "Mirror Life" That Could Wipe Out Biology As We Know It appeared first on Futurism.

Continued here:
Scientists Horrified by "Mirror Life" That Could Wipe Out Biology As We Know It

NASA Wants to Grow Trippy Houses Made Out of Mushrooms on the Moon

Posted on by

NASA is planning on growing habitable structures out of fungus — also called mycotecture — for space colonies on the Moon and then Mars.

Home Sweet Fungus

NASA is seriously contemplating growing future habitable structures out of mushrooms for space colonies on the lunar surface and eventually Mars, according to Al Jazeera. The space agency recently awarded a $2 million contract to a research group at NASA's Ames Research Center for the further study and development of "mycotecture."

The reason why NASA is investigating fungi is because it's extremely expensive to launch traditional construction materials into space.

Sending up fungal spores and mixing them with "local" lunar material such as water and regolith to make bricks would be vastly cheaper, according to Cleveland, Ohio architect Chris Maurer who spoke to Al Jazeera about his partnership with NASA.

Promising NASA research has also shown that these mushroom building blocks can deflect most space radiation, provide insulation from extreme temperatures, and can be grown very quickly in one to two months — a futuristic and highly efficient alternative to more conventional materials.

Room to Grow

Growing a mushroom house on the Moon would start with a special package landing on the alien surface, containing a sink and other household essentials, according to Al Jazeera. The interior of the package would then inflate while a mixture of fungal spores, water and algae grow an exterior shell that eventually hardens, establishing a new habitable structure.

While early experiments on Earth have proven successful, there could still be unforeseen complications in space.

The research mushroom group, led by NASA Ames senior research scientist Lynn Rothschild, is planning to send a concept model of mycotecture structures into space as part of the planned 2028 launch of a commercial space station called Starlab.

"In a general sense, there are technological risks," Rothschild told Al Jazeera. "Will the structure be strong enough? Will it really provide the insulation that we think? What will the material properties be? Will it really grow well?"

If all goes well, future colonies on the Moon and Mars will be popping up like mushrooms after a warm rainy day.

More on Moon colonization: Experts Warn Against Strip Mining the Moon

The post NASA Wants to Grow Trippy Houses Made Out of Mushrooms on the Moon appeared first on Futurism.

Read the original post:
NASA Wants to Grow Trippy Houses Made Out of Mushrooms on the Moon

NASA Engineers Were Disturbed by What Happened When They Tested Starliner’s Thrusters

Posted on by

Later this week, Boeing's plagued Starliner is set to attempt its return journey from the International Space Station.

But instead of ferrying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back to the ground, it'll be undocking and reentering without any crew on board — after a software update, that is, because it was originally unable to fly without astronauts inside it.

Even before the ill-fated capsule launched in early June, engineers noticed several helium leaks. During Starliner's docking procedures, the leaks quickly turned into a real problem. The spacecraft missed its first attempt to dock with the space station.

Ever since, Boeing and NASA engineers have been struggling to identify the root cause of the problem.

At first, NASA remained adamant that it was simply a matter of routine procedure to investigate the mishap before imminently returning Wilmore and Williams on board Starliner. The agency repeatedly fought off reports that the two astronauts were "stranded" in space, arguing that engineers just needed a little more time to figure out the issue.

But it didn't take long for NASA to change its tune. While attempting to duplicate the issue at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, engineers eventually found what appeared to be the smoking gun, as SpaceNews' Jeff Foust details in a detailed new breakdown of the timeline.

A Teflon seal in a valve known as a "poppet" expanded as it was being heated by the nearby thrusters, significantly constraining the flow of the oxidizer — a disturbing finding, because it greatly degraded the thrusters' performance.

Worse, without being able to perfectly replicate and analyze the issue in the near vacuum of space, engineers weren't entirely sure how the issue was actually playing out in orbit.

During a late August press conference announcing its decision to send Starliner back empty, NASA commercial crew program manager Steve Stich admitted that "there was just too much uncertainty in the prediction of the thrusters."

"People really want to understand the physics of what's going on relative to the physics of the Teflon, what's causing it to heat up and what's causing it to contract," he admitted. "That's really what the team is off trying to understand. I think the NASA community in general would like to understand a little bit more of the root cause."

