Planet Earth, features and articles | Educational Science

May 31, 2006

Cell Phones Increase Risk of Death By Lightning, Doctors Claim

If you're chatting on a cell phone during a lightning storm, dropped calls could be the least of your worries. According to a letter published in this week's issue of the British Medical Journal, people who talk on, or even just carry, mobile phones outdoors during storms are more likely...

May 31, 2006

No Quick Fix for the Ozone Hole

The hole in Earth's protective ozone layer won't repair itself until about two decades later than had been expected, scientists announced yesterday. The ozone layer blocks more than 90 percent of the sun's ultraviolet radiation, helping to make life as we know it on Earth possible. For many decades, ozone...

Apr 30, 2006

Earlier Spring Starves Migratory Birds

Trees are blossoming, plants are flowering, and temperatures are warming up. Spring is finally is here and everyone seems happier. Well, except for the pied flycatcher, a small bird that can't schedule its breeding time to cope with the earlier spring season caused by climate change. The pied flycatcher winters...

Apr 30, 2006

Climate Change, Not Humans, Killed Large Beasts

Failure to adapt to a drastically changing climate, and not overkill by humans or disease, most likely lead to the extinction of mammoths, wild horses, and other large mammals after the last Ice Age, a new study suggests. But this fresh take on an old argument might not be the...

Apr 30, 2006

New Clues to the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Weather experts have hindcasted the storm that sank the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior during a November 1975 storm. Hurricane-force gusts and waves coming from an unexpected angle likely contributed to the disaster immortalized by Gordon Lightfoot in the song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, researchers say. All 29...

Mar 31, 2006

Scientists Find the Elusive Gabbro

It's not quite the center of the Earth, but scientists have drilled nearly a mile into the planet's ocean crust, retrieving samples from the pristine layer of igneous rock for the first time. Scientists onboard the drilling ship JOIDES Resolution in the Pacific Ocean, about 500 miles west of Costa...

Mar 31, 2006

Thoughts of Mortality Turn Pacifists into Killers

Young adults in Iran tend to support martyrdom more when they are thinking about their own mortality. Likewise, Americans are more in favor of extreme military intervention when they are contemplating their own deaths. In a new study, 40 Iranian college students heard statements supporting and opposing suicide bombing attacks...

Mar 31, 2006

Olive Branch Buried by Volcano Revises History

The discovery of an olive branch buried in volcanic ash for centuries is helping scientists pinpoint the date of one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in the last 10,000 years. The finding could force archeologists to revise historical timelines for civilizations inhabiting the Mediterranean basin during the Late Bronze...

Feb 28, 2006

Why We Have Sex: It's Cleansing

Scientists have long wondered why organisms bother with sexual reproduction. It makes a whole lot more sense to just have a bunch of females that can clone themselves, which is how asexual reproduction works. Turns out sex might have evolved as a way to concentrate lots of harmful mutations into...

Feb 28, 2006

Antarctica Losing Ice, Contrary to Expectations

Joining the growing list of places on this planet that are melting, Antarctica is losing some 36 cubic miles of ice every year, scientists said today. For comparison, Los Angeles consumes roughly 1 cubic mile of fresh water a year. The south polar region holds 90 percent of Earth’s ice...

Feb 28, 2006

Back From the Dead: Living Fossil Identified

A few months after researchers on one team thought they had discovered a new family of rodent, another group snatched their glory by identifying the critter as a member of a family thought long extinct. Last year scientists described the body of a squirrel-like rodent found for sale in a...

Feb 28, 2006

Rain in Phoenix Ends Record Dry Spell at 143 Days

PHOENIX—A good old-fashion downpour in the predawn here today ended a record string of 143 days without rain. The previous record was 101 days, set in January 2000. NOAA reported light rain around dawn and a 0.26-inch accumulation at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, the official recording station. Elsewhere around the...

Feb 28, 2006

New Type of Volcanic Hazard Discovered

Scientists have uncovered a new type of worrisome volcanic eruption after studying images of an odd-shaped ash plume that came unexpectedly crashing down. Typically, the gentlest part of a volcanic eruption is the gradual falling of ash. But the plummeting plume of an eruption in South America four years ago...

Feb 28, 2006

'Perfect Disasters' Nearly Perfect

James Abbot is not having a good day. A massive thunderstorm called a supercell is heading towards Dallas, Texas and Abbot, a member of the city's Emergency Management team, has just made the difficult decision to sound the city's tornado-warning sirens. The supercell spawns several small tornadoes, and then after...

Feb 28, 2006

Polar Meltdown Near: Seas Could Rise 3 Feet Per Century

About 130,000 years ago, an ice age ended and there was a period of few centuries before the next one began. During this lull, Earth's temperature warmed, glaciers retreated and ice sheets melted. Sea levels rose by up to 20 feet. Scientists warn that this could happen again—and soon. But...