EarthScape

As you may have seen, California Governor Jerry Brown announced a $120 million settlement last week with utility company NRG. The funds will be used to develop a large scale infrastructure effort for electric vehicles. This statewide charging network will include at least 200 fast-charging stations and another 10,000 plug-in units at 1,000 locations across…

The last big ice age ended about 11,000 years ago, and not a moment too soon — it made a lot more of the world livable, at least for humans. But exactly what caused the big thaw isn’t clear, and new research suggests that a wobble in the Earth kicked off a complicated process that…

A dust devil is a term for a relatively small swirl of air with dust trapped in it so that it is visible. They are normally not very big. A Martian dust devil roughly 12 miles high was captured whirling its way along the Amazonis Planitia region of Northern Mars on March 14. It was…

A new picture is emerging in the U.S. power sector. In 2007, electricity generation from coal peaked, dropping by close to 4 percent annually between 2007 and 2011. Over the same time period, nuclear generation fell slightly, while natural gas-fired electricity grew by some 3 percent annually and hydropower by 7 percent. Meanwhile, wind-generated electricity…

Maybe you have heard that eating beef is one of the biggest contributors to your carbon footprint, much more so than driving. However, if you are like many of us, you may not have thought about how eating seafood affects the environment. Whether you live by the coast or thousands of miles from the nearest…

Countries of the Far North are set to be the new players in the emerging Arctic frontier. The polar ice cap is melting at much faster rates than previously predicted, and may be completely ice free by the summer of 2040 or sooner. There are vast untapped resources in the Arctic Ocean such as new…

We have pictures of other worlds but no sounds to date. This is not without trying but failing. In a world first, the sounds of Mars and Venus are revealed as part of a planetarium show in Hampshire this Easter. Despite many years of space exploration, we have no evidence of the sound of other…

In 1872 the HMS Challenger pulled out from Portsmouth, England to begin an unprecedented scientific expedition of the world’s oceans. During its over three year journey the HMS Challenger not only collected thousands of new species and sounded unknown ocean depths, but also took hundreds of temperature readings—data which is now proving invaluable to our…

A new study has increased hope that some coral species will be able to survive gradual ocean acidification. According to new research published in the journal, Nature Climate Change, a team of international scientists have identified a specific internal mechanism that could permit some coral species and their symbiotic algae to offset the unfavorable effects…

Dutch elm disease is a terrible affliction that destroyed elm trees throughout North America and Europe. It is a fungal infection that is spread by the elm bark beetle. It is believed to originate from feline feces in Asia. Unequipped to handle the invading pathogen, the disease devastated massive populations of elms, nearly wiping them…