Planet Earth, features and articles | Educational Science

Sep 30, 2007

Prehistoric Humans Hit the Beach During Cold Spell

A band of early Homo sapiens survived an ancient bout of global cooling by hunkering down in a cave on the coast of South Africa and living off shellfish plucked from nearby tide pools, a new study suggests. The cave overlooks the Indian Ocean, and inside it, scientists have found...

Sep 30, 2007

Is Global Warming Fueling Forest Fires?

Wildfires that raged in Southern California this week and forced more than half a million people from their homes spread so rapidly in part because the landscape was parched by a hot, dry summer—conditions that may become more of a norm for the Southwest, thanks to global warming. But can...

Sep 30, 2007

Some Neanderthals Were Redheads

Like bringing to life a naked mannequin, scientists are using genetic and physical evidence found in fossils to clothe the skeletal remains of our closest hominid relatives, the Neanderthals. More and more, they seem familiar. Bones from two Neanderthals yielded valuable genetic information that adds red hair, light skin and...

Sep 30, 2007

UN Expert Calls Biofuel 'Crime Against Humanity'

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- A U.N. expert on Friday called the growing practice of converting food crops into biofuel a crime against humanity,'' saying it is creating food shortages and price jumps that cause millions of poor people to go hungry. Jean Ziegler, who has been the United Nations' independent...

Sep 30, 2007

Survey: Europeans More 'Green' than Americans

Europeans are more likely to go green than their American counterparts, a new survey shows. The European Lifestyles Of Health And Sustainability (LOHAS) study found that Europeans are 50 percent more likely than U.S. residents to buy green products, from hybrid cars to organic food and personal care products. The...

Sep 30, 2007

Wildfires Release as Much CO2 as Cars

Large wildfires in the western United States can pump as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in just a few weeks as cars do in those areas in an entire year, a new study suggests. As forest fires devour trees and other plants, they release the carbon stored in the...

Aug 31, 2007

Hurricanes at Eye Level: Wind, waves and destruction

Uproar (Image credit: Image Courtesy of NOAA Photo Library)The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to Nov. 30. ...Waves striking seawall give appearance of geysers erupting. Photo was taken in 1938 off of the New England coast. Waves of Destruction (Image credit: Image Courtesy of NOAA Photo Library)Sixteen feet of...

Aug 31, 2007

Adventurer Steve Fossett's Plane Missing

More than a dozen aircraft are searching for record-holding aviator Steve Fossett, missing since Monday when the millionaire took off in a light aircraft from a private airstrip in Nevada on a flight that was to last no more than three hours. Fossett took off at 9 a.m. PST from...

Aug 31, 2007

Rescuers Put Hope in Fossett's Nerves of Steel

MINDEN, Nevada (AP)—Rescuers aided by calm winds and clear skies were scanning a vast swath of rugged terrain in California and Nevada on Wednesday in their search for adventurer Steve Fossett, whose small plane has been missing for two days. Friends and relatives, meanwhile, were counting on his grit and...

Aug 31, 2007

Scientists Give Odds on Arctic Sea Ice Shrinkage

Researchers are forecasting a one-in-three chance that the extent of sea ice covering the Arctic will reach an all-time record low this year. Sea ice forms as ocean water freezes. Sea-ice extent is the area of an ocean covered by at least 15 percent ice. Arctic sea ice has been...

Aug 31, 2007

First 'Modern' Ears Found

The first backboned creatures to conquer land were largely deaf, lacking anatomical features whereby tiny bones help transmit airborne sounds into the inner ear. Advanced hearing was assumed to have evolved shortly before the emergence of dinosaurs, roughly 200 million years ago. Now, scientists have found that weasel-sized prehistoric reptiles...

Aug 31, 2007

Arctic Meltdown Opens Fabled Northwest Passage

A fabled sea route above North America linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans has become a reality thanks to global warming. Scientists have confirmed that in August, Arctic sea ice shrank to its lowest levels since satellite measurements began monitoring the region nearly 30 years ago. One consequence of this...

Aug 31, 2007

Greenland Snowmelt This Year Could Cover U.S. Twice

The amount of ice that has melted away from Greenland's ice sheet this year could cover an area twice the size of the United States, with more melting occurring in 2007 than the average going back to 1988, a new study finds. Using satellite data, NASA scientists compared the average...

Aug 31, 2007

Global Warming Fix: Help the Earth Cure Itself

Add a new one to the list of somewhat zany suggestions to counteract global warming, only this time the idea comes from the Gaia guy. James Lovelock, environmentalist, futurologist and creator of the Gaia hypothesis and its view of Earth as a huge organism, proposes that we help the planet...

Jul 31, 2007

In Surprise, Major Earthquake Fault Slips Backward

A vast chunk of Earth sliding under Mexico has surprisingly reversed direction, puzzling geologists and leaving them wondering whether the ground might be poised to pummel Mexico City with a devastating earthquake. The offshore tectonic plate had been sliding toward Mexico City at a rate of 1 inch per year,...