While engineers found that the thrusters had returned to a more regular shape after being fired in space, they were worried that similar deformations might take place during prolonged de-orbit firings.

A lot was on the line. Without perfect control over the thrusters, NASA became worried that the spacecraft could careen out of control.

"For me, one of the really important factors is that we just don’t know how much we can use the thrusters on the way back home before we encounter a problem," NASA associate administrator for space operations Ken Bowersox said, as quoted by SpaceNews.

"If we had a way to accurately predict what the thrusters would do all the way through the deorbit burn and through the separation sequence, I think we would have taken a different course of action," Stich said during last month's teleconference. "But when we looked at the data and looked at the potential for thruster failures with a crew on board... it was just too much risk."

That's a polite way of saying that NASA had very serious concerns. According to Faust's reporting, the saga evolved into "NASA’s biggest human spaceflight safety crisis since the shuttle Columbia accident more than two decades ago."

Earlier this week, NASA announced that Starliner's uncrewed undocking will take place as soon as Friday evening.

Wilmore and Williams will stay behind, presumably watching as their ride to space departs without them.

The two astronauts will have to be patient as their ersatz shuttle, SpaceX's Crew-9 mission, won't arrive until no sooner than September 24. Even then, the pair will have to wait until the Crew Dragon spacecraft returns to Earth in February, extending what was supposed to be an eight-day mission into an eight-month affair.

More on Starliner: Astronauts Hear Strange Sounds Coming From Boeing's Cursed Starliner

The post NASA Engineers Were Disturbed by What Happened When They Tested Starliner's Thrusters appeared first on Futurism.

Read more from the original source:
NASA Engineers Were Disturbed by What Happened When They Tested Starliner's Thrusters

The Earth Just Can’t Stop Setting Heat Records

Posted on by

A record 15 national heat records have been shattered since January, as this year looks on track to surpass the last as the hottest ever.

Coming In Hot

It's too early to say if 2024 will top last year as the hottest on record — but it will already go down in history for blowing past another damning heat metric.

As The Guardian reports, an unprecedented 15 national temperature records from countries around the globe have been broken since January. Monthly national temperature records, meanwhile, have been broken a whopping 130 times, with tens of thousands of monitoring stations worldwide observing all-time local highs.

This is according to data gathered by climatologist Maximiliano Herrera, who maintains an online database of extreme temperatures.

"This amount of extreme heat events is beyond anything ever seen or even thought possible before," Herrera told The Guardian. "The months from February 2024 to July 2024 have been the most record-breaking for every statistic."

Hell on Earth

The hottest temperatures have descended on the tropics, where heat records were broken every day for 15 months in a row, Herrera said. Egypt recorded a national high of 123.6 degrees Fahrenheit in June, while just two days before, Chad tied its record of 118.4 degrees.

Just north of the Tropic of Cancer, Mexico also matched its record of 125.6 degrees later that month. Other countries that either tied or broke heat ceilings include Costa Rica, Laos, Ghana, and Cambodia. Extraordinarily, the Cocos Islands in the eastern Indian Ocean near Australia equaled its all-time high of 91 degrees twice this year: once in February, and again in April.

It's no wonder, then, that this July was also the hottest in history — and so has every month since June of last year, making it 14 record months in a row.

And in yet another hot streak: many scientists, including those at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, say we're on track for 2024 to be the hottest year ever recorded, which would make an ominous double-header with last year.

Summer Is Coming

Summer heat waves that scourged cities around the globe are believed to have killed hundreds of people this year, Reuters reported — if not thousands.

Scientists fear that if temperatures continue to climb, the extreme climate will render vast amounts of land uninhabitable, which could displace billions of people.

This recent spate of record-setting heat has heightened attention on the issue. But, even if the streak ends, "we are bound to see new records being broken as the climate continues to warm," Carlo Buontempo, director of the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, told The Guardian. "This is inevitable unless we stop adding greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the oceans."

Until that happens, Herrera said that extreme weather alerts could save lives amidst our ever-hotter climate.

More on extreme heat: Dozens of Americans Die in Brutal Heat Wave

The post The Earth Just Can't Stop Setting Heat Records appeared first on Futurism.

View post:
The Earth Just Can't Stop Setting Heat Records