Lurching from one weather extreme to another seems to have become routine across the Northern Hemisphere. Parts of the United States may be shivering in March, but Scotland is setting heat records. Across Europe, people died by the hundreds during a severe cold wave in the first half of February, but a week later revelers…
Pumice-like cratery indents formed by ancient raindrop splats are adding to the mystery of why the adolescent Earth was warm enough to host rivers and oceans, despite the dim sun of the day. Thanks to fossilized impressions from rains that fell down on Africa 2.7 billion years ago, the “Faint Young Sun” paradox is getting…
An unprecedented project that will attempt to unravel the ways our biological clocks tick is underway by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. No one really knows the details of how our body clocks work. But when the rhythms get messed up, the results can be horrendous. Accidents, loss of productivity, disease, including…
The world’s cities are mushrooming at the rate of around 1 million people a week as the planet’s population heads toward 9 billion people by 2050 from 7 billion now. Urban areas are set to sprawl over an extra area equivalent to most of Europe within 20 years, yet little is being done to prepare for…
Fossil foot hints that tree-dwellers lived alongside species built for walking.
This is truly the era of the megafoundation. The private-philanthropic sector in the United States has experienced an explosion in the net worth and annual-giving potential. According to the Foundation Center, as of March 8, 2012, total foundation giving in the United States (circa 2010) was about $20.5 billion.
As the United States considers a manned mission to Mars by the mid-2030s, ongoing research is beginning to raise doubts about the ability of human astronauts to survive such a multi-year journey in zero gravity without severe and possibly permanent physical or psychological damage. One of the most pressing concerns, researchers say, would be the…
Major changes are needed in agriculture and food consumption around the world if future generations are to be adequately fed, a major report warns. Farming must intensify sustainably, cut waste and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farms, it says. The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change spent more than a year assessing evidence from…
The Great Rift Valley of East Africa – the birthplace of the human species – may have taken much longer to develop than previously believed. Scientists now believe the western portion of the rift is approximately as old as the eastern part – about 25 million years old. Previous studies have repeatedly suggested the Eastern…
There should be billions of habitable, rocky planets around the faint red stars of our Milky Way galaxy, a new study suggests. Though these alien planets are difficult to detect, and only a few have been discovered so far, they should be ubiquitous, scientists say. And some of them could be good candidates to host…