Planet Earth, features and articles | Educational Science

Nov 30, 2018

Way to Be Weird, Earth: 10 Strange Findings About Our Planet in 2018

Hooray for weird! (Image credit: Shutterstock)Earth has been around for about 4.5 billion years, and in that time, the planet has undergone some dramatic changes. These include the formation and breakup of supercontinents, the appearance and disappearance of oceans, extreme ice ages that nearly blanketed the globe with ice, and...

Oct 31, 2018

Creepy 'Smiling' Worm Pulled from Bottom of the Sea

See more Russian fisherman Roman Fedortsov has a habit of pulling ghoulish and bizarre creatures from the deep sea. And his recent trawl did not disappoint: Fedortsov recently captured an eerily smiling sea worm. In a video Fedortsov posted on Twitter last week, the creature's clown-smile turns creepy as it...

Oct 31, 2018

New Zealand's Islands Are Creeping Closer Together

In the two years since a magnitude-7.8 earthquake rocked New Zealand, the country's South Island has slid a smidgeon closer to its North Island. As the Earth's crust continues to shift after its cataclysmic rupture during the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake, Cape Campbell on the northern side of the South Island...

Sep 30, 2018

A Geyser Erupted in Yellowstone and 80 Years of Human Trash Poured Out

On Sept. 15, Yellowstone National Park's Ear Spring geyser erupted in its most violent display since 1957. For several minutes, sprays of steaming water leapt up to 30 feet (9 meters) in the air, chunks of rock and dirt spewed forth onto the ground and about 60 years of wishes...

Sep 30, 2018

Last Man to Walk on the Moon Mistaken About Climate Change on Earth

A former NASA astronaut who was the 12th person to walk on the moon may have seen Earth from space — but he doesn't see that human actions are shaping global climate change. Today (Oct. 15), Harrison Schmitt, a geologist who flew on the Apollo 17 mission in 1972 and...

Aug 31, 2018

Gallery: Secrets of Mount St. Helens

Secrets of the mountain (Image credit: Bethany Burton)Mount St. Helens in Washington state sits about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of other young volcanoes in the region, like Mount Adams and Mount Rainier. Now, researchers have found that the scars of ancient crustal collisions explain the volcano's position. Electrical rocks...

Aug 31, 2018

Warnings Abounded Before Massive Alaska Landslide and Tsunami

A massive landslide and tsunami that denuded the slopes of an Alaskan fjord could reveal warning signs that could help predict future disasters. In a new paper, researchers described the geological fingerprints of the tsunami, which tore through Taan Fjord on Oct.17, 2015, at an estimated 100 mph (162 km/h)....

Aug 31, 2018

Woman's Swollen Pinkie Finger Was Rare Sign of Tuberculosis

A swollen finger is often the symptom of a simple sprain, but for one woman in California, a puffy pinkie was a rare sign of tuberculosis, according to a new report of the case. The 42-year-old woman went to the doctor after a week of swelling and pain in her...

Aug 31, 2018

What Is a Drought?

Droughts occur in nearly all types of climate. Of all the weather-related phenomena that can cause severe economic impacts in the United States, droughts come in second only to hurricanes, according to the National Climatic Data Center. But unlike hurricanes, which are easily identified and straightforward to classify in terms...

Jul 31, 2018

News Clip Linked Coal to Climate Change — 106 Years Ago Today

A newspaper clip published Aug. 14, 1912, predicts that coal consumption would produce enough carbon dioxide to warm the climate. (Image credit: Fairfax Media/CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 NZ)A note published in a New Zealand paper 106 years ago today (Aug. 14) predicted the Earth's temperature would rise because of 7 billion...

Jul 31, 2018

California Logged Its Hottest Month Ever, and Things Are Only Going to Get Worse

As wildfires burn huge swaths of California, the month of July blazed through climate records. It was not only the hottest July in California's history, but it was also the state's hottest month ever, according to a new report issued Wednesday (Aug. 15) by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...

Jul 31, 2018

Helium Was Discovered 150 Years Ago. Here's Why It's So Important

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Watching helium gas lift balloons into the air is a lot of fun – or perhaps a tragedy if that balloon belonged to a small child who let it...

Jul 31, 2018

Hurricane Lane Looms Over Hawaii in These Astronaut and Satellite Photos

The hurricane, which is forecast to begin pummeling the islands later today (Aug. 22), has already prompted the governor of Hawaii to declare a state of emergency, and views from space offer a shocking look at just how daunting the storm is. It was briefly a Category 5 storm but...

Jul 31, 2018

What's Causing Hurricane Lane's Massive Rainfall?

Hawaii got a lot of rain today. It will get more this weekend. Hurricane Lane, the once-Category-4 storm that rapidly declined to a Category-2 as it moved over Hawaii's Big Island today, had as of this morning dumped 31 inches (78 centimeters) of rain on Hakalau Forest Biological Field Station...

Jul 31, 2018

Climate Change Could Drastically Change Ecosystems Around the World

For a preview of what's to come for the Earth's ecosystems, look to the past. In a new study, an international group of researchers analyzed fossil records to track how the planet’s vegetation changed as Earth climbed out of the last ice age thousands of years ago. Then, the scientists...