Science
ArchiveThe record low compared to the average minimum. Photo: NASA/Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio The extreme melt of Arctic sea ice has stopped for the year, but only after setting a record low for area covered, scientists…
Filmmaker Chris Tangey recorded the above video of a fire whirl whisking through the Australian Outback near Alice Springs on September 11. Since then, the clip has swerved from news sites to blogs to social media around the world. In its…
For almost a century, the world's hottest temperature was believed to be a 136-degree Fahrenheit measurement recorded in El Azizia, Libya, on September 13, 1922. This month, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) threw that record out. They gave their reasons in…
A pika in its talus home. Photo: Karunakar Rayker By Mary Ellen Hannibal When Chris Ray got started studying pika, she could not have anticipated that these small rabbit relatives would one day become a poster child…
West Mata eruption. Photo: NSF/NOAA In 2009, scientists on a cruise in the Western Pacific sent a remotely operated vehicle 4,000 feet below the ocean surface and discovered a two-mile high volcano called West Mata erupting 2,200-degree Fahrenheit lava in bursts scattered over the area…
After years of sounding the climate-change alarm, writer Bill McKibben realized that gentle persuasion wasn’t cutting it. So he got mad. Then he got busy: tweeting, organizing, protesting, getting arrested, and becoming Big Oil’s biggest threat.
Yosemite National Park confirmed on Thursday that a ninth person had contracted hantavirus, according to Reuters. The park visitor, from California, has recovered. The notice came a day after the park notified roughly 230,000 people about the outbreak by email, according to the…
Entering the cave. Photo: Rechitan Soran/Shutterstock Not long before Thanksgiving in 2009, 26-year-old University of Virginia medical student John Jones, his wife Emily, and their 13-month-old daughter flew home to Utah. Emily was pregnant, and the couple…
In the 16 years since Into Thin Air, Mount Everest has become safer in many ways, with better storm forecasting and amazing high-altitude rescue helicopters. So why did 10 people die in 2012?
Photo: Egan Snow/Flickr As summer wanes and garden harvests start to dwindle, this news lands with a thud: a recent study performed at Stanford University indicated that eating organic produce doesn’t necessarily mean eating more nutritious produce. If you figured this would…
Grizzly print, and a notebook. Photo: ϳԹrs and Scientists for Conservation Rachel Carson earned a master's degree in zoology from John Hopkins University and spent most of her career working as a marine biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife…
What does the popularity of a zombie-themed obstacle race say about American society?
Lance Armstrong has always denied Mike Anderson’s claim that he broke his word on a business deal, and that Anderson saw and heard evidence indicating that Armstrong was using performance-enhancing drugs. His lawyer, Mark Fabiani, sent this response to Anderson's allegations.
Delicate Arch, Arches National Park. Photo: Ryan Dearth Last year, as part of his Call to Action plan to revise and improve the way our national parks are managed, National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis asked a committee of…
Increasingly, race organizers are testing non-elite athletes for performance-enhancing drugs. But is it fair, or even possible, to hold amateurs to the same stringent standards as the pros?
Chinook salmon. Photo: NWFishers/Flickr The Elwha Dam is gone. The Glines Canyon Dam is nearly gone. With the dams no longer blocking fish from their migratory route up the river, Chinook (king) and other species of salmon and trout are returning. Salmon fry…
Sea turtle hatchling, Baguan Island, Philippines. Photo: Keith Ellenbogen Examples of poor ocean health are too easy—unfortunately—to find in many parts of the world, especially along densely populated coastlines or in the midst of ocean gyres filled with plastic pollution. But what is…
The U.S. men's soccer team made history against Mexico last night. But what makes one win so impressive?
Photo: Bradleygee/Flickr One point four million. That's how many cigarette butts volunteers collected during beach clean-up events in the United States in 2008 alone, according to Ocean Conservancy. Think of how many they missed. And consider all the butts you've seen tossed off…
Red means it's the warmest month ever. Photo: NOAA This past July was the hottest month in the recorded history of the lower 48 states. A severe drought and…
Allie Bombach on location. Photo: Miguel Tercero What is it about movers and shakers? What makes them tick? Filmmaker Allie Bombach wants to know and is using her MoveShake film series to uncover some answers. The year-long project debuted in early June with the…
A Perseid. Photo: ESO/Wikimedia Commons The best nights to see the best meteor shower of the year will start this weekend, according to NASA. The agency has released a video guide (below) that says the prime viewing nights for the Perseid meteor…
The South Fork of the Skykomish, just above Sunset Falls. Photo: Mary Catherine O'Connor When I lived for a short time in Index, Washington, a climbing and boating hotspot on the Skykomish River in the north central Cascades, it felt like equal parts…
On Monday morning at approximately 1:32 Eastern, the new rover Curiosity touched solid ground on Mars after a flight through the planet's atmosphere that NASA dubbed “seven minutes of terror.” The state-of-the-art exploratory vehicle will photograph and take samples to see if there…
Captain Don Voss, marine pollution from a diver's POV. Photos: Marine Cleanup Initiative, Inc. When he returned, wounded, from serving in Vietnam, doctors told Don Voss he wouldn't walk again. But Voss, now a 64-year-old ship captain, turned to swimming as therapy. With more…
3rd Place: Meandering Mississippi Landsat 7 Acquired 5/28/2003, Small, blocky shapes of towns, fields, and pastures surround the graceful swirls and whorls of the Mississippi River, the largest river system in North America. Countless oxbow lakes and cutoffs accompany the meandering river south of Memphis, Tennessee,…
World-renowned scientist E.O. Wilson did not take up calculus until he was 32 years old. When he did finally tackle the subject, he sat next to undergraduate students taking his introductory biology class. He uses this anecdote as a way into his five…
A mockup of the Green Wheel. Photo: Nadim Inaty Okay, you won't save the earth. But you will help it along a tiny bit. Nadim Inaty, an industrial designer from Beirut, Lebanon, is developing a public treadmill that would essentially crowdsource electricity from runners. The concept,…
In this weekly roundup, we scour the Web for our favorite long-form magazine and newspaper articles, collecting them here and on Longreads.com and Twitter. This installment focuses on the animals—and languages—we're eradicating, the dopers we're catching and the fight su
Surveying the beaches in his home state of North Carolina with a world-renowned erosion expert, David Gessner considers the folly of trying to deny what all the sandbags and misguided legislation in the world can never stop: the rising sea
There are plenty of hungry predators roaming the USA. But the deadliest ones for humans may not be the those you expect.
If you’ve seen Red Gold, about efforts to stop the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, Alaska, you know the documentary-making prowess behind Felt Soul Media. The trailer for the team’s next film, DamNation, has just been released. Conceived by…
Cougar. Photo: Shutterstock Cougars are on the rise in the Midwest. From 1990 to 2008, the number of sightings confirmed by wildlife professionals increased. That's good news for fans of big cats, which were extirpated from most of that area around…
Thirty-five years ago, a national recession and high fