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Oct 31, 2011

Does October Snow Signal A Wild Winter Ahead?

Between a second impending snowstorm in Denver and last weekend's 'Snowtober' storm in the Northeast, there's been a lot of early show across the United States. With so much snow so soon, it may seem like we're in for a long, snowy winter. But don't panic yet, weather forecasters say....

Oct 31, 2011

Where Did the Dangerous Alaska Storm Come From?

An extremely dangerous storm is slicing toward northwestern Alaska and is expected to bring blizzard conditions and hurricane-strength winds to the state's west coast. The storm, which formed from a mix of air masses over an area of ocean prone to spinning up strong storms, could be bigger than anything...

Oct 31, 2011

Portable Radar Peers Inside Western Winter Storms

Tornadoes aren't the only storms that meteorologists can chase: A group of researchers in Utah is showing through its use of portable, truck-mounted radars to peek inside winter storms. For students who love snow, it's every bit as thrilling as chasing tornadoes, said atmospheric scientist and avid skier Jim Steenburgh,...

Oct 31, 2011

Sand Scenes: California's Shifting Dunes

Picturesque Dunes (Image credit: Linda & Dr. Dick Buscher)Sand dunes are found throughout the world, from arid desert zones to lakes and coastal plains. Dunes form picturesque and unique environments that provide habitats for a wide variety of life, which have amazingly adapted to what can be the most incredibly...

Oct 31, 2011

Oldest Hairy Microbe Fossils Discovered

Ancient rock deposits, laid down between two massive ice ages, reveal the oldest known fossils for two types of single-celled creatures: Tube-shelled foraminifera and hairy, vase-shape ciliates. Both closely resemble microbes living today. But the climate they lived in may have been quite different. The fossils appear in limestone deposited...

Sep 30, 2011

'Dumb' Neanderthals Likely Had a Smart Diet

Instead of Neanderthals being dim-witted hunters who only dined on big game, new findings suggest they had more balanced diets, with broad menus that may have included birds, fish and plants. Neanderthals are currently our closest known extinct relatives, near enough to modern humans to interbreed, with Neanderthal DNA making...

Sep 30, 2011

What Do Neutrinos Have to Do With Climate? Not Much

The recent discovery that particles called neutrinos might be traveling faster than light has shocked physicists, but also led some to draw dramatically wrong conclusions, experts say. In particular, they point to a Wall Street Journal op-ed writer who used that finding, in part, to call the completely unrelated field...

Sep 30, 2011

Why Rescue Missions from Antarctica Are So Hard

In most places, when you have a stroke you get sent straight to the hospital. But things get trickier when you have a stroke in the middle of the Antarctic ice sheet. Renee-Nicole Douceur, the manager of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, suffered a stroke in August. She remains at...

Sep 30, 2011

Animals Shrink as Earth Warms

As global temperatures rise this century, the result of human-caused climate change, many living things will shrink, thanks to a host of changes in the environment, as well as the direct effects of warming, two researchers write. If everything were to shrink at the same rate, this wouldn't be a...

Sep 30, 2011

Giant Amoebas Discovered in Deepest Ocean Trench

Gigantic amoebas have been found in the Mariana Trench, the deepest region on Earth. During a July 2011 voyage to the Pacific Ocean chasm, researchers with Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and National Geographic engineers deployed untethered landers, called dropcams, equipped with digital video and lights to...

Sep 30, 2011

In Images: Cannon Raised from Blackbeard's Pirate Ship

Qarcannonup (Image credit: Karen K BrowningNC Department of Cultural Resources) Despite weather-related setbacks, deep diving archaeologists from the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology today (Oct. 26) completed their mission to raise a cannon from Blackbeard's pirate ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, which sank off the North Carolina coast. In...

Aug 31, 2011

Clouds: The Wild Card of Climate Change

This Research in Action article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. It is a little-known, but significant, fact that about 70 percent of the Earth's surface is covered by clouds at any given time. But, not all clouds are the same; different types of clouds...

Aug 31, 2011

The Serene Splendor of the Salty Salton Sea

Salton Sea The Salton Sea is one of the world's largest inland seas as well as being one of the lowest spots on Earth, sitting at 227 feet (69 meters) below sea level. It is located in southeastern California just north of the rich agricultural lands of the Imperial Valley....

Aug 31, 2011

Arctic Sea Ice Hits Record Low, According to One Measure

One of the harbingers of global climate change — the extent of the Arctic sea ice — has passed a new threshold. German researchers announced on Sept. 8 that the sea-ice cover had shrunk below its record minimum, set in 2007. Or has it? Elsewhere, researchers said the race remained...

Aug 31, 2011

Scott's Last Expedition: Images From His Doomed South Pole Trek

Voyage into History (Image credit: Courtesy of Charles Leski, Leski Auctions.)The Terra Nova, the ship that carried Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated expedition to the frozen continent that would be his grave, in a photograph dated December 13, 1910. Here, the ship is seen held up by the ice pack. Scott...