Antarctica is now the coldest place on Earth. The Katabatic winds howl around Antarctica’s gale thrashed coast. But once its green valley’s were filled with thriving Glossopteris Pine and Beach forests. How do we know this? “Scott of the Antarctic” was the first to discover telltale fossils on the Beardmore Glacier in 1912. Since then [...]
The giant squid is one of the most enigmatic animals on the planet. It is extremely rarely seen, except as the remains of animals that have been washed ashore, and placed in the formalin or ethanol collections of museums. But now, researchers at the University of Copenhagen leading an international team, have discovered that no [...]
It is rather difficult to imagine, but approximately 635 million years ago, ice may have covered a vast portion of our planet in an event called “Snowball Earth.” According to the Snowball Earth hypothesis, the massive ice age that occurred before animal life appeared, when Earth’s landmasses were most likely clustered near the equator, precipitated [...]
Passengers on board Capt. Dave’s Dolphin and Whale Safari tour boat were treated to a rare sight this past weekend when around 1,000 common dolphins began to stampede off Dana Point in Southern California. The unusual event happened on Saturday and then on again on Sunday, from when the video below was filmed. Dave Anderson, [...]
Fish now seen wearing horn-rimmed glasses, riding fixie bikes, perusing limited-edition Decemberists vinyl.. But seriously, High caffeine levels in the waters off the Oregon coast are likely the result of pollution from human waste, scientists say. After testing water samples from 14 spots, researchers from Portland State University and Washington State University found high levels [...]
China said Tuesday that it would prohibit official banquets from serving shark fin soup, an expensive and popular delicacy blamed for a sharp decline in global shark populations. The ban, reported by Xinhua, the state-run news agency, could take as many as three years to take effect, and it remains unclear how widely it will [...]
A team of Australian and New Zealand researchers have discovered fresh evidence that could finally unravel the mystery of what killed Tasmania’s giant marsupials over 40,000 years ago. Analysis carried out at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) on the skeletal remains of extinct megafauna is providing substantial proof that for about 2,000 [...]
A detailed description of development of the first practical artificial leaf — a milestone in the drive for sustainable energy that mimics the process, photosynthesis, that green plants use to convert water and sunlight into energy — appears in the ACS journal Accounts of Chemical Research. The article notes that unlike earlier devices, which used [...]
The amount of plastic trash in the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” has increased 100-fold during the past 40 years, causing “profound” changes to the marine environment, according to a new study. Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego found that insects called “sea skaters” or “water striders” were using the trash as a [...]
Changes in the speed that ice travels in more than 200 outlet glaciers indicates that Greenland’s contribution to rising sea level in the 21st century could be significantly less than the upper limits some scientists thought possible. The finding comes from a paper funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA and published in [...]
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