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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) ran cutting-edge simulations over a time span of two years, which has assisted physicists in better understanding what manipulates the behavior of the plasma turbulence, driven by severe heat, essential for the creation of fusion energy.

The research team has come up with some exciting answers to long-standing queries regarding plasma heat loss that has earlier thwarted efforts of predicting the performance of fusion reactors. Further research on the subject could make way for the alternative source of energy.

A fresh count conducted by an international team has found nearly 14,600 orangutans in the Sumatran wild, making the number around 8,000 more than previously estimated. The study carrying the good news about booming orangutan population has been published in journal Science Advances.

The sad thing is that the study has been titled ‘Land-cover changes predict steep declines for the Sumatran orangutan’, thus there is significant downside to the rise.

The researchers said the augmented orangutans’ prediction wasn’t due to some rare population boom. Instead they mentioned that the increase has been noted because of their having taken a more detailed count as compared to the ones done earlier.

Scientists have been observing deeply how rivers of hot ash and gas move at the time of a super-volcano eruption. They have succeeded in gaining further insight into what could happen at the time of a super-volcano explosion.

In the most recent study, the main focus of the researchers was on the Silver Creek caldera, located at the intersection of California, Nevada and Arizona. At the time of eruption of this super-volcano nearly 18.8 million years back, it brought floods in the parts of all three states, floods full of river-like currents of hot ash and gas known as pyroclastic flows. The tides of volcanic material covered a distance of over 100 miles.

A latest research has found an innovative way of investigating the link between hurricanes and climate change by analyzing the history of the Caribbean Sea’s Spanish shipwrecks at the time of a planetary cooling period by the end of the 17th and 18th century.

Based on the comparisons between the Florida Keys’ tree rings and shipwrecks historical records, the research has concluded that there were quite less hurricanes, or tropical cyclones, during the time period of 1645 through 1715 when Earth experienced what is known as the ‘Maunder Minimum’.

It was the time when very less sunspot activity was connected with comparatively cooler temperatures on the planet. The Maunder Minimum belongs to a cooler period known as the ‘Little Ice Age’ in the history of our planet.

A lot of visitors gathered at Monterey Bay Aquarium on Saturday to catch a rare glimpse of a sea otter giving birth to a pup after climbing atop a rock in an attempt to escape turbulent sea waters resulting out of El Niño storms.

The pregnant sea otter swam from the ocean into the Great Tide Pool, which is a sheltered body of water at the edge of the aquarium. The entire incident of the incredible birth was filmed by workers at the facility as a matter of chance.

After giving birth, the mother otter started a grooming exercise to keep the pup warm by pulling the little one close to her chest. Monterey Bay Aquarium spokeswoman Angela Hains said otter pups have a kind of “floating cork,” a thick layer of fur that makes them buoyant.

Sky gazers and astronomy enthusiasts from many regions across the globe will get a celestial treat on March 8 and 9 in the form of total solar eclipse. If weather allows, thousands of space enthusiasts from South East Asia will be able to see the eclipse on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Citizens of Palembang, capital of Indonesia’s South Sumatra province, will be the first to catch a view of solar eclipse. The event is estimated to occur around 7:20 am in Palembang, as per reports.