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May 31, 2012

Summer Solstice: 8 Sunny Ways to Celebrate

Wednesday, June 20, is the summer solstice, the official beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. It's also the longest day of the year by a fraction of a second. Ancient pagans once celebrated the summer solstice as a day of healing and fertility. But why leave all the fun...

May 31, 2012

Iceland Offers Rare Glimpse of Tectonic Meeting Place

On a recent sunny afternoon in Iceland, a group of scientists filed off a bus and took in a view of geological grandeur that, nearly everywhere else on Earth, would require a deep-diving submersible. They were standing in Thingvellir, a sweeping valley surrounded by majestic cliffs; the valley is one...

May 31, 2012

Dino Dealer Says He's Not a 'Smuggler,' Calls Fossil 'Political Trophy'

A Florida fossil dealer who prepared the skeleton of a tyrannosaur and attempted to sell it at auction, questions assertions that the fossils were taken illegally from Mongolia, and says the dispute over its ownership has brought financial ruin on his family. Imagine watching your house burn down with everything...

May 31, 2012

Tropical Storm Debby Forms in Gulf

Tropical Storm Debby, the fourth named storm of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, has formed in the Gulf of Mexico. Debby formed late yesterday afternoon when it was about 220 miles (335 kilometers) south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River. As of this morning, the storm was about 170...

May 31, 2012

Rescuing Marine Animals Brings Disease Risk, CDC Says

A dead harbor porpoise that washed up in Maine in January turned out to be carrying a disease-causing bacteria that could have sickened the people who handled the animal, according to a report today (June 28) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The case serves as a reminder...

Apr 30, 2012

Studying Climate Change's Impact on Organisms and Ecosystems

This ScienceLives article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. You have probably heard about the great scientific and social dilemma called global warming or climate change. The climate has changed many times in the past, but this time it is changing rapidly because of chemicals...

Apr 30, 2012

Rare Tyrannosaurus Skeleton to Be Auctioned

A nearly complete skeleton of a towering Tyrannosaurus bataar is set to go on auction on Sunday (May 20). The skeleton measures some 8-feet (2.4-meters) tall and 24-feet (7.3-meters) long. This is the first full Tyrannosaurus specimen to go on auction since Sue, a Tyrannosaurus rex, sold for $8.3 million...

Apr 30, 2012

Up For Auction: A Gallery of Natural History Specimens

Tyrannosaurus bataar (Image credit: Wynne Parry)This nearly complete Tyrannosaurus bataar is set to go on auction. It is one of many rare natural history specimens Heritage Auctions plans to sell on May 20. An Asian relative of the North American Tyrannosaurus rex, this specimen's estimated value is between $1.4 and...

Apr 30, 2012

Storm Chasers: Study Aims to Go Inside Tornadoes

Come tornado season, meteorologist Joshua Wurman spends his life on the road, zooming down highways in search of thunderstorms. This summer, he and his colleagues will turn nomad to launch a first-of-its-kind program aimed at exploring tornado winds — not from the outside but from deep within the tornado vortex....

Apr 30, 2012

Streetlights Lure Beasts of the Tiny Kind

Beware streetlights: A new study finds that well-lit areas of cities and towns are more likely to be home to predators and scavengers. Luckily for humans, these predators and scavengers are of the invertebrate variety, including predator beetles and other insects. The study is the first to find that light...

Apr 30, 2012

Africa's First Night Sky 'Reserve' Is Stargazing Haven

The NamibRand Nature Reserve, a private nature reserve in southern Namibia, has gotten the stamp of approval to become an official night sky reserve — a spot supremely suited for some of the best stargazing on Earth. The sprawling park, which covers more than 600 square miles (1,500 square kilometers)...

Apr 30, 2012

What If the World Stopped Turning?

In this weekly series, Life's Little Mysteries provides expert answers to challenging questions. Earth's spin controls our lives. As the planet dances around the sun, we sleep and wake by its daily pirouette. The rotisserie-style heating keeps Earth warm and sunny all the way around, and Earth's rotation also drives...

Apr 30, 2012

Lost Photographs Reveal History of Greenland's Glaciers

A set of 80-year-old photographs discovered in a basement archive reveals the remarkable sensitivity of Greenland's glaciers to climate change, according to a new study that one scientist called glaciological research with a splash of Indiana Jones. The research, published online May 27 in the journal Nature Geoscience, reveals a...

Mar 31, 2012

The Acid Test: Armor-Covered Plankton Adapt to Warming World

Tiny armor-covered creatures that float along with the ocean's currents may adapt and survive, if badly, as their watery world warms and becomes more acidic, a new study finds. Even so, the plankton may become flimsier and could turn into more of a french fry than a nutritious snack for...

Mar 31, 2012

Animation Captures Artful Swirl of Ocean Currents

A NASA animation shows how ocean currents silently snake and swirl around the planet over the course of two and a half years, and in doing so reveals how science makes art and vice versa. Fluid white lines represent currents, while the blue background is shaded to represent depth; the...