August 2026
All columns and Brief analyses.
10 results
The latitudes where the glacier map is weakest
A new machine-learning model has mapped the thickness of every glacier outside the polar ice sheets and put the total at 150,000 cubic kilometres. Confidence in that map varies with place: it is firmest in the high Arctic and weakest in the mountain basins where glacier water is actually drunk.
The nucleus was never measured directly; an atomic calculation supplied the last step
A team split two lines of the fermium atom with lasers in Mainz and read a strongly elongated nucleus out of them. The two numbers that carry the result, a magnetic moment of minus 0.75 and a quadrupole moment of plus 5.84, do not come from the splitting alone. Between the measured lines and the nucleus sits an atomic calculation, and the agreement with nuclear theory tests both at once.
The refineries ran above 100 per cent and product imports fell 40 per cent
Petrobras averaged a refinery utilisation factor of 101.2 per cent over the quarter. In the same quarter product imports fell 40 per cent and crude exports approached 1 million barrels a day. At the head of that chain sits the P-79.
The same counterparty is both lender and buyer in the minerals push
In the mining commitments the White House listed on Friday, the institutions putting up the money and the institutions standing behind the eventual demand both sit inside the state. That concentration means these projects stay standing only while one party stays committed.
What does a strike that reaches Yekaterinburg measure?
Kyiv said it struck a Wildberries logistics facility in Yekaterinburg, about 2,000 km from the front line. That distance measures reach and sustainment; it does not measure the target's military worth. On the same days the losses reported along the line itself each arrive under the name of a separate authority.
When should a tutor hold back?
A new evaluation from Ai2 tests models at the critical moments of real tutoring transcripts. What is interesting is how the scores move with the prompt.
Which authority actually opens the strait?
Iran's foreign ministry calls the route arrangement mediated by Oman very close to done. The Revolutionary Guard says the reopening runs on a mechanism of its own. Saturday's strike on an ADNOC tanker shows which of the two currently governs the water.
Which borrower took the credit this quarter?
Commercial and industrial loans grew at an annual rate of 14.2 per cent in the second quarter. Over the same quarter household consumer credit grew 2.6 per cent. Two releases describe two different customers of the same banking system.
Who is counting the third-party agent?
A new array in GitHub's usage metrics shows which third-party agent started how much work inside an organisation. The limit of what it shows matters as much as what it shows.
Who was buying Berkshire at these prices? Berkshire.
Net earnings more than doubled to 25,667 million dollars, and investment gains alone came to 12,684 million dollars. The figure that carries a decision is smaller: repurchases of 4.5 billion dollars in the quarter, out of about 4.8 billion dollars for the first six months.