Planet Earth, features and articles | Educational Science

Feb 29, 2012

Giant Stinking Corpse Flower Set to Bloom

A rare corpse flower is expected to roll down its blood-red skirt and unleash an olfactory assault at the Cornell University greenhouse this week. The corpse flower is technically known as an Indonesian titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) plant. Native to the equatorial rain forests of central Sumatra in western Indonesia,...

Feb 29, 2012

How to Fix International Inaction on Climate

Humans have been altering fundamental natural processes on our planet, but the international community has not effectively addressed the mess we've gotten ourselves and the rest of life on this planet into, according to a group of social scientists. They offer seven recommendations — including restructuring within the United Nations...

Feb 29, 2012

Best Earth Images of the Week - March 16, 2012

Cloud Streets, Tiger Momma and Golden Sand (Image credit: European Space Imaging (EUSI))Tiger mommas, cool clouds and sand, and stinky flowers are just the beginning of our picks this week. Take a peak. Camera Traps Score Again (Image credit: ©WWF-India)A few weeks after conservationists spotted tigers crossing a river in...

Feb 29, 2012

Best Earth Images of the Week - March 30, 2012

Stunning Natural Arches, Pandas Taking a Dip, Strang Glowing Clouds (Image credit: ESA/NASA)Stunning arches, pandas splashing and strange glowing clouds are just a few of our picks for this week. Check these out! Arches Shining in the Sun (Image credit: Jim Karczewski, National Park Service)The beauty of the unusual rock...

Feb 29, 2012

Washington Monument Surveyed for Quake Effects

Teams of surveyors have descended on the area around the Washington Monument in recent weeks to search for any minute changes in ground level wrought by the 5.8 magnitude earthquake that rattled huge swaths of the East Coast last Aug. 23. The surveyors with the National Geodetic Survey are equipped...

Jan 31, 2012

What's Behind the Wild Winter Around the World

Winter in the United States this year has been mild — except for snow-buried Alaska — but around the world, winter is wreaking havoc. If you're wondering where's winter, don't look to the blizzard in Denver. That weather is more springlike for the area. Instead look to Europe. Cold weather...

Jan 31, 2012

Colorado's Record-Breaking Snow Seen from Space

From NASA's Earth Observatory: A record-breaking snowstorm struck Colorado in early February 2012, closing an interstate highway, grounding flights, and dropping more than a foot of snow on the Denver area. After moving out of northeastern Colorado, the storm left heavy snow across Nebraska. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)...

Jan 31, 2012

Can You Outrun a Natural Disaster? Hint: No (Infographic)

Ice World: Gallery of Awe-Inspiring GlaciersHurricanes from Above: See Nature's Biggest StormsTop 10 Ways to Destroy Earth ...

Jan 31, 2012

January Brought Warmth and Extremes to the Globe

This past month ranked as the 19th warmest January since global record keeping began in 1880, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The combined land and ocean surface temperature for the month hit 54 degrees Fahrenheit (12 degrees Celsius), exceeding the average for the 20th century,...

Jan 31, 2012

Snow Artist Photographs Flakes Up Close

Skiers in the Rocky Mountains may be rejoicing over the record-breaking snows this week — on Monday (Feb. 20), a resort in Steamboat Springs, Colo. received 27 inches (70 centimeters) of snow in 24 hours — yet for much of the United States, snow has been nowhere in sight. Winter...

Jan 31, 2012

Man 'Born to Explore' Takes TV Viewers to Untouched Morocco

Adventurers short on time and travel money can still make a trip this weekend to one of the most inaccessible and exotic spots in Morocco. With the click of a remote, viewers can visit Taffraout Isserce, a tiny mountain village of only 200 people, thanks to a new episode of...

Jan 31, 2012

Why Colliding Continents Slow Down

As Earth's tectonic plates move across the planet's surface, the continents that sit atop them are carried along, sometimes smashing together for many millions of years at a time. As the continents mash against each other, their collision gradually slows. New research suggests that this slowing may be the work...

Dec 31, 2011

Drought Led to Demise of Ancient City of Angkor

The ancient city of Angkor — the most famous monument of which is the breathtaking ruined temple of Angkor Wat — might have collapsed due to valiant but ultimately failed efforts to battle drought, scientists find. The great city of Angkor in Cambodia, first established in the ninth century, was...

Dec 31, 2011

Fossils Reveal Secrets of Insects' Weird Ears

Various species of insects boast ears in the strangest places, including on their necks and under their wings. Now, a new examination of 50-million-year-old cricket and katydid fossils finds that these odd ears evolved before even the appearance of the predators that these ears can hear. Crickets, moths and other...

Dec 31, 2011

NASA Airborne Radar 'Sees' Inside Hawaii Volcano

Anyone can walk alongside the creeping lava on Hawaii's Mount Kilauea. But NASA is taking a different look at the volcano — from way overhead. From 41,000 feet (12,500 meters) above Kilauea's smoldering craters, an airborne radar developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will help measure the magma inside of...