As the planet faces the dawn of a sixth mass extinction, scientists are searching for clues about the uncertain road ahead by exploring how an ancient ecosystem collapsed and bounced back from traumatic upheavals. A new study follows the lengthy collapses and revival of South African ecosystems during one of the “big five” mass extinctions, the Permian-Triassic event, revealing unexpected […]
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At least half of the world’s killer whales will become extinct because of toxic waste in the oceans within the next century according to researchers. Some areas despite efforts to control the pollutants of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) still remain at high levels. Research scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) are saying that if we don’t bring down the […]
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Scientists have found telltale evidence that an asteroid twice as large as any previously known smashed into Earth about 300 million years ago. Previously, the largest asteroid impact was believed to have occurred 66 million years ago, when a massive space rock hit what is now the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, causing such havoc that it led to the extinction […]
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European researchers have once again warned that the thinning of the Antarctic ice shelf means that the flow of glaciers on the frozen continent could accelerate, with a consequent rise in sea levels. They examine, in two separate studies, the increasingly precarious state of some of the ice shelf. When the shelf, consisting of ice floating on the ocean, melts, […]
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The Japanese whaling fleet is reportedly heading into the seas around Antarctica, drawing widespread condemnation from campaigners. Japan’s fleet of six ships left the port of Shimonoseki, western Japan with a quota of 940 minke whales and 10 fin whales. Calls for the Australian government to intervene have been rejected by the environment minister, Senator Ian Campbell. Japan’s whaling program, […]
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It’s official: There really was a giant, flightless bird with a head the size of a horse’s wandering about in the winter twilight of the high Arctic some 53 million years ago. The confirmation comes from a new study by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and the University of Colorado Boulder that describes the first and […]
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For the first time, scientists have caught a glimpse of a black hole ejecting a hot “flare” of matter after devouring a star the size of our sun. The discovery was made thanks to the quick action of of scientists from John Hopkins University, who worked in conjunction with a team from the University of Oxford. Hubble fellow Sjoert van […]
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The world’s leading economies are heading in the right direction on tackling climate change, but some still have a long way to go to make their undertakings politically credible, according to a UK research center. With the Paris Agreement barely two months old, the world now moves from talk to action − or at least that’s the theory. The Agreement […]
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Due to high temperatures recently the UN (United Nations) has declared that the high temperatures will influence extreme weather conditions now and in the near future. The World Meteorological Organization has reported that 2016 was the hottest year on record and getting a lot warmer. With the devastating bush fires in Australia 2020 is turning out to be a very […]
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Climatologists have started to drill into the oldest ice core in Antarctica to find some air that may have been there around 1 million to 900,000 years ago. The teams are from Australia, China, and Europe in a friendly type competition to find samples of air that is about 1.5 million years old. They would like to find out what […]
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