EARTH.COM - A slowdown in one of Earth’s most important ocean currents could reshape weather far beyond the Atlantic. Weakening of the ocean current could strengthen storms that slam into California while reducing the snowfall that helps keep Greenland’s massive ice sheet intact. A new study shows how changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation...
EUREKA ALERT! - Scientists have uncovered what may be the earliest evidence of “right-handedness” in the animal kingdom, dating back more than half a billion years. The discovery comes from the fossil record of Spriggina floundersi, an organism from the Ediacaran Period that lived about 550 million years ago. New research published today in the...
THE NEW YORK TIMES - Any large earthquake can be dangerous, but the residents of Caracas and Venezuelan coastal cities like La Guaira and Catia La Mar were victims of several unlucky factors. Two quakes in rapid succession, a fault that ruptured toward more populated areas, soft ground and the shallow depth of the temblors...
By James Glanz, Helmuth Rosales and Marco Hernandez | The New York Times |
USA TODAY - Scientists have linked an unusual "cold blob" in the North Atlantic — one eerily similar to the one featured in the film "The Day After Tomorrow," that has a major impact on global weather. While the findings weren't that extreme, a recent study showed the area has cooled by up to 1...
LADBIBLE - Scientists are concerned about a patch of unusually cold water in the North Atlantic Ocean, referred to as the 'cold blob' or 'warming hole'. While a particularly powerful El Niño is on the horizon, this patch of ocean near Greenland has cooled by about 1°C over the past few decades. A new study...
METRO UK - The science of climate change is complex, but the overall effect is pretty simple – the planet is getting warmer. Except, however, for a cool ‘blob’ just southeast of Greenland that no one has ever been able to properly explain. The blob, also called the ‘warming hole’, is a large patch of...
GIZMODO - Early this year, researchers confirmed why one part of Antarctica bleeds red. In similar yet arguably more concerning news about Earth’s poles, Arctic rivers are turning orange—and scientists now know the real reason behind this shift. In a study published last year, the same team initially documented the orange slush—toxic iron particles fatal...
POPULAR SCIENCE - Alaska’s Arctic rivers have a big, orange problem. Previously clear rivers are turning a cloudy orange color due to iron particles, and it’s more than unsightly. The particles can suffocate fish and choke insects, threatening the food web and ecosystem as a whole. Scientists have long pointed to previously frozen soil beginning...
UNIVERSE TODAY - Mars holds a special place in the Solar System. It represents marginal habitability. This means it transitioned from warm and wet and potentially hospitable, to cold and dry and inhospitable. What can its transition tell us about exoplanet habitability? New research to be published in the Planetary Science Journal examines the question...
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN - Today a stretch of Canada’s remote Northwest Territories is covered in snow-covered peaks. But more than half a billion years ago this wilderness was an ancient seafloor home to the wrinkled pancakes, fleshy fronds and spiral-shaped critters that were among Earth’s earliest complex life-forms. Researchers recently unearthed a trove of fossils that...