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ScienceHealthWhy Is Greenland’s Ice Sheet Covered in Industrial Waste-Chowing Bacteria?
The Greenland ice sheet is vast, majestic, pristine….and peppered with bacteria that seem equipped to survive in industrial waste, according to a new study. Which really makes you question the whole the pristine bit, now, doesn’t it? In fact, scientists know that industrial contaminants, including heavy metals, pesticides, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), have been accumulating … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceBiology
The Amazing Reason Deep Sea Corals Glow In the Dark
Lots of creatures glow in the ocean’s depths, where sunlight is slim to nil. But while most of these abyssal lightbulbs use their neon powers to hunt or avoid being hunted, deepwater corals may have beat everything else down there in terms of evolutionary creativity. New research indicates these corals glow in order to eat … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceHealth
The Black Death May Have Had a Surprising Effect on the Environment
From 1347 to 1351, a nightmare disease ravaged Europe, afflicting victims with putrid black boils, fevers, vomiting, and in short order, death. Daily life ground to a halt as the Black Death spread along medieval trade routes, claiming an estimated 20 million lives with ruthless efficiency. Now, a team of researchers is asserting that the … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
EartherClimate Change
This Is Why Antarctic Sea Ice Crashed This Year
The disappearance of Arctic sea ice is a well-documented trend with a well-established cause. But this past summer, Earth scientists were startled to see Antarctic sea ice take a nosedive, too. Now, scientists at the British Antarctic Survey are blaming the event on a spate of freak weather, underscoring how much we still have to … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Do Not Be Alarmed By NASA’s Eerie Artificial Clouds
In news that is sure to vindicate chemtrail truthers, NASA has finally delivered on its longstanding promise to produce a dazzling display of artificial clouds. And dang, was it cool. On Thursday, June 29th, at 4:25 am Eastern time, a two stage Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket blasted skyward from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. During … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
EartherClimate Change
A Delaware-Sized Iceberg Is Tearing Off Antarctica Right Now [Updated]
Like that painful hangnail you’ve been eyeing for days—except billions of times larger, made of ice not keratin, and studied by dozens of scientists worldwide—a Delaware-sized glacier along Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf is hanging by a thread, poised to break off into the ocean any day now. It’s one of the largest iceberg calving … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
The Impacts of Deep Ocean Mining Will ‘Last Forever,’ Scientists Warn
The search for raw materials to feed the all-powerful Sarlacc of capitalism is pushing industries to increasingly remote and alien environments. One of the most exciting frontiers to emerge of late is the deep ocean—rife with valuable metals like copper and zinc, as well as the rare Earth elements that drive our smartphones and computers. … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
This Space Museum in Central Kansas Was Worth the 20 Hour Drive
Hutchinson, Kansas isn’t the kind of place you’d wind up if you weren’t looking to. The placid prairie town sits a solid hour’s drive south of I-70, the interstate that most travelers use to blow across 425 miles of Kansas cornfield and cattle pasture as quickly as possible. But as soon as I entered the … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
EartherClimate Change
Some Good News on Coral Reefs for a Change
A global coral bleaching event that’s been killing reefs around the world since early 2015 finally appears to be ending, according to a report just released by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. That said, reefs aren’t out of hot water yet. For nearly three years, coral reefs—which grow mainly in warm, tropical waters near the … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
Why Did an Enormous Chunk of West Antarctica Suddenly Start Melting?
300,000 square miles is nearly twice the area of California. It’s difficult to visualize a space that vast, but go ahead and give it a try. Now, imagine this California plus-sized chunk of land is covered in thousands of feet of ice. Then, all of a sudden, that frozen fortress becomes a wading pool. In … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
EartherClimate Change
Why There’s Still Hope for the World’s Coral Reefs
Last week was a sad one for the planet, but buried beneath headlines of the history’s largest carbon polluter telling everyone else to piss off, a team of researchers issued a more hopeful message: Coral reefs, a poster child for impacts of climate change, may not be as doomed as we think. It’s no secret … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceHealth
Don’t Let That Global Warming Sleep Study Keep You Up at Night
Climate change is bad—it’s causing sea levels to rise, it’s exacerbating heat waves, it’s damaging coral reefs, the list goes on. But that doesn’t mean every time researchers find a correlation between some bad thing and the temperature, we should freak out about how global warming is going to make everything on this round Earth … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceBiology
Male Tortoises Mysteriously Stop Boning
There are only a few things in this life animals really have to do. They have to eat, they have to shit, and they have to bang. So when conservation biologists transplant a bunch of wild animals in order to save them, but half of them stop getting laid as a result, it’s cause for … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
NOAA Predicts More Hurricanes Than Usual This Year
Stock up on your canned beans and galoshes, folks: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook dropped this morning, and for the first time in years, the weather monitoring agency is predicting more hurricanes than average. Hurricane season, which kicks off next week and runs through the end of November, will … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
EartherClimate Change
Australian Climate Expert Says Pain-in-the-Ass America Should Just Ditch the Paris Agreement Already
Sometimes, the only way to fix an unhappy relationship is to end it. Since former president Obama (remember that guy?) left office in January, the United States has done an about-face on the Paris climate agreement—we’ve gone from being an leader on climate action to a rogue state that can’t decide whether it wants to keep … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceSpace & SpaceflightThat ‘Alien Megastructure’ Star Is Freaking Out Again [Updated]
It’s almost certainly not aliens, but once again, Tabby’s Star is acting hella weird. The star that first became our planetary obsession back in the fall of 2015—when astronomer Jason Wright suggested its weird flickering behavior might be the result of an alien megastructure—is, once again, flickering. But unlike previous stellar glitches, astronomers are now … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
EartherClimate Change
Flat Earthers Won’t Believe This News on Antarctica’s Climate
The Arctic is the fastest-warming place on our overheated planet, but so far, its polar opposite has managed to stay pretty cool. Why is Antarctica warming so slowly compared with the Arctic? The answer is complicated, but a new study suggests we’re overlooking a basic reality of geometry. Parts of our round Earth are flat; … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
A New Look at Proxima b‘s Potential Climate Offers Hope for Future Colonists
Ever since astronomers announced the discovery of an Earth-sized exoplanet less than five light years down the cosmic street, the question on every good space cadet’s mind has been whether or not we can colonize it. We’re not going to know if Proxima b is habitable until we can point some very powerful telescopes at … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech NewsHow Much Force Could a T.Rex Bite Deliver?
In the 1993 cult classic Jurassic Park, a T. rex manages to scare the living shit out of kid heroes Lex and Tim Murphy by casually ripping apart their Ford Explorer like it’s a scrap of meat. It’s a scene that crystallized the destructive power of this extinct apex predator in the public consciousness—and as … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
How Does a 110-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Still Have Its Skin?
An arresting image of a “mummified” dinosaur went viral this weekend after National Geographic broke the story of the 110-million-year-old armored plant-eater, a newfound species of nodosaur whose exquisite remains are now on display in the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta, Canada. The ancient animal is obviously a remarkable specimen—not just a few battered bones, … Continued
By Maddie Stone
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