Want to plant trees to offset fossil fuels? You'd need all of North and Central America, study finds
Planting trees has plenty of benefits, but this popular carbon-removal method alone can't possibly counteract the planet-warming emissions caused by the world's largest fossil-fuel companies. To do that, trees would have to cover the entire land mass of North and Central America, according to a study out Thursday.
Many respected climate scientists and institutions say removing carbon emissions — not just reducing them — is essential to tackling climate change. And trees remove carbon simply by 'breathing.' But crunching the numbers, researchers found that the trees' collective ability to remove carbon through photosynthesis can't stand up to the potential emissions from the fossil fuel reserves of the 200 largest oil, gas and coal fuel companies — there's not enough available land on Earth to feasibly accomplish that.
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Evidence is building that people were in the Americas 23,000 years ago
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The age of "rarely preserved" ancient human footprints dotting the landscape at White Sands National Park in New Mexico has been hotly debated for years. Now, a new study has found that these footprints really are around 23,000 years old — but the date isn't accepted by everyone. If the 23,000-year-old age is accurate, it would mean that humans were in North America around the peak of the Last Glacial Maximum, the coldest part of the last ice age — far earlier than archaeologists had previously thought. In the new study, the researchers radiocarbon-dated organic sediment in core samples from the site, which provided dates for the footprints as well as for the entire paleolake and river system that once existed there. The analysis was done in labs unaffiliated with earlier studies. "Our data supports the original data" that dated the site to 23,000 years ago, study first author Vance Holliday, a professor emeritus of anthropology and geosciences at the University of Arizona, told Live Science. "Plus, we now have an idea of what the landscape was like when people were out there." The saga of dating the roughly 60 footprints goes back to 2021, when a study reported the discovery of the footprints and dated them to between 21,000 and 23,000 years old. However, a 2022 rebuttal took issue with using the seeds of ditch grass (Ruppia cirrhosa), a water plant, for radiocarbon dating. Water plants get their carbon from underwater, which can be much older than carbon from the atmosphere. This can skew the levels of carbon 14, a radioactive version of the atom, in the samples, making the plants appear older than they really are. So, in 2023, researchers redated the site with optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating, which revealed when quartz or feldspar grains in the tracks were last exposed to sunlight, and radiocarbon dating of ancient conifer pollen from the footprint layer — which proved to be another way to use carbon 14 without relying on water plants. Related: The 1st Americans were not who we thought they were Again, the scientists found that the footprints were 21,000 to 23,000 years old. While some scientists called the results "very convincing," others, including those who wrote the 2022 rebuttal, were still wary of the results, saying the samples weren't taken from the right layer. Now, the new study offers more evidence that the footprints date to the Last Glacial Maximum, when the area was a vast wetland inhabited by ice age animals. The footprints likely came from hunter-gatherers who arrived in the Americas after traveling along the Bering Land Bridge, which connected Siberia and Alaska when sea levels were lower, research suggests. For decades, researchers thought the earliest Americans were the Clovis, who lived in North America around 13,000 years ago. But the footprint discovery and others are slowly revealing that Indigenous people reached the Americas much earlier than thought. Holliday has been working at White Sands since 2012, and some of his data was used in the original 2021 study, making him a co-author, he noted. This time, Holliday and his colleagues radiocarbon-dated mud cores from the site. They found that the trackways date to between 20,700 and 22,400 years ago, which closely matches the original dates. When added together, there are now a total of 55 radiocarbon-dated samples of mud, seeds and pollen from the footprint layer that support the 21,000- to 23,000-year-old dates, Holliday said. Ancient human footprints are "so rarely preserved," he said. And now, scientists have "dates on three different materials that all coincide" on a time for these tracks. "You get to the point where it's really hard to explain all this away," he said in a statement. "As I say in the paper, it would be serendipity in the extreme to have all these dates giving you a consistent picture that's in error." However, more work is needed to securely date the footprints at White Sands, said Michael Waters, director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University, who was not involved with the study. "Even with these new data, I remain concerned about the radiocarbon ages generated to date the footprints at White Sands," Waters told Live Science in an email. He reiterated the known Ruppia issue, saying the radiocarbon dates "are likely too old" because the plant got its carbon from the water. In fact, the same underwater carbon issues could have also affected the sediments dated in the new study, he said. "The new ages on bulk organic sediments presented in this paper are interesting, but it is unclear about the origin of the carbon being dated," Waters said. RELATED STORIES —13 of the oldest archaeological sites in the Americas —Ice age children frolicked in 'giant sloth puddles' 11,000 years ago, footprints reveal —How did humans first reach the Americas? Furthermore, Holliday and his colleagues acknowledge that their study doesn't address another hot-button issue: Where are the artifacts or settlements from these ice age people at White Sands? That question remains to be answered, Holliday said. But it's unlikely that hunter-gatherers would have left behind valuable items in the short time it took them to trek around the wetland. "These people live by their artifacts, and they were far away from where they can get replacement material," Holliday said in the statement. "They're not just randomly dropping artifacts. It's not logical to me that you're going to see a debris field."
