About 2 decades ago, scientists coined the term “snowball Earth” to describe a period about 700 million years ago when glaciers apparently smothered the planet even at latitudes near the equator. However, new evidence from ancient rocks bolsters the notion that some of the world’s seas remained unfrozen during this global deep freeze, striking a…

Scientists in the Netherlands have discovered that insects produce significantly less greenhouse gas per kilogram of meat than cattle or pigs. Their study, published in the online journal PLoS One, suggests that a move towards insect farming could result in a more sustainable – and affordable – form of meat production.

The worst flooding in the Australian state of Queensland in 50 years could push up the nation’s fruit and vegetable prices by as much as 20 to 30 percent, lifting inflation and potentially dampening retail spending. Economists and the country’s top supermarket chains said new, torrential flooding and rains across farmlands in southeastern Queensland in…

What if this and that… The art of prediction is one that often fails and only the test of time will show who is right and who is wrong. Climate models use quantitative methods to simulate the interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and ice. There is a new paper in Nature Geoscience that…

It’s the New Year and time for a new start and what better than to celebrate all in life that is new? For the next two months BBC Earth will be focusing on just that. To begin the celebration of nature’s wonderful new moments BBC Earth has created a short film called Life Is New.…

SALT LAKE CITY — Recent diebacks of aspen trees in the U.S. West may end up increasing the risk posed by a lethal human pathogen, a new study suggests. A tree-killing syndrome called sudden aspen decline that has wiped out swaths of trees across the West in the past decade has also changed the kinds,…

A new discovery of thriving coral reefs off the coast of Puerto Rico may offer hope for other shallower reefs. Scuba diving scientists discovered sprawling and diverse coral reefs at 100 to 500 feet (30 to 150 meters) below the ocean surface within a 12-mile (19-kilometer) span off the southwestern coast near La Parguera, Puerto…

The 2010 scientific expedition undertaken by the European program called Mediterranean En-Dangered (MED) reveals that 250 billion microplastics could be found in the Mediterranean Sea. The main goal of the program, which will end in 2013, is to quantify the distribution of plastic pollution and better understand its dynamics in the Mediterranean Sea. Microplastics are…

The amount of dust in the Earth’s atmosphere has doubled over the last century, according to a new study; and the dramatic increase is influencing climate and ecology around the world. The study, led by Natalie Mahowald, associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, used available data and computer modeling to estimate the amount of…

Residents in Australia’s third largest city, Brisbane, sandbagged their homes against rising waters on Monday as torrential rain worsened floods that have paralysed the coal industry in the northeast and now threaten tourism. Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the cost of the floods would not delay a return to budget surplus in 2012-13, but J.P.…