Planet Earth, features and articles | Educational Science

Feb 28, 2017

What Your Nose Knows About Human Evolution

They can be bulbous, pert or pointy, but why do noses look so different from one another? It could have something to do with how humans evolved to live in certain climates, a new study suggests. In the study, the researchers found that wider noses are more commonly found among...

Feb 28, 2017

Can Water Naturally Flow Uphill?

Earth's gravity is strong, but can water ever naturally go against it and flow uphill? The answer is yes, if the parameters are right. For instance, a wave on a beach can flow uphill, even if it's for just a moment. Water in a siphon can flow uphill too, as...

Jan 31, 2017

California Dam Emergency: 5 Dams That Did Fail

More than 100,000 people were evacuated from below the United States' tallest dam on Sunday, after an auxiliary floodway threatened to fail. The Oroville Dam in Northern California looked poised to release floodwaters from Lake Oroville into the Feather River, threatening thousands of homes and businesses. According to the Los...

Jan 31, 2017

Wind, Rain, Heat: Health Risks Grow with Extreme Weather

ATLANTA — As climate change proceeds, there will be more extreme weather events, and these events pose a threat to people's health, experts say. The annual number of natural disasters appears to be increasing around the world, said Dr. Mark Keim, an emergency-medicine physician and the founder of DisasterDoc LLC....

Nov 30, 2018

Leo DiCaprio's Rumored Plan to Buy a Dinosaur Duo Has Paleontologists Upset

Leonardo DiCaprio is rumored to be in the market for a $2.5 million dinosaur duo: a meat-eating Allosaurus mother and babe, according to Page Six in the New York Post. If the rumor is true, the prehistoric purchase would be very disappointing, said Thomas Carr, a vertebrate paleontologist and an...

Nov 30, 2018

Monster Waves Are Battering the West Coast. Here's Why.

Cyclonic winds, rushing down from Alaska had nothing else to batter against, so they smacked into the water across miles of open ocean. The winds pushed and ground and heaved against the waves, making them bigger, more sustained and more powerful. By the time these waves reached the U.S. shoreline,...

Nov 30, 2018

World’s Oldest Flower Unfurled Its Petals More Than 174 Million Years Ago

Dinosaurs that lived during the early Jurassic period could stop and smell the flowers if they so desired, according to a new study that describes the oldest fossil flower on record. The flower, named Nanjinganthus dendrostyla, lived more than 174 million years ago, the researchers said. Until now, the oldest...

Nov 30, 2018

Way to Be Weird, Earth: 10 Strange Findings About Our Planet in 2018

Hooray for weird! (Image credit: Shutterstock)Earth has been around for about 4.5 billion years, and in that time, the planet has undergone some dramatic changes. These include the formation and breakup of supercontinents, the appearance and disappearance of oceans, extreme ice ages that nearly blanketed the globe with ice, and...

Oct 31, 2018

Creepy 'Smiling' Worm Pulled from Bottom of the Sea

See more Russian fisherman Roman Fedortsov has a habit of pulling ghoulish and bizarre creatures from the deep sea. And his recent trawl did not disappoint: Fedortsov recently captured an eerily smiling sea worm. In a video Fedortsov posted on Twitter last week, the creature's clown-smile turns creepy as it...

Oct 31, 2018

New Zealand's Islands Are Creeping Closer Together

In the two years since a magnitude-7.8 earthquake rocked New Zealand, the country's South Island has slid a smidgeon closer to its North Island. As the Earth's crust continues to shift after its cataclysmic rupture during the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake, Cape Campbell on the northern side of the South Island...

Sep 30, 2018

A Geyser Erupted in Yellowstone and 80 Years of Human Trash Poured Out

On Sept. 15, Yellowstone National Park's Ear Spring geyser erupted in its most violent display since 1957. For several minutes, sprays of steaming water leapt up to 30 feet (9 meters) in the air, chunks of rock and dirt spewed forth onto the ground and about 60 years of wishes...

Sep 30, 2018

Last Man to Walk on the Moon Mistaken About Climate Change on Earth

A former NASA astronaut who was the 12th person to walk on the moon may have seen Earth from space — but he doesn't see that human actions are shaping global climate change. Today (Oct. 15), Harrison Schmitt, a geologist who flew on the Apollo 17 mission in 1972 and...

Aug 31, 2018

Gallery: Secrets of Mount St. Helens

Secrets of the mountain (Image credit: Bethany Burton)Mount St. Helens in Washington state sits about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of other young volcanoes in the region, like Mount Adams and Mount Rainier. Now, researchers have found that the scars of ancient crustal collisions explain the volcano's position. Electrical rocks...

Aug 31, 2018

Warnings Abounded Before Massive Alaska Landslide and Tsunami

A massive landslide and tsunami that denuded the slopes of an Alaskan fjord could reveal warning signs that could help predict future disasters. In a new paper, researchers described the geological fingerprints of the tsunami, which tore through Taan Fjord on Oct.17, 2015, at an estimated 100 mph (162 km/h)....

Aug 31, 2018

Woman's Swollen Pinkie Finger Was Rare Sign of Tuberculosis

A swollen finger is often the symptom of a simple sprain, but for one woman in California, a puffy pinkie was a rare sign of tuberculosis, according to a new report of the case. The 42-year-old woman went to the doctor after a week of swelling and pain in her...