For hundreds of years, people have spun stories of ghostly balls of blue light floating above marshes and swamps, called will-o’-the-wisps or “foolish fire.” They were believed to be ghosts, spirits or tricksters luring people off the right path. Now, a new lab study has tried to determine whether those mysterious embers might actually all begin life as feeble flares, being microlightning that ignites methane gas rising upward from deteriorating plants. This new concept sheds light on how a ‘flame’ can exist where there’s no obvious source of fire.Scientists Uncover Microlightning as the Source of Ghostly Blue Marsh LightsAs per Science.org, the phenomenon occurs where wetlands generate methane from decomposing vegetation. That gas rises through water and emerges as microbubbles at the surface. Each one can bear an electric charge, carrying some positive, some negative.When oppositely charged bubbles come close to each other, a small electric discharge, a microspark, can exactly leap between them. That spark gives methane a faint glow and produces the eerie blue light we see in the legends.The Spark Mechanism: Scientists Link Ghostly Blue Marsh Lights to MicrolightningThe scientists made a tank mimicking swamp conditions, filled with water and methane bubbles. With high-speed video and sensitive light detectors, they caught extremely short blips between bubbles in dense bubbling. These flashes are the microlightning events that can trigger methane oxidation. Experiments demonstrate that the system operates without requiring extreme heat or external ignition.Beyond the GlowThis research not only illuminates folklore but hints at a more general principle: under the right circumstances, electrical charges at interfaces (like where gas and water meet) can drive chemical reactions naturally. If that’s the case, then microlightning might also be participating in other natural venues, not only marshes.
Source: gadgets360.com
Haiku and SerenityOS aren’t daily drivers, but they’re the best weekend projects
Most people stick to Windows, macOS, or Linux because they get the job done with minimal hassle. They support a vast range of hardware, have robust ecosystems, and are built for day-to-day use. That doesn’t mean they’re the only operating systems worth trying. Away from the mainstream, projects like Haiku and SerenityOS demonstrate that there’s still plenty of room for alternative visions of how … [Read More...]
I clustered budget-friendly devices into a Proxmox HA lab, and it's more useful than I thought
Between its support for LXCs, community scripts, and simple management UI, Proxmox has a ton of features to make home labs more accessible to beginners and casual users. Unlike its rivals (especially ESXi), Proxmox requires minimal CPU, memory, and storage provisions. It also works right-out-of-the-box with most hardware, making it a terrific option for budget-friendly setups. However, despite its … [Read More...]
If you just need a laptop for the basics, this one at $349 is an absolute steal
This laptop is perfect for someone that's looking for something new on a budget. The Asus Vivobook 15 packs power with an Intel Core 5 processor, and also comes with a good amount of RAM and storage. But what makes it stand out right now is that steep discount from Walmart. For a limited time, you can score this laptop for $349, which is an absolute steal. Source: xda-developers.com … [Read More...]
The best Prime Day SSD deals: Save on gear from Samsung, Crucial, Seagate and others
If you've never considered adding a solid-state drive (SSD) to your PC or game console, October Prime Day is a great time to start — and if you already know what a difference extra storage can make, October Prime Day is the perfect time to outfit your build. For those who haven't heard of SSDs, they're physical upgrades that stack on top of a device's storage to make more files accessible at once. … [Read More...]
3 mistakes that ruined my first attempt at building a PC
Building your very first PC is never really easy, no matter how many tutorials you've watched on YouTube or parts you've memorized. In fact, it took me a couple of weeks just to properly research and source the parts for my first gaming rig back in 2012. By the time everything arrived, I thought the hard part was behind me. I knew that putting the parts together as a beginner would be … [Read More...]
The Reinforcement Gap — or why some AI skills improve faster than others
AI coding tools are getting better fast. If you don’t work in code, it can be hard to notice how much things are changing, but GPT-5 and Gemini 2.5 have made a whole new set of developer tricks possible to automate, and last week Sonnet 2.4 did it again. At the same time, other skills are progressing more slowly. If you are using AI to write emails, you’re probably getting the same … [Read More...]
The best Amazon Prime Day kitchen deals: Get up to 50 percent off our favorite air fryers and more
Whether you call it October Prime Day or use Amazon’s official title, Prime Big Deal days, the sale represents some of the lowest prices of the year in nearly every department — and that includes kitchen gear. We have a slew of food enthusiasts on staff who have tested plenty of excellent kitchen tech, as seen in our reviews and buying guides. We’ve covered everything from air fryers to sous vide … [Read More...]
Astronomers Spot Rapidly Growing Rogue Planet Feeding on Surrounding Gas
Astronomers have identified the fastest-growing planet ever observed, a free-floating world known as Cha 1107-7626. Located about 620 light-years from Earth, it is between five and ten times the mass of Jupiter. The rogue planet has been detected, and it has entered a sudden growth burst in recent months. It is swallowing down six billion tonnes of gas every second, making it the hungriest … [Read More...]
4 reasons why installing HACS was the best decision for my Home Assistant instance
While the Home Assistant Community Store (HACS) is considered by some people to be one of the best tools you can use with Home Assistant, I only stumbled upon it a while after setting up my own server. I'm still very early in my Home Assistant journey, but as I've gotten to know the platform better, I've realized that installing HACS was the best decision for my instance. Source: … [Read More...]
The Young Minds App wants to protect and educate children online and will show its tech at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025
An app called Young Minds wants to give parents control over what their kids do on the internet, while also protecting their children’s privacy and teaching them good online habits. The startup was founded by Nino Dvalidze (pictured), an entrepreneur and a mother of two from the United Kingdom. Dvalidze told TechCrunch that the idea for Young Minds came from conversations with fellow … [Read More...]