Yahoo
an hour ago
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Is Increased Focus on Hypersonic Tech Opening New Doors for Rocket Lab?
In recent years, the rapid development and adoption of hypersonic technology across industries, from aerospace and defense to space exploration, have opened new growth avenues for Rocket Lab USA RKLB, a key player in hypersonic testing with its HASTE launch system. With commercial firms and government agencies ramping up investments in advanced hypersonic systems to bolster space access and national security, RKLB remains well-positioned to capitalize on this accelerating technological shift. Notably, Rocket Lab's HAEST (Hypersonic accelerator suborbital test electron) is a suborbital testbed launch vehicle that provides reliable, high-cadence flight test opportunities needed to boost hypersonic and suborbital system technology development. In April 2025, Rocket Lab secured a contract from Kratos Defense to conduct a full-scale hypersonic test flight for the U.S. Department of Defense. Additionally, RKLB's HASTE platform has been included in two major defense frameworks — the $46 billion Enterprise-Wide Agile Acquisition Contract with the U.S. Air Force and the UK Ministry of Defence's £1 billion ($1.3 billion) Hypersonic Technologies & Capability Development Framework. These programs allow Rocket Lab to compete for launch and engineering services in advancing hypersonic technologies. The inclusion across both U.S. and UK initiatives underscores the growing demand for HASTE in defense testing and is likely to significantly boost Rocket Lab's future revenue stream. While HASTE has not yet won any purely commercial contract, its demonstrated reliability and cadence in the defense sector may soon open doors to non-defense payload opportunities. As increased investment in hypersonic technology has become a global trend lately, with nations like the United States, the United Kingdom, and China significantly boosting funding for research and development in this tech, other stocks like Lockheed Martin LMT and RTX Corp. RTX are also indulging in advanced hypersonic technology developments. Notably, Lockheed Martin has been developing highly advanced hypersonic technology for the past 60 years. To this end, the company is currently working in partnership with DARPA, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Army, and the U.S. Navy to transition hypersonic concepts to operational reality. LMT's Conventional Prompt Strike is a hypersonic boost-glide missile currently under development, which boasts the capability to provide longer range, shorter flight times, and high survivability against enemy defenses. On the other hand, RTX is working across its business and domains to move advanced hypersonic capabilities from creation to testing and into the hands of warfighters at top speed. RTX is currently involved in the design of the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, which leverages Northrop Grumman's scramjet propulsion to travel at more than five times the speed of sound and cover vast distances in minutes. The U.S. Air Force currently expects this missile to be operational by fiscal 2027. Shares of RKLB have surged 467.2% in the past year compared with the industry's 40.9% growth. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research The company's shares are trading at a premium on a relative basis, with its forward 12-month Price/Sales being 17.85X compared with its industry's average of 9.65X. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research The Zacks Consensus Estimate for RKLB's 2025 and 2026 earnings has improved over the past 60 days. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research RKLB currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) : Free Stock Analysis Report RTX Corporation (RTX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Rocket Lab Corporation (RKLB) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research Sign in to access your portfolio
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4 hours ago
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Major Investment to Transform Mental Health Research
