Planet Earth, features and articles | Educational Science

Mar 31, 2007

Top 10 Emerging Environmental Technologies

Top 10 Emerging Environmental Technologies The big Blue Marble, Earth, as seen from space. (Image credit: NASA)Wasteful energy policies, overuse of resources, water supply shortages, global climate change, and deforestation are just some of the issues experts say need to be addressed for humans to achieve sustainable living on this...

Mar 31, 2007

Fishy Rain to Fire Whirlwinds: The World's Weirdest Weather

When Mother Nature Throws a Curve Ball Aurora borealis in vicinity of Anchorage. (Image credit: Collection of Dr. Herbert Kroehl, NGDC. Available in the NOAA Photo Library.)As if tornadoes, hurricanes and blizzards weren't enough to keep us on our toes, Mother Nature occasionally surprises us with some truly odd weather...

Mar 31, 2007

Parasites Evolve from Bad to Good

Parasites are by definition bad for you. Some, such as malaria, can kill. Others, like microbes known as Wolbachia that are found in more than one-fifth of all insects, often make female hosts less fertile. Now scientists discover parasites can evolve surprisingly rapidly to become helpful instead of harmful. The...

Feb 28, 2007

Rain and Snow: Scientists Don't Know How Much Falls

With constant weather forecasts on TV and the Internet and all the precise storm totals that are reported, you might think scientists had a firm grasp of how much rain and snow falls around the planet. And you'd be wrong. It's amazing how much we don't know about global patterns...

Feb 28, 2007

Sea Squirt Regrows Entire Body from One Blood Vessel

Our closest invertebrate relative, the humble sea squirt, can regenerate its entire body from just tiny blood vessel fragments, scientists now report. The entire regeneration process, which in part resembles the early stages of embryonic development, can produce an adult sea squirt in as little as a week. Video: Skimming...

Feb 28, 2007

Old Earthquake Faults are Like Worn Brake Pads

Earthquake faults are worn smooth over time by friction, like the brake pads of an old car, according to a new study. The finding, detailed in the March issue of the journal Geology, suggests old and new faults might generate different types of earthquakes. Researchers were able to see the...

Feb 28, 2007

Ancient Furry Featherweight Mammal Discovered

Fossil remains have revealed a new svelte, squirrel-like mammal that scurried around in the wee hours of the night snagging insects and worms about 125 million years ago. Paleontologists unearthed the remains in the Yan Mountains in what is now the Hebei Province in China. A reconstruction of what the...

Feb 28, 2007

Scientists Make Ice Hotter Than Boiling Water

Scientists have turned water into ice in nanoseconds, which means really, really fast. That's not the most interesting part, though. The ice is hotter than boiling water. The experiment was done at the Sandia National Laboratories' huge Z machine, which generates temperatures hotter than the sun (setting a record here...

Feb 28, 2007

Sweet New Battery Runs on Sugar

In the near future, longer-lasting batteries could run on virtually anything sugary, including tree sap or flat soda pop. Scientists say these sweet new batteries could operate three to four times longer than the conventional lithium ion batteries commonly used in cell phones, laptops, MP3 players and many other portable...

Feb 28, 2007

Charge: Carbon Dioxide Hogs Global Warming Stage

Carbon dioxide hogs the spotlight on the stage of chemical culprits causing global warming, but other greenhouse gases deserve some blame, scientists say. “People need to be aware that it isn’t just CO2 that’s the problem,” said Keith Shine of the University of Reading in England, co-author of an article...

Jan 31, 2007

Image Gallery: Sunrise and Sunsets

Sunrise Over the Sea (Image credit: NOAA/John Bortniak)The Sun is the most prominent feature in our solar system. Even at 149,597,900 km. away from Earth, it is a spectacular view from sunrise to sunset. Red Sunset (Image credit: NOAA/John Bortniak)Stunning view of the Sun over the sea. Interesting Note: Generally...

Jan 31, 2007

Scientists Generate Electricity in Novel Way

Researchers say they have successfully generated electricity from heat by trapping organic molecules between metal nanoparticles, a finding that could yield cheap refrigerators, not to mention new, more efficient energy sources in general. Currently, about 90 percent of the world's electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels, which creates heat,...

Jan 31, 2007

Caution: Don't Eat Fish as Old as Your Grandmother

SAN FRANCISCO—Over-fishing facilitated by new technologies is threatening the long-term survival of deep-sea fish populations, a panel of experts said here today. Many of the fish living in the depths of the ocean take 30 or 40 years to reach maturity and breed, so when too many of them are...

Jan 31, 2007

Why Americans are Skeptical of Their Role in Global Warming

SAN FRANCISCO—While the evidence is clear that human-caused global warming is occurring and is a threat to many humans and other organisms on the planet, many Americans have been slow to buy the whole argument. Yesterday at its annual meeting here, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the...

Jan 31, 2007

First Humans: Time of Origin Pinned Down

The lineages of humans and chimpanzees, our closest relatives, diverged from one another about 4.1 million years ago, according to a new estimate that is said to be far more precise than previous ranges for this critical evolutionary moment. However, the claim is a bad match with previous estimates based...