Two of the UK's water companies are still using dowsing to find leaks

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 Does dowsing really help you find water?

From the archives: Does dowsing really help you find water?

The ancient practice of water divining is still used across the world to locate water sources. Forty years ago, we wondered whether it might actually work

For the first time ever recorded, in the late summer of 2021, rain fell on the high central region of the Greenland ice sheet. This extraordinary event was followed by the surface snow and ice rapidly melting. Researchers discovered that it wasn?t the rain that caused the melt, it was unusually warm ?atmospheric rivers? that swept along Greenland, bringing potent melt conditions when the melt season would normally be drawing to a close. Thanks to detailed measurements from the network of automatic weather stations on the ice set up by the Department of Glaciology and Climate at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland coupled with measurements from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellites in space helped researchers understand the exact processes and dynamics of how the ice melts.

Feedback loop in Greenland amplified ice melt from warm weather

Last August, rain fell for the first time at the peak of Greenland’s ice sheet, but this had little impact on ice melt compared with other effects

A picture of human skin in close-up

Artificial skin can detect nearby objects without even touching them

A skin crafted from two layers of electrodes around an ion-infused sponge is better at sensing than human skin because it can detect nearby objects and what they are made of

GPABM3 Mother and child lighting and holding a candle in Orthodox Church

Does belief confer an evolutionary advantage?

The ability of humans to believe in many things (often with no solid evidence) can be beneficial in many ways, say our readers, even if it can lead us astray

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