The temporary housing settlements of Williston, N.D., might seem like an unlikely haunt for archaeologists. Nonetheless, a team of “punk archaeologists” are there, finding the history in the present by peering into the lives of people at the heart of North Dakota’s oil industry. Thanks to the lucrative nature of the “Bakken boom” — the ongoing oil drilling in North […]
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A groundbreaking new map offers an unprecedented glimpse beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet, revealing the continent’s hidden topography with remarkable precision. This high-resolution terrain map, known as the Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica (REMA), was released by researchers at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in September 2018. The REMA provides detailed imagery down to the size of a car in some areas, […]
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Research into penguins has plunged to new depths with the release of images which provide a glimpse of life beneath the Antarctic ice. Penguin cams have been able to capture footage which reveals a look into the life of a penguin that we rarely get to see. Miniature penguin cams were attached to the backs of Adelie penguins by scientists […]
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In polluted environments, diesel fumes may be reducing the availability of almost half the most common flower odors that bees use to find their food, research has found. The new findings suggest that toxic nitrous oxide (NOx) in diesel exhausts could be having an even greater effect on bees’ ability to smell out flowers than was previously thought. NOx is […]
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With temperatures in excess of 800 F, Mercury is one of the last places in the solar system you’d expect to find ice. But when NASA’s Messenger spacecraft transmitted its first optical images of the closest planets to the sun, that’s exactly what scientists discovered. Mercury sits about 36 million miles from the sun, which is roughly 57 million miles […]
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In the center of Africa’s Congo Basin, they have found about 30 billion metric tons of carbon that is equal to 20 years of US fossil fuel emissions. While using satellite imagery scientists have found 56,000 square feet of highly acidic swamp with depths of 20 feet. This area is the largest peatland found in the Tropics. Being highly acidic […]
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Colossal volcanic eruptions some 250 million years ago have long been linked to the widespread global extinction known as the “Great Dying“, a 60,000-year period that saw 90 percent of all sea creatures and more than two-thirds of all plants and animals on land die off. But new research has for the first time identified the specific cause of the […]
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The H5N1 bird flu has been found to have made it’s way to Antarctica. This could cause widespread health concerns for the penguins and seals that populate the Arctic region and have never come in contact with the deadly H5N1 virus before. Concerns have been raised among the scientific community over the possibility of breeding failures within the region’s avian […]
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New South Wales and southern Queensland are going to be suffering from warmer weather and less rain than in the past. This temperature change is called “sudden stratospheric warming.” It happens when the air above the South Pole starts to warm up rapidly. Predictions are that the warming of Antarctic will likely be higher than a previous record high in […]
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Tropical forests account for a third of the total carbon fixed by photosynthesis. Lianas’ increasing abundance may be driven by changing climate, increased disturbance or by more severe seasonal drought. By reducing the ability of tropical forests to accumulate and store carbon released through burning fossil fuels, lianas could cause a positive feedback loop, accelerating climate change. “This study has […]
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