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Climate scientists worldwide are highly concerned about the current level of decline in the ice sheets. The manner in which these ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctic are turning into stream is thought to cause less serious climate concerns, claimed a new study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

To conduct the study aimed at understanding the nature of ice stream in regions of Greenland and Antarctic, researchers examined 117 ice streams that appeared throughout the ancient Laurentide Ice Sheet, which melted during a period from around 22,000 to 7,000 years ago. These ice streams were frozen once covering millions of square miles throughout most of the northern region of North America, an area proportionate to area presently occupied by Antarctica.

When most of us were celebrating the Valentine’s Day with our loved ones here on earth, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly aboard the International Space Station (ISS) harvested the first ever crop of Space Zinnias.

Growing flowers at the space station in the low earth orbit was an experiment to test whether zero gravity can sustain life. Scientists hope that such a successful experiment can one day help in establishing human colonies on Mars.

It was not the first time when an astronaut grew a plan on the ISS. In August last year, members of the space station dined on outredgeous red romaine lettuce. Although growing zinnias on the space station doesn’t mean life can be possible on other planets, it could encourage scientists to think about being Mark Watney of ‘The Martian’.

Virgin Group founder Richard Branson announced his spaceflight company’s comeback in space race. In a statement on Thursday, the business magnate said that Virgin Galactic is eager and all set to rejoin race to send humans and spacecraft into space.

The announcement by Branson has come about 16 months after a deadly accident, which killed a pilot aboard a crewed spacecraft. “To have three or four people who are fairly entrepreneurial competing with each other means we’ll be able to open up space at a fraction of the price that governments have been able to do so in the past”, Branson said.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly has already broken several space records during his special year-long mission to the International Space Station (ISS). He holds the record of most number of spaceflight to the space station by a US astronaut. But, the commander of the habitable artificial satellite on the one year mission isn’t satisfied with this and decides to be part of Third Rock Radio of the NASA.

During the 120-minute web broadcast, the 51-year-old astronaut will appear as a guest host. The special online broadcast is scheduled to start at 5 pm on Thursday, as per a statement by NASA officials. During the program, Kelly will take people here on earth inside his extraordinary one-year mission aboard the space station in low earth orbit.

Wild salmons are quite different from their counterparts raised in hatcheries on farms, having as many as 736 genetic variations. Researchers at Oregon State University in collaboration with the Oregon Department of Fisheries and Wildlife conducted a study to throw light on these differences, which have long been theorized to exist.

During the study, published Wednesday in Nature Communications, the researchers found DNA evidence to corroborate their claim as they compared the offspring of first-generation salmon raised in a hatchery with those in the wild.

Different regions across the world are more and less sensitive to climate change. Now, scientists have used satellites for mapping which regions are most sensitive to climate change on a global scale.

In a news release, Alistair Seddon, one of the researchers, said that based on the collected satellite data, they can identify areas that in the last 14 years have shown high sensitivity to climate change.

The researchers have come to know about the climate drivers of vegetation productivity on monthly timescales, in the new study. This has specifically revealed the climate ecosystem among many ecosystems worldwide.