Posts tagged earth
This Year’s Cicadas: A 90s Retro Re-mix
In 1996, the top box office film, “Independence Day” wasn’t the only invasion by bizarre creatures, nor was the remix resurrection of the “Macarena” the only sound grating upon the ear drums of Americans on the East Coast. The Brood II cicadas arose from the soil in screeching droves that year.
Gallery: When Art Meets Science
The University of Wisconsin-Madison just announced this year’s winners of its Cool Science Image contest. After surveying 105 submissions, these 10 images were awarded. This Cool Science Image winner took a close look at mold. When food gets tough to find, slime mold become social and form multicellular organisms such as those shown here. See more.
Antarctic Island Heavily Trashed
There appears to be no limit to our polluting ways. At the multinational base at King George Island, in the South Shetland Islands just off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, tipping and unsafe storage practices have led to pollution — a new and damning report details these findings. Discovery News’ Kieran Mulvaney led an expedition to the island in 1995 — it seems little has changed.
Russia Finds ‘New Bacteria’ in Antarctic Lake
Yikes! Have these guys not watched The X-Files?!
Ultimate Petition: One Billion for Climate Action
There are lots of petitions flying around the Internet these days, but none quite so ambitious as that of Ranga B. Myneni. His petition has a single sentence that he hopes will be endorsed by a billion humans by the time Earth Day rolls around in 2014. Yeah, that’s no typo: One Billion people. Here’s what the petition says:
“Dear Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon,
We, the People of the Earth, request You to act judiciously and expeditiously to protect the Earth from anthropogenic climate change.
Respectfully,
People of the Earth”
Meteorite Crash Landings Mapped
Wonder where on Earth to collect space rocks? Stay at home. The map above shows every meteorite strike known to fall on earthly terrain. And from the looks of it, the United States is prime collecting grounds.
Grab your shovels! Time to find us some space rocks! Read more
Flowers Communicate With Electricity
Flowers may be silent, but scientists have just discovered that electric fields allow them to communicate with bumblebees and possibly other species, including humans. Read more
(I KNEW my flowering office cactus was trying to communicate with me before it fell on my lap… then it really got my attention.)
Underwater Invasions: Photos
Underwater photographer Jason Isley of Scubazoo.com, based in South East Asia, might be having a bit too much fun documenting marine organisms.
Actually, I think he’s having just the right amount of fun with these photos! I hope none of his figurines got swallowed though… Awesome.
Obama Proposes ‘Meaningful Action’ on Climate Change
President Barack Obama called for “meaningful progress” on tackling climate change in his State of the Union speech in Washington, DC on Tuesday night. While acknowledging that “no single event makes a trend,” the President noted that the United States had been buffeted by extreme weather events that in many cases encapsulated the predictions of climate scientists. Read more
U.S. Northeast Counts Cost of Deadly Storm Nemo
GALLERY: As blizzard “Nemo” hit the U.S. northeast and Canada, heavy snow brought the region to a standstill. See some of the incredible views from the last few days of snow chaos.
NEWS: Now that the worst has passed, the Nemo death toll (as of Sunday) has reached 9. Tens of thousands of people remain without power. Read more.
BLOG: With the help of eyewitnesses across the states impacted by Nemo, a blog by Discovery News’ Kieran Mulvaney gives a first-hand view on how the snowstorm impacted the lives of a handful of individuals.
Naming Nemo: How the Storm Got Its Name
Back in October 2012, everybody was poohooing The Weather Channel’s (TWC) plan to start giving names to significant winter storms. Now it looks like a large number of reports on the storm, dubbed Nemo by TWC, have adopted the name (not all, by any means, but lots, including Discovery News).
What happened? I’ll say it in three words: search engine optimization. Despite very reasonable arguments against the naming of winter storms by many meteorologists, we are seeing them adopted anyway.
