Maddie Stone

EartherClimate Change

Americans Think Climate Research Should Be NASA’s Top Priority

Most of us (understandably) associate NASA with rockets and space exploration, but the space agency also keeps an eye on our home planet. And it turns out the public is more supportive of NASA’s efforts to monitor Earth’s ever-warming climate than you might expect. A new Pew survey released on Wednesday looked at how Americans … Continued

EartherEarth Science

There Are Earthquakes Going Off Beneath East Antarctica’s Ice

If there’s a final frontier on the surface of our planet, it’s East Antarctica, a vast region of largely-unexplored mountains and canyons covered in a mantle of ice thousands of feet thick. The latest indication of how little we know about East Antarctica? We basically just learned it’s seismically active. Until now, exactly nine seismic … Continued

EartherConservation

New Device Brings Twilight Zone Sea Creatures Into the Sunlight

We’ve only explored a tiny percentage of the deep ocean, and most of its denizens remain alien to the public. Now, a team of researchers is working to change that with a portable device that transports creatures of the so-called mesophotic zone to the surface in one piece—that is, without causing their insides to explode … Continued

EartherEarth Science

In a Single Generation, Alaska’s Landscapes Have Transformed

As we continue to burn fossil fuels like there’s no tomorrow, an insidious transformation is taking place under our noses. Remote ecosystems in our planet’s far north are changing at a scale that’s hard to imagine. A new study published in Global Change Biology is making that imagination part a bit easier. It estimates that … Continued

EartherEarth Science

Kilauea’s Lava Has Leveled Up Again

Kilauea’s days of pumping old, stale magma to the surface are officially over and done. According to scientists with the US Geological Survey (USGS), the volcano is tapping the hottest, freshest magma it possibly can, which is making for some frighteningly fast-moving flows. On Wednesday, the USGS Hawaii Volcano Observatory reported epic, 200-foot tall lava … Continued

EartherConservation

Wyoming’s Grizzly Bear Hunt Won’t Happen Without a Fight

The Interior Department’s proposal to allow Alaskan hunters to shoot black bears in their dens may have sparked more outrage, but some major bear hunting news also came out of Wyoming last week, when a state commission decided to allow the first hunting season for grizzlies in over 40 years. On May 23, the Wyoming … Continued

EartherClimate Change

The Great Barrier Reef Has a Surprisingly Morbid History

It’s no secret the Great Barrier Reef is in dire straights thanks to human-caused global warming. But it turns out dramatic upheaval is nothing new for the world’s largest living thing. The Great Barrier Reef has suffered five large-scale die-offs over the past 30,000 years, all of them tied to abrupt changes in sea level … Continued

EartherEarth Science

Please Enjoy Some Lava at Night From Space

We’ve had no shortage of incredible imagery of Kilauea’s eruption over the past three weeks. But while aerial footage is perhaps best for conveying the epic fury of lava fountains, images from space offer a different perspective. This one, for instance, highlights just how searingly hot the landscape is. The false-color image was captured Wednesday … Continued

EartherEnvironmental Justice

East Greenland’s Inuit Hunters Are Teaching Scientists About Polar Bears

It’s a time-honored tradition going back centuries: When sunlight returns to the Arctic each spring, the men of East Greenland hitch up their dog sleds and head out onto the frozen ocean to hunt polar bears. But over the past few decades everything’s changed. The weather in East Greenland is warmer and less predictable, the … Continued

EartherEarth Science

Now Kilauea’s Eruption Is Producing Wild Blue Flames

With 100-foot fire fountains sending rivers of lava toward the sea, it may seem like Kilauea has exhausted its pyrotechnic bag of tricks. Turns out it hasn’t. Kilauea has now activated blue fire mode. On Tuesday night, as lava continued to scorch soil and vegetation in the Leilani Estates Subdivision, scientists with the U.S. Geological … Continued

EartherConservation

Incredible New NASA Images Show Puerto Rico’s Forests Still Scarred From Hurricane Maria

