Maddie Stone

Earther

This Is What Hawaii’s Volcanic Eruption Looks Like From Space

Photos of the ongoing, lava-oozing eruption at Kilauea volcano have been going viral for days. Less attention-grabbing—but equally informative—are the images NASA’s been capturing from hundreds of miles up. On Monday, the space agency released the image above, assembled from data captured on May 6 by a thermal imaging camera aboard the Terra satellite. It … Continued

EartherConservation

Study Confirms: Our Vacations Suck For the Climate

It’s no secret flying is Bad for the climate, but just how harmful our jet-setting, Airbnb-hopping lifestyles really are has been tough to pin down. Now a study has crunched the numbers, making it much harder to plead ignorance about the environmental impact of your next vacation. Turns out, those trips contribute to humanity’s climate-warming … Continued

EartherEarth Science

Believe It or Not, This Is Normal

The Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s big island has been acting up for weeks. But on Thursday, all hell seemed to break loose when new fissures began to open in the volcano’s East Rift zone, sending lava shooting into the air and causing molten rock to carve a path through the thickly forested Leilani estates residential … Continued

EartherEarth Science

Check Out the Otherworldly Lifeforms Scientists Discovered on the Ocean Floor

Sometimes, reality bites. Our political system is in shambles, our infrastructure is collapsing, and now, you can’t even enjoy Kanye’s new album (were you ever really going to, though?). Game of Thrones isn’t coming back until 2019, and colonizing Mars remains a pipe dream. We do have a bunch of ridiculously cool footage of the … Continued

EartherEarth Science

The Arctic’s Future: Less Ice, More Storms

In August 2012, a monster cyclone roared to life over Siberia before moving out over the Arctic Ocean. Meteorologists watched, agog as the beast continued to gather strength for days, before finally dying out over the Canadian Archipelago. Cyclones are common in the Arctic, but they tend to be most powerful in the winter, which … Continued

EartherEarth Science

Avengers: Infinity War Shows a Dark Side of Environmentalism

I expected Avengers: Infinity War to be very fun. I did not expect Thanos, the film’s central villain, to be a nuanced character driven by a cold, Malthusian logic any environmentalist will be uncomfortably familiar with. Mild spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War ahead. For the uninitiated, Infinity War is the audacious culmination of a decade’s … Continued

EartherConservation

Good Job Rhinos, Keep Boning

In a rare bright spot for rhino conservation, two new Javan rhino calves have been spotted in Indonesia’s Ujung Kulon National Park. Before these babies, there were only 67 confirmed Javan rhinos left on Earth. The rarest of the five rhino species and “probably the rarest large mammal on the planet” according to the World … Continued

EartherConservation

Meet the Oil and Gas Chum Now In Charge of Our Nation’s Wildlife

Last month, to little fanfare, Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke placed Susan Combs, a vociferous critic of the Endangered Species Act, in charge of its enforcement. Combs is a former Texas politician and longtime friend of the oil and gas industry. Because Zinke couldn’t push her nomination for assistant secretary for policy, management and budget … Continued

EartherEarth Science

Scientists Are Livestreaming Spooky Sounds on the Ocean Floor

Few of us will ever visit the deep ocean, but thanks to the wonders of online streaming, there are more opportunities to experience this alien environment than ever before. Robots are live-streaming underwater volcanoes, undersea canyons, and shipwrecks. Now, scientists are streaming a spooky-ass audio feed from the deep, too. Since 2015,  Monterey Bay Aquarium … Continued

EartherConservation

Hurricanes Bring Invasive Species, and These Maps Preview Where

Pollution isn’t the only thing the 2017 hurricane season spread far and wide. Plants and animals were sloshed around by the storms too, and some wound up far from home, setting the stage for new ecological invasions. That’s why the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has spent the past six months putting together a series of … Continued

EartherConservation

The National Park System Just Got Its First Dark Sky Sanctuary

The U.S. National Park Service can add “top-notch, internationally-accredited views of the Milky Way” to its long list of attractions. On April 16, Utah’s Rainbow Bridge National Monument became the world’s fourth International Dark Sky Sanctuary, an exclusive club consisting of some of the most remote, light pollution-free places in the world. Even better? It … Continued

EartherConservation

Apple’s E-Waste Problem Will Take More Than Robots to Solve

There’s a fancy new iPhone recycling robot on the block, just in time to help Apple score some brownie points with the greens on Earth Day. Its name is Daisy, and it’s being covered with the same breathless enthusiasm the tech blogosphere served up for its predecessor, Liam. The bot can apparently turn 200 iPhones … Continued

EartherEarth Science

A Massive Wildfire Is Spiraling Out of Control in Oklahoma

It’s been a rough start to wildfire season on the Southern Plains. Oklahoma’s third megafire in three years is currently raging across the state, fueled by a spate of hot, dry weather. Neighboring states have been on high alert as hot, dry conditions and strong winds lock in serious fire danger across the region. On … Continued

EartherConservation

Global Warming Has Permanently Transformed the Great Barrier Reef, Study Finds

Back-to-back bleaching events in 2016 and 2017 killed one in every two corals on the Great Barrier Reef. Now, looking just at that first year of heat-inducted death, a team of Australian researchers has concluded that the character of the northern Great Barrier Reef has been forever altered. The study, published today in Nature, places … Continued

EartherEarth Science

Everything About This Newly-Discovered Octopus Nursery Is Wild

Scientists have made a truly bizarre discovery on an expanse of cooled lava 150 miles west of Costa Rica and nearly two miles underwater. There, they laid eyes on more than a hundred female octopuses, tending to eggs that didn’t seem to be growing in water that seemed too warm for their liking. Deep sea … Continued

EartherEarth Science

New Research Shows the Everglades Are Still Hurting Months After Irma

Hurricane Irma may be a fading memory for those who didn’t experience its heavy rains or ferocious winds. But in the Everglades, the damage is still visible—and its ripple effects could last for years. Aerial surveys led by NASA in December have revealed Hurricane Irma’s striking impact on remote swaths of Florida’s river of grass, … Continued

EartherEnvironmental Justice

Embattled Telescope Delays Decision on Whether to Remain in Hawaii

The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is deferring a decision on whether to stay in Hawaii or move to a back-up location in the Canary Islands while it waits to secure permits in either, the telescope’s board announced Friday. A year ago, Gizmodo reported that the board for the TMT—slated to become the world’s most powerful … Continued

EartherEarth Science

Don’t Get Too Excited Over Japan’s New ‘Semi-Infinite’ Rare Earth Stash

Modern technology wouldn’t work without trace amounts of bizarrely-named metals that occupy obscure positions on the periodic table. They’re called rare earths, but there’s a near-limitless supply on the ocean floor—if only we could access it. This week, Japanese scientists are reigniting hopes that we’ll be able to soon, but major hurdles remain. In 2013, deep … Continued

EartherConservation

Bad News For Fans of the Endangered Species Act

Susan Combs, a longtime Texas politician and cattle rancher who once referred to endangered species listings as “incoming Scud missiles,” has quietly been put in charge of our nation’s parks and wildlife, including enforcing the Endangered Species Act. Let’s learn more! Combs was nominated months ago to become assistant secretary for policy, management, and budget … Continued

EartherEarth Science

Antarctica Is Getting Snowier

The world’s largest hunk of ice, the Antarctic ice sheet, holds enough frozen water to put cities like Miami several hundred feet under. How much Antarctica shrinks in the future will depend on the balance between what’s melting away, and what’s being added when it snows. A new study published in the journal Climate of … Continued