Planet Earth, features and articles | Educational Science

Oct 31, 2013

Underwater Hotel in Africa Lets Guests Sleep With the Fishes

If it's the life aquatic you seek, then perhaps a vacation to Africa is in order. An island resort off the coast of Tanzania recently unveiled a new underwater room that lets visitors sleep amongst the fishes. The Manta Resort, on Pemba Island in Zanzibar, is now taking reservations for...

Oct 31, 2013

Twice as Much Methane Escaping Arctic Seafloor

The Arctic methane time bomb is bigger than scientists once thought and primed to blow, according to a study published today (Nov. 24) in the journal Nature Geoscience. About 17 teragrams of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, escapes each year from a broad, shallow underwater platform called the East Siberian...

Sep 30, 2013

Tiny, Strange Primate Fossil Unearthed in Coal Mine

The fossilized jaw of a pint-size primate that lived about 35 million years ago in Asia has been unearthed in Thai coal mines. The new species, dubbed Krabia minuta, after the Krabi coal mines where it was found, was an ancient, extinct member of a group of primates called anthropoids,...

Sep 30, 2013

Marine Debris Pollution: Five Lessons Learned This Year (Op-Ed)

Dylan Gasperik is a program assistant for communications at the Natural Resources Defense Council.This Op-Ed was adapted from a post to the NRDC blog Switchboard. Gasperikcontributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Give me a piece of what you've got I'll make it new with much less...

Sep 30, 2013

Antarctica's Scars Hold Clues to Hidden Water

Deep furrows on Antarctica's floating ice shelves mark arch-shaped channels melted out under the ice. Thinner ice floats lower, and researchers can read the corrugated surface topography like a map that mirrors what lies beneath. Now, a new study published today (Oct. 6) in the journal Nature Geoscience suggests that...

Sep 30, 2013

Hunt for Amelia Earhart's Plane Back On

A new search for the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's plane will launch in 2014, according to an organization that has already launched several expeditions to the Pacific island of Nikumaroro. Earhart, a famed aviator, vanished in 1937 along with her navigator Fred Noonan. The two were attempting a flight around...

Sep 30, 2013

Why So Many Powerful Storms in the Pacific?

The West Pacific took a double-whammy this weekend, and another storm is on the way. First Super-cyclone Phailin flooded India, then Typhoon Nari hit Vietnam. Now, 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) to the northwest, Typhoon Wipha is pummeling Japan. The line of storms hit near the peak of the storm season...

Sep 30, 2013

Ax Falls for Antarctic Research Projects After Shutdown

The casualty list from the government shutdown earlier this month continues to grow for U.S. Antarctic science. On the kill list so far: the $10-million WISSARD drilling project, the first to discover microscopic life in a buried Antarctic lake; an expedition to look at how melting ice sheets change marine...

Sep 30, 2013

Who's Your Daddy? Probably Your Daddy

Despite the popularity of paternity tests and the guest lineup of the Maury Povich show, most men are not being duped into raising children who are not their own, new research suggests. At least in Flanders, Belgium, about 1 to 2 percent of children have been raised by men who...

Sep 30, 2013

NASA's IceBridge Readies 1st Antarctica-Based Research Flights

In a few weeks, NASA's Operation IceBridge will take to the skies for another busy season of monitoring ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice from above. This year, the mission will be stationed in Antarctica for the first time, enabling scientists to conduct longer flights, and explore areas of the...

Aug 31, 2013

Swimmer Diana Nyad Wasn't at Big Risk of Shark Bite

The 64-year-old long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad made headlines for being the first woman to swim from Cuba to the Florida Keys without the aid of a shark cage. But that caveat — sans cage — implies she was at a significant risk of being bitten, and some media outlets wrote...

Aug 31, 2013

Hotspot Scorched Midwest, Leaving Legacy of Earthquakes, Rare Rocks

A seismic speed trap that stretches from Missouri to Virginia suggests a hotspot scorched the Midwest during the Mesozoic Era, a new study finds. Hotspots are scalding plumes of hot rock rising toward Earth's surface from the mantle, the layer that sits under Earth's crust. Though tectonic plates constantly shift,...

Aug 31, 2013

Exaptation: How Evolution Uses What's Available

Exaptation is a term used in evolutionary biology to describe a trait that has been co-opted for a use other than the one for which natural selection has built it. It is a relatively new term, proposed by Stephen Jay Gould and Elisabeth Vrba in 1982 to make the point...

Aug 31, 2013

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions Could Prevent Premature Deaths

Reducing the flow of the greenhouse gases that spur global warming could prevent up to 3 million premature deaths annually by the year 2100, a new study suggests. Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide trap heat, helping warm the globe. The surge in carbon dioxide levels due to human activity...

Aug 31, 2013

Warming Could Heat Up Storms Over Eastern US

In May, residents of Tornado Alley braced themselves as the region's usual spring thunderstorms began popping up across the plains, bringing heavy rainfall that caused flash floods, high winds, hail and tornadoes. On May 20, the town of Moore, Okla., seemingly a perennial tornado target, was struck by a monster...