We’re 10 days out from the 2018 hurricane season, but if a new NASA-led aerial survey is any indicator, Puerto Rico’s forests and wetlands still have a long way to go before they’ve recovered from the last one. In April, a NASA science plane flew across a vast swath of Puerto Rico’s ecosystems, from tropical rainforests … Continued

EartherEarth Science

Kilauea’s Lava Is Changing—Here’s What That Means

After three weeks, the eruption at Kilauea volcano’s lower East Rift Zone shows no signs of abatement. In fact, dramatic changes to the lava over the last few days suggest things are still heating up—literally. For the first few weeks, the lava oozing out of cracks in the lower East Rift Zone was making relatively … Continued

EartherClimate Change

Why Is an Ozone-Destroying Chemical Coming Back, and How Do We Stop It?

The ozone hole, which we’ve previously described as the “quintessential ‘80s problem” became alarmingly relevant again this week. Scientists reported that emissions of trichlorofluoromethane (CFC-11), an ozone-destroying substance banned under the Montreal Protocol, have apparently been rising since 2012. Despite a global treaty prohibiting CFC-11’s use, someone’s breaking the law. So, why is someone fucking with … Continued

EartherEarth Science

Scientists Fight Volcano Myths As Kilauea Erupts

Is Hawaii part of the Ring of Fire? Could the ongoing eruption at Kilauea volcano trigger similar outbursts along the West Coast, or explode like Krakatoa? If it weren’t for volcanoes, would the Earth itself explode? The answer to each of these questions is a resounding “no.” And yet all of them were recently promoted … Continued

EartherEarth Science

The Weather Looks Bad, Guys

New York City is not looking so hot right now. A series of storms is rapidly descending on a vast swath of the Mid-Atlantic and New England, after similar storms battered our nation’s capital on Monday. The storms are being hailed ‘derecho-like,’ a term the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration uses to describe a “widespread, long-lived … Continued

EartherEarth Science

NASA’s Carbon Monitoring Program Won’t Go Down Without a Fight [Update: It Won]

Florida Senator Bill Nelson is none too happy that the Trump administration got away with killing NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System (CMS). And it seems he won’t let the program go down without a fight. On Friday, the Democratic Senator and former astronaut sent a letter to top Congressional appropriators expressing “deep concern” over the canceling … Continued

EartherEarth Science

Florida May Get a Tropical Cyclone This Week

We’re still a few weeks out from the official start of hurricane season, but tropical cyclones don’t care much for regulation. That’s why there’s a small chance one could spin up off the Florida Panhandle this week. A large, low pressure area filled with clouds and thunderstorms has developed across the southeastern Gulf of Mexico, … Continued

EartherEarth Science

Please Enjoy These Animals the Zoos Have Kindly Rebranded For Us

The social media teams behind zoos and aquariums have rapidly become a beacon of hope in the otherwise festering hellscape of internet dialog. The latest example? Animals rebranded as better animals. The delightfully silly #RebrandASpecies hashtag currently trending on Twitter was born into the wilds on Thursday, awakening a sentiment that’s been buried in our cold hearts … Continued

EartherEarth Science

Kilauea Volcano Could Erupt ‘Explosively,’ But What Does That Mean?

The outlook for Kilauea volcano took a turn for the worse this week, when the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaii Volcano Observatory (HVO) warned that the dramatic draining of the summit crater could herald an “explosive” eruption. The action at Kilauea that has gripped the world’s attention for the past week has mainly consisted of lava … Continued

EartherEarth Science

Eyeless, Mouthless, Bone-Eating Worm Named After Jabba the Hutt

Jabba the Hutt—the iconic slug-like mobster from the Star Wars franchise—finally has a real world namesake befitting his ugliness. Osedax jabba is one of 14 newly-named zombie worms, tiny, mouthless, eyeless creatures that devour animal bones in the ocean’s depths. Jabba’s earthly brethren were found chewing their way through the head of a dead baleen … Continued