Planet Earth, features and articles | Educational Science

Jul 31, 2013

One-Shot Volcanoes Can Be Explosively Dangerous

Volcanoes with multiple eruptions get all the glory, earning top spots on lists of the world's most dangerous and most famous fiery mountains. But monogenetic volcanoes, which erupt briefly and then die, are more common on land than volcanoes such as Mount St. Helens and Mt. Etna, which periodically outpour...

Jul 31, 2013

Giant Sequoias at Risk from California Fire

A raging forest fire sweeping toward Yosemite National Park in California may threaten giant sequoia trees. The massive Rim Fire is an intense crown fire, meaning it is burning and leaping in the tops of trees instead of crawling along the ground. The National Park Service has closed two of...

Jul 31, 2013

Atmospheric Pressure: Definition & Facts

Books on meteorology often describe Earth's atmosphere as a huge ocean of air in which we all live. Diagrams depict our home planet as being surrounded by a great sea of atmosphere, a few hundred miles high, divided into several different layers. And yet, that part of our atmosphere that...

Jun 30, 2013

Solar Plane Makes Dramatic Landing in NYC to End Cross-Country Flight

NEW YORK — A solar-powered airplane that was set to complete an historic cross-country journey across the United States this weekend made a dramatic early landing late Saturday (July 6), when damage was observed on one of the aircraft's wings. The plane, called Solar Impulse, touched down here at John...

Jun 30, 2013

55-Carat Diamond Dazzles at NYC Museum

The dazzling 55-carat Kimberley Diamond makes its debut at the American Museum of Natural History in New York Thursday (July 11). The champagne-colored cape diamond was originally cut from a 490-carat stone found sometime before 1868 in the Kimberley Mine in South Africa. (A carat is a unit of weight...

Jun 30, 2013

If A Network Is Broken, Break It More

(ISNS) -- From the World Wide Web to the electrical grid, networks are notoriously difficult to control. A disturbance to just one part of the system can spread quickly and affect the whole thing. But this problem is its own solution: by selectively damaging part of the network, we can...

Jun 30, 2013

What the Heck Is ... Heat Stroke?

Dr. Eric Adkins is the Medical Director of the Emergency Medicine Department at The Ohio State University (OSU) Wexner Medical Center. He contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Heat stroke is the most severe form of heat illness and is a life-threatening emergency. The elderly, infants,...

Jun 30, 2013

Earthquakes Burp Up Methane Bubbles

The long-suspected link between earthquakes and underwater methane bursts has finally been confirmed, reports a study published today (July 28) in the journal Nature Geoscience. Though the temblor wasn't caught in the act, the strong shaking left clues in methane-rich mud and sand offshore of Pakistan, where two of Earth's...

May 31, 2013

Scaling Up Solar Power May Demand Updated Electric Grid

(ISNS) -- One hour's worth of global sunlight would be enough to power the world's energy requirements for an entire year. But even if humankind can someday harness solar power to meet global energy needs, there is another problem engineers will have to tackle: integrating solar power with existing electrical...

May 31, 2013

Lost World Locked in Stone at Fossil Lake

With just two inhabited buildings and a population of five, Fossil, Wyo., is all but a ghost town today. But as far as ghosts go, the ones at Fossil are pretty remarkable — 50-million-year-old monitor lizards, stingrays and freakishly long-tailed turtles among them. Fossil showed promise of becoming a train-stop...

May 31, 2013

Image of the Day: May 2013

Rainbow Soars Over Black Canyon (Image credit: U.S. Department of the Interior)Black Canyon, of the Gunnison National Park, has some of the steepest cliffs, oldest rocks and craggiest spires in North America. It also has some of the most spectacular rainbows, as the above image shows. Over two million years,...

May 31, 2013

Precision Farming Gains Global Foothold (Op-Ed)

Lloyd Treinish leads the environmental science team in the Industry Solutions Department at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. A co-developer of IBM's Deep Thunder precision agriculture system, he contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Our world is getting larger … and hungrier … with...

May 31, 2013

Another 1930s Dust Bowl Drought Possible This Century (Op-Ed)

Marlene Cimons of Climate Nexus contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Drought has beset the Earth since before farming began. In developing nations, it brings suffering and death. In wealthier countries like the United States, it brings economic devastation when crops wither and die, and forests...

May 31, 2013

Voices: Experts & Analysts Weigh in on Obama's Climate Change Plan

President Barack Obama announced a sweeping plan to tackle climate change today (June 25), outlining measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote the development of clean energy technologies. The new strategy, which was revealed before an audience at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., identifies three key objectives: cut the...

May 31, 2013

Hot Enough to Fry an Egg on the Sidewalk This Weekend?

PHOENIX, AZ — It’s so hot today … Actually, it’s only 112 degrees Fahrenheit here today, nothing compared to Death Valley, Ca., which the National Weather Service says will see high temperatures near 130 through Monday. The hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth was 134 degrees Fahrenheit (56.7 degrees Celsius)...