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Seaweed farming could expand to meet up to 15 per cent of the food eaten by people. Plus: see the world through the eyes of an animal.

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Seaweed saviour

If nuclear war broke out, burning cities and forests could emit 150 million tonnes of soot, dimming the sun. Temperatures could drop by 9°C (16°F) and global food production from agriculture could decline 90 per cent in the first year of nuclear winter. Now, Florian Ulrich Jehn at the Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters and his colleagues have modelled how well seaweed would fare around the world under this scenario, finding it would still be able to grow up to 13 per cent per day in places such as the east Pacific. Within nine to 14 months, seaweed cultivated on ropes between buoys could meet up to 15 per cent of the food eaten by people. Read more

What animals see

Most animals see the world differently from people – and now it’s a little easier to take a look through their eyes. A system that uses two cameras and some software can produce videos that show how a scene appears to different species. “We went outdoors to film the birds in the trees, and only then it sunk in how bright the skies are in UV colours,” says Vera Vasas at Queen Mary University of London. “The sky is a different colour to most of the animals than it is to us.” Read more

The breathtaking advances in artificial intelligence and a growing urgency to find climate change solutions are set to dominate headlines in 2024. Stay ahead with New Scientist for just $1.50 a week and let us guide you through the coming year. 

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• Capturing CO2: Huge amounts of rock dust are being spread across farms to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

   

• Type 2 diabetes: It’s much harder to reverse the condition than clinical trials suggest.

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The recent discovery of our 44th blood group may surprise anyone who thought there were only a handful. But more and more evidence points to there being many different types of human blood - and how yours might be influencing your health. For instance, people with blood group O have a massive advantage for survival against life-threatening malaria, whereas those who aren't O have a higher risk of heart disease. Find out more about what your blood group says about you and your future health - and why our new understanding is a game-changer for blood transfusions and personalised medicine. Read more

Wednesday 21 February 2024 | 7pm EST

Learn all about the cosmic cocktail, including evidence for the existence of dark matter in galaxies. 

Rachel Bronson at The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on how wars and the climate crisis have kept the Doomsday Clock, a symbolic countdown to our extinction, at just 90 seconds to midnight, reported by The Guardian.

That's all for today. Thanks for reading.

Alexandra Thompson

Assistant news editor, New Scientist
Email me at newsletter@newscientist.com

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