Planet Earth, features and articles | Educational Science

Jul 31, 2010

Trekking the Coastal Mountains of Colombia

Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Image credit: Jesse Lewis)The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the tallest mountain range in Colombia. Isolated from the long chain of the Andes running south like a great snake along South America, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta pokes its head up like an...

Jun 30, 2010

Pollution, Algae Mar Beautiful Lake

Algae bloom in Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, November 2009. (Image credit: Eliska Rejmankova)Editor's Note: This story has been changed to reflect the correct location of Lake Tahoe and the formation of Lake Atitlan. Guatemala's Lake Atitlan, long considered a beautiful tourist destination, has been beset by dense, slimy algae blooms...

Jun 30, 2010

Infographic: Earth's Atmosphere Top to Bottom

The air you breathe is precious, and the farther from Earth's surface you go, the less there is. But Earth's atmosphere extends farther into space than you might realize, affecting the orbits of spacecraft more than 200 miles high. OurAmazingPlanet looks at what's in the atmosphere, from way out there,...

Jun 30, 2010

Trekking to a Treacherous Glacier

Melting Mountain (Image credit: Freeport McMoRan.) To find clues about the Earth's past climate, sometimes you have to get extreme. That's why scientists recently traveled to Indonesia's Puncak Jaya, the Earth's highest island peak and the tallest mountain between the Andes and the Himalayas. It's here that the last glaciers...

Jun 30, 2010

How Big Was the Biggest Hailstone Ever?

On June 22, 2003, chunks of ice the size of softballs rained down on Aurora, Neb. One, a jagged behemoth with a 7-inch (17.8-centimeter) diameter, entered the record books as the largest U.S. hailstone ever. Although large in size, it didn't unseat the champion by weight, which fell in Coffeyville,...

Jun 30, 2010

Tracking a Retreating Glacier

Columbia Glacier (Image credit: Shad O'Neel/USGS.) Scientists set up camp where the Columbia Glacier meets the ocean in this photo from August 2009. The scientists' orange tents are seen on the cliff in the lower left-hand corner of the image. Glacier Camp (Image credit: Shad O'Neel/USGS.) Only accessible by helicopter,...

Jun 30, 2010

Finding Hope, Adventure Deep Within the Amazon Rain Forest

If asked to compile a list of careers that offer old-fashioned thrills, one might say archeologist (Indiana Jones), or perhaps ship captain (Jack Sparrow). But geographer? Enter Robert Walker, a professor of geography at Michigan State University (MSU), and a scientist whose South American exploits lend his rather stuffy-sounding profession...

Jun 30, 2010

Cages Change Mice Brains, Lab Studies Questioned

Scientists rely on lab rats and mice as models to shed light on the human condition. But a new study suggests researchers will have to rethink the whole process. The type of cage a mouse is housed in affects that mouse's brain, in a breakthrough that may require scientists to...

Jun 30, 2010

A Geologist's Paradise and Nightmare

Big Bend National Park in southwestern Texas is alternatively known as a geologist's paradise and a geologist's nightmare: Sparse vegetation makes finding and observing the rocks easy, but they document a complicated geologic history extending back 500 million years. Decades of research have enabled geologists to piece together Big Bend's...

Jun 30, 2010

Tropical Biodiversity Explained by Steady Temperatures

The astounding array of species that call the tropics home is the result of the near-constant year-round temperatures found in these areas, a new study suggests. The study, which surveyed insect diversity at a variety of latitudes and points in Earth's history, answers a question that has bugged biologists for...

Jun 30, 2010

Two Iconic African Carnivores Declared Locally Extinct

Cheetahs and African wild dogs have completely disappeared from the northern regions of Cameroon, according to a comprehensive study by the Institute of Environmental Sciences at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Although not yet completely extinct, other large carnivores in the central African country's upper regions don't have a good...

Jun 30, 2010

How does a compass work?

If you're lost in the woods, your best chance of finding your way might be a tiny magnet. A magnet is what makes a compass point north — the small magnetic pin in a compass is suspended so that it can spin freely inside its casing and respond to our...

Jun 30, 2010

Photos: Journey into the Tropical Andes

The Páramo (Image credit: Jesse Lewis) The Páramo comprises a number of neotropical high altitude grassland ecosystems found from Costa Rica to Bolivia. Páramo ecosystems exist only in high elevations (typically over about 16,400 feet, or 5,000 meters), primarily in the upper parts of the Northern Andes Mountains. Colombia alone...

Jun 30, 2010

Icebreaker Ships to Map Arctic Seafloor

The U.S. icebreaker ship Healy is about to set sail on its way to the Arctic, where it will burst through the sea ice in order to map the seafloor below. The map will help set the record straight on how much of the seafloor a country can claim as...

May 31, 2010

Urine Pheromone in Mice Named After Jane Austen Character

In one of the more bizarre homages to Jane Austen, biologists have named a protein in mice urine after her famed character Mr. Darcy from the novel Pride and Prejudice. Much like Mr. Darcy had a magnetic pull on Elizabeth Bennet (and countless readers), the protein is a pheromone responsible...