OTTAWA, ON, June 19, 2025 /CNW/ - Brain Canada is proud to announce its support for the development of the Brain Imaging Centre Advanced Multi-modal neuroimaging Platform for Psychiatry (BIC-AMPP) at The Royal Ottawa Health Care Group's BIC. Through its 2024 Platform Support Grants (PSG) program, Brain Canada is partnering with The Royal to invest $1.9 million in this groundbreaking initiative, which will integrate multiple brain imaging modalities to revolutionize mental health research. Led by Dr. Georg Northoff of the University of Ottawa's Institute of Mental Health Research (IMHR), the BIC-AMPP project brings together experts in MRI, PET, and EEG imaging to unlock the complex biochemical, structural, and functional changes associated with mental illness. This rare and technically advanced platform will allow researchers to simultaneously capture a more thorough and integrated picture of the brain, laying the groundwork for improved diagnostics and personalized treatments. "This investment represents a step-change in the capabilities of our team and our infrastructure, positioning Canada at the forefront of brain imaging research for mental health," said Dr. Florence Dzierszinski, President and CEO of the IMHR and vice-president of research at The Royal. "Simultaneous tri-modal imaging is only being actively pursued in two other centres in the world, yet offers endless possibilities with the right technology and skills." "This platform will enable us to link brain structure, chemistry, and function in real time," said Katie Dinelle, Administrative Director of The Royal's Clinical Brain Research Centre. "It will give us a more complete picture of mental illness and open new doors for discovery." "Mental health research has long been limited by our inability to fully understand how the brain's structure, chemistry, and function interact," said Dr. Georg Northoff, lead Principal Investigator for the BIC-AMPP. "By integrating multiple imaging modalities in a single platform, we can finally start to connect the dots. This will help us move beyond fragmented insights toward a more holistic understanding of mental illness—one that can inform better, more personalized treatments." The BIC-AMPP platform is designed to foster collaboration among scientists and provide unprecedented access to simultaneous multi-modal imaging, positioning The Royal as a hub for innovation and knowledge mobilization. Supported by expert scientific staff and a secure, open-access data-sharing infrastructure, the platform will accelerate discoveries that improve mental health care in Canada and beyond. Dr. Viviane Poupon, President and CEO of Brain Canada, emphasized the importance of this initiative: "The BIC-AMPP represents a major leap forward in our ability to understand mental illness and develop personalized treatments. Brain Canada is proud to support this visionary platform, which underlines Canada's position as a global leader in brain imaging research." Brain Canada is contributing over $18 million in this year's PSG program through the Canada Brain Research Fund (CBRF), funded by Health Canada, as well as matching donations from sponsors for a total investment of $36.8 million. By enabling access to cutting-edge tools and specialized skills beyond the reach of individual researchers, the PSG program plays a vital role in strengthening the research landscape. "Research and innovation deepen our understanding, unlock new treatments, and improve quality of life for people affected by mental illness," said the Honourable Marjorie Michel, Minister of Health. "Through the Canada Brain Research Fund, the Government of Canada is pleased to support this initiative, bringing together experts from different fields to accelerate discoveries that will improve mental health care for Canadians." Over the coming weeks, Brain Canada will unveil the full list of 14 research platforms selected to receive PSG funding. The total investment of $36.8 million represents a major step forward in Canada's ability to support cutting-edge brain research and improve outcomes for people living with brain-disorders. For more information, please visit The Royal is one of Canada's foremost mental health care, teaching, and research hospitals and is home to the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre, the Brockville Mental Health Centre, the University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health and the Royal Ottawa Foundation for Mental Health. Our mission is to transform the lives of people living with complex mental illness and addictions. Learn more about The Royal, our services, and our impact. SOURCE Brain Canada View original content to download multimedia:
