The Great Barrier Reef has been subject to coral bleaching for an extended period of time, leaving many to believe that it is a modern marvel that may soon become history. Now, a new threat to the reef is on the horizon – deforestation. But one might ask what deforestation has to do with the …
There is a lot talk about zero-emissions vehicles (ZEVs) and how they can potentially help us reduce our carbon footprints, but is this really the case? Dr. Jonathan Lesser, the author of “Short Circuit: The High Cost of Electric Vehicles,” recently wanted to figure it out (Lesser, 2018). He conducted his study to determine just …
The scientific fields of geology and paleontology owe much of their early advancements to an uneducated, impoverished, amateur fossil hunter in the early 1800s. However, much of the credit for Mary Anning’s work was not granted to her during her lifetime. The reason for this was threefold – she was from a poverty-stricken, working-class family, …
You might love to travel, but have you ever stopped to think about the impact your passion is having on the environment? As it turns out, your carbon footprint may be larger than you initially thought. This is according to a new study, which assessed emissions from travel, plus the full lifecycle of carbon in …
Every spring, when farmers plow their fields, they find large boulders that weren’t there the previous year. Does the boulder fairy deliver these to the farmer? Nope! The truth is, the rocks have always been there, hiding deep in the soil out of reach of the plow blade. Thanks to the process of frost heaving, …
An asteroid may have hit the planet and caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, but what happened to Earth before then? As it turns out, a previous mass extinction may have paved the way for the dinosaurs. Recently, researchers took a look at all of the tetrapod tracks published over the past few decades. …
Many people are aware of the ice melting in some of the world’s coldest climates, but how is Antarctica doing? To find out, NASA recently conducted a study to find out how the ice is holding up at the end of the earth. To conduct their research, the scientists developed software that could process hundreds …
What if we could blanket the planet and shelter it from the Sun? Would it help Earth maintain a cool, comfortable temperature and reduce the impact of global warming? This is what a group of scientists recently wanted to figure out. The theory of geoengineering involves spraying sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to form clouds. …
What will happen when Greenland’s Petermann glacier finally begins melting at a rapid rate? What about portions of Antarctica? The natural assumption is that sea levels will begin to rise, but now, scientists believe that there are strong variances in how cities will be affected. Researchers Eric Larour, Erik Ivins and Surendra Adhikari recently came …
What happens when a gaping hole opens up in a massive body of ice? Scientists use it as a learning opportunity, of course. This is what recently occurred in Antarctica. The appearance of a hole, known as a polynya, has caught the attention of researchers, but not only because of its size (approximately equivalent to …