(33) results in Blog

May 28, 2015
Video of the Week: Climate music
Since people started making regular, reliable measurements of air temperatures in the late 1800s, the Earth has warmed by about 0.85 degrees Celsius–or 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit–on average. This trend is mainly driven by human activities that...

April 17, 2015
Of sardines, sea lions, and “the blob” in the Pacific
If you’ve been following the news about the Pacific Ocean, there’s a lot going on these days. First, there have been the heartbreaking deaths of thousands of starving sea lion pups along the California coast. Then,...

March 6, 2015
A stunning week of #SciArt draws to a close
This week, Scientific American’s Symbiartic blog decided to try something new: they asked Twitter users to tweet pictures of scientific art — from spectacular satellite photos to science-inspired quilts — accompanied by the hashtag #SciArt. The...

January 23, 2015
A Historic Map Turns 200 Years Old
Geologic maps represent the flashier side of earth science. They depict in vibrant colors and funky shapes the rocks and sediments that cover our planet — materials which are often decidedly duller in reality. But though...

December 12, 2014
A cold-loving insect confronts a warming world
Today marks the end of two weeks of climate negotiations in Lima, Peru, where world leaders gathered to address the growing threat of climate change. Much of the conversation at the UN conference revolved around the...

October 31, 2014
Autumn leaves herald changes in carbon dioxide concentrations
Autumn leaves in Connecticut. (Credit: Ragesoss, Wikimedia Commons) Autumn is a season of tranformations. In the eastern United States, leaves tumble through a kaleidoscope of copper and crimson colors. In the west, rivers of golden Aspen...

September 26, 2014
Fighting fires with science
The King Fire blazed across headlines earlier this month when it morphed from a minor incident near the hamlet of Pollock Pines, California, into a massive wildfire that has since scorched more than 140 square miles of parched, rugged...
June 19, 2014
Video of the Week: The Circle of Life
Have you been feeling close to nature lately? That might be because you are made of the very same stuff as trees, water and air. Living creatures constantly exchange atoms of carbon and oxygen with plants...

May 23, 2014
Making Sense of West Antarctic Melting
Two new studies unveiled last week require revising estimates of future sea-level rise upward. Together, the studies — which concern melting of Antarctic ice — suggest that oceans could rise by as much as 11...

April 10, 2014
Frequency Fingerprints
News of radio signals emanating from the bottom of the Indian Ocean provided a much-needed clue to the whereabouts of the missing Malaysian Airlines jet that disappeared from radar screens a little more than one month...