Deserts can take many forms — including sweeping sand dunes, rocky canyons, sagebrush steppes and polar ice fields. But they’re united by one thing: a lack of rainfall. Generally speaking, anywhere that gets less than 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain a year counts as a desert, said Lynn Fenstermaker, an ecologist at the Desert … Read more
What would Bill Nye the Science Guy get our home planet for Earth Day? The ultimate gift: fusion energy. “We need electricity,” Nye told Live Science in an exclusive interview on Thursday (April 20). “We need not only what we can get right now with existing technologies — with wind, and solar and geothermal energy … Read more
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs did not trigger a long-lasting impact winter, scientists have found — a discovery that raises new questions about what happened on Earth just after it hit. One spring day 66 million years ago, a 6-mile-wide (10 kilometers) asteroid smashed into the Yucatán Peninsula and upended life on Earth. … Read more
For the past three days, from Monday through Wednesday (July 3-5), global temperatures have either broken or matched records for the hottest day on Earth since at least 1979, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a tool that compiles data and models to measure the global atmosphere. Monday’s average worldwide temperature climbed to … Read more
Depleting oxygen and rising hydrogen sulfide levels in the oceans may have been responsible for one of Earth’s most significant mass extinctions more than 350 million years ago, a new study finds. The changes were likely driven by rising sea levels and have some spooky parallels to conditions seen today. Researchers studied samples of black … Read more
As climate change transforms our world, the impacts will be felt unequally, with some animals struggling to survive and others finding ways to overcome the resulting challenges. This phenomenon is increasingly described as the “winners and losers under climate change,” said Giovanni Strona (opens in new tab), an ecologist and former associate professor at the … Read more
There is a frozen soup of viruses, bacteria and fungal spores lurking beneath the frigid Arctic soil. Unlike the icy leftovers in the back of your freezer, some of these microbes haven’t interacted with a cell since well before ancient Egyptians built the Pyramids of Giza. As climate change continues to cook the planet, however, … Read more
Sea levels are likely rising faster than previously thought, meaning low-lying coastal cities in the U.S. could flood far more regularly in the coming decades, a NASA study has revealed. According to the study, which analyzed three decades of satellite observations, by 2050, sea levels along the coastlines of the contiguous U.S. could rise as … Read more
Scientists have just announced a breakthrough in nuclear fusion ignition: For the first time the heart of a powerful fusion reactor has briefly generated more energy than was put into it. But experts are urging caution, saying that the breakthrough, while hugely significant, is still a long way from safe, limitless nuclear energy. On Tuesday (Dec. 13), physicists at … Read more
A river longer than England’s Thames flows beneath the Antarctic ice sheet, draining an area the size of France and Germany combined, new research reveals. This under-ice river was discovered using ice-penetrating radar mounted on aircraft. In a series of aerial surveys, researchers discovered a river system snaking 285 miles (460 kilometers) and draining into … Read more
