Planet Earth, features and articles | Educational Science

Oct 31, 2007

Evolutionary 'Big Bang' Created Florist's Paradise

From the ubiquitous daisy to the fantastical orchid, flowering plant species are as diverse as they are numerous. Turns out, these bloomers went through an evolutionary Big Bang of sorts some 130 million years ago, a brief era of explosive floral diversification at a time when dinosaurs walked the Earth....

Oct 31, 2007

Pre-Human Dating Scene Revealed

Humans basically court each other one-on-one today, but 2 million-year-old skulls tucked away in South African caves suggest that our ancient male relatives dated troops of females. The bones belonged to Paranthropus robustus hominids, mostly males. These extinct human relatives split away from our evolutionary track about 2.5 million years...

Sep 30, 2007

Human Ancestors Walked Upright, Study Claims

The ancestors of humanity are often depicted as knuckle-draggers, making humans seem unusual in our family tree as upright apes. Controversial research now suggests the ancestors of humans and the other great apes might have actually walked upright too, making knuckle-walking chimpanzees and gorillas the exceptions and not the rule....

Sep 30, 2007

Something to Sweat: Earth Gets Steamier

It’s not the heat, but the humidity that will get you. Not only is the planet getting hotter, but it's also becoming more humid, as a result of human-induced global warming, a new study finds. A steamier Earth could mean more extreme precipitation and sweatier days for humans. Scientists had...

Sep 30, 2007

Why Males Die Before Females

In humans and many other animals, males age faster and die earlier than females. New research suggests this might happen because of intense competition over sex. Scientists compared monogamous species with polygynous species, in which each male mates with many females. Males in monogamous species, such as the barnacle goose...

Sep 30, 2007

Prehistoric Humans Hit the Beach During Cold Spell

A band of early Homo sapiens survived an ancient bout of global cooling by hunkering down in a cave on the coast of South Africa and living off shellfish plucked from nearby tide pools, a new study suggests. The cave overlooks the Indian Ocean, and inside it, scientists have found...

Sep 30, 2007

Is Global Warming Fueling Forest Fires?

Wildfires that raged in Southern California this week and forced more than half a million people from their homes spread so rapidly in part because the landscape was parched by a hot, dry summer—conditions that may become more of a norm for the Southwest, thanks to global warming. But can...

Sep 30, 2007

Some Neanderthals Were Redheads

Like bringing to life a naked mannequin, scientists are using genetic and physical evidence found in fossils to clothe the skeletal remains of our closest hominid relatives, the Neanderthals. More and more, they seem familiar. Bones from two Neanderthals yielded valuable genetic information that adds red hair, light skin and...

Sep 30, 2007

UN Expert Calls Biofuel 'Crime Against Humanity'

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- A U.N. expert on Friday called the growing practice of converting food crops into biofuel a crime against humanity,'' saying it is creating food shortages and price jumps that cause millions of poor people to go hungry. Jean Ziegler, who has been the United Nations' independent...

Sep 30, 2007

Survey: Europeans More 'Green' than Americans

Europeans are more likely to go green than their American counterparts, a new survey shows. The European Lifestyles Of Health And Sustainability (LOHAS) study found that Europeans are 50 percent more likely than U.S. residents to buy green products, from hybrid cars to organic food and personal care products. The...

Sep 30, 2007

Wildfires Release as Much CO2 as Cars

Large wildfires in the western United States can pump as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in just a few weeks as cars do in those areas in an entire year, a new study suggests. As forest fires devour trees and other plants, they release the carbon stored in the...

Aug 31, 2007

Hurricanes at Eye Level: Wind, waves and destruction

Uproar (Image credit: Image Courtesy of NOAA Photo Library)The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to Nov. 30. ...Waves striking seawall give appearance of geysers erupting. Photo was taken in 1938 off of the New England coast. Waves of Destruction (Image credit: Image Courtesy of NOAA Photo Library)Sixteen feet of...

Aug 31, 2007

Adventurer Steve Fossett's Plane Missing

More than a dozen aircraft are searching for record-holding aviator Steve Fossett, missing since Monday when the millionaire took off in a light aircraft from a private airstrip in Nevada on a flight that was to last no more than three hours. Fossett took off at 9 a.m. PST from...

Aug 31, 2007

Rescuers Put Hope in Fossett's Nerves of Steel

MINDEN, Nevada (AP)—Rescuers aided by calm winds and clear skies were scanning a vast swath of rugged terrain in California and Nevada on Wednesday in their search for adventurer Steve Fossett, whose small plane has been missing for two days. Friends and relatives, meanwhile, were counting on his grit and...

Aug 31, 2007

Scientists Give Odds on Arctic Sea Ice Shrinkage

Researchers are forecasting a one-in-three chance that the extent of sea ice covering the Arctic will reach an all-time record low this year. Sea ice forms as ocean water freezes. Sea-ice extent is the area of an ocean covered by at least 15 percent ice. Arctic sea ice has been...