Planet Earth, features and articles | Educational Science

Apr 30, 2012

Up For Auction: A Gallery of Natural History Specimens

Tyrannosaurus bataar (Image credit: Wynne Parry)This nearly complete Tyrannosaurus bataar is set to go on auction. It is one of many rare natural history specimens Heritage Auctions plans to sell on May 20. An Asian relative of the North American Tyrannosaurus rex, this specimen's estimated value is between $1.4 and...

Apr 30, 2012

Storm Chasers: Study Aims to Go Inside Tornadoes

Come tornado season, meteorologist Joshua Wurman spends his life on the road, zooming down highways in search of thunderstorms. This summer, he and his colleagues will turn nomad to launch a first-of-its-kind program aimed at exploring tornado winds — not from the outside but from deep within the tornado vortex....

Apr 30, 2012

Streetlights Lure Beasts of the Tiny Kind

Beware streetlights: A new study finds that well-lit areas of cities and towns are more likely to be home to predators and scavengers. Luckily for humans, these predators and scavengers are of the invertebrate variety, including predator beetles and other insects. The study is the first to find that light...

Apr 30, 2012

Africa's First Night Sky 'Reserve' Is Stargazing Haven

The NamibRand Nature Reserve, a private nature reserve in southern Namibia, has gotten the stamp of approval to become an official night sky reserve — a spot supremely suited for some of the best stargazing on Earth. The sprawling park, which covers more than 600 square miles (1,500 square kilometers)...

Apr 30, 2012

What If the World Stopped Turning?

In this weekly series, Life's Little Mysteries provides expert answers to challenging questions. Earth's spin controls our lives. As the planet dances around the sun, we sleep and wake by its daily pirouette. The rotisserie-style heating keeps Earth warm and sunny all the way around, and Earth's rotation also drives...

Apr 30, 2012

Lost Photographs Reveal History of Greenland's Glaciers

A set of 80-year-old photographs discovered in a basement archive reveals the remarkable sensitivity of Greenland's glaciers to climate change, according to a new study that one scientist called glaciological research with a splash of Indiana Jones. The research, published online May 27 in the journal Nature Geoscience, reveals a...

Mar 31, 2012

The Acid Test: Armor-Covered Plankton Adapt to Warming World

Tiny armor-covered creatures that float along with the ocean's currents may adapt and survive, if badly, as their watery world warms and becomes more acidic, a new study finds. Even so, the plankton may become flimsier and could turn into more of a french fry than a nutritious snack for...

Mar 31, 2012

Animation Captures Artful Swirl of Ocean Currents

A NASA animation shows how ocean currents silently snake and swirl around the planet over the course of two and a half years, and in doing so reveals how science makes art and vice versa. Fluid white lines represent currents, while the blue background is shaded to represent depth; the...

Mar 31, 2012

Fossils Show Surprising Life of Ancient Swimming Mollusks

Fossils found in a South Dakota cliff have revealed that ancient, free-swimming shelled creatures called ammonites were permanent residents around a methane seep at the bottom of the inland sea that divided the North American continent more than 65 million years ago. Methane and other chemicals, such as hydrogen sulfide,...

Mar 31, 2012

Why the East Coast Is Seeing Summer in Spring

Abnormally warm temperatures brought a taste of summer to the eastern part of the United States on Monday (April 16), testing runners resolve in the Boston Marathon and bringing out sunbathers in New York. It's just the extreme warm spring weather pattern continuing, said Mike Pigott, a senior meteorologist at...

Mar 31, 2012

Satellite Image Reveals Beauty & Beast of Rare Earth Mining

A satellite image released by NASA Earth Observatory looks more fine art than mining and radioactive waste. But indeed, the picture tells a story of the expanding industry of mining for rare earth elements. Earth holds 17 of these metallic elements, whose structures and properties make them useful in a...

Feb 29, 2012

Entire Month's Worth of Tornadoes Strike in One Day

In what may be the biggest daily tornado outbreak on record for March, an entire month's worth of twisters struck in a single day. The nation's Storm Prediction Center received 81 reports of tornadoes yesterday (March 2), according to data filtered to remove duplicate reports of tornadoes. For the entire...

Feb 29, 2012

Accurate Weather Forecast For Your Street

Accurate weather forecasts depend on data collected from weather instruments. Lots of 'em. The more data, the higher-resolution the picture of what's going on. But the National Weather Service doesn't have weather instruments on every street. But another place does. Well, almost. The Weather Underground has turned to thousands of...

Feb 29, 2012

Why Much of North America Skipped Winter

For parts of North America, this winter was the winter that nearly wasn't. January ranked as the fourth-warmest for the 48 U.S. states on record since 1895. December, too, was above average, although not as significantly. The final analysis for February is not yet in, but weather watchers expect last...

Feb 29, 2012

Best Earth Images of the Week - March 9, 2012

Lighting, Clouds, Sharks and More (Image credit: Chris Kotsiopoulos / www.greeksky.gr)Hatching eggs, record-setting ocean dives and amazing shows in the sky. These are just a few of the photos we picked for this week. Check these out. Webcast Condor Cam (Image credit: Tammy Spratt, San Diego Zoo Safari Park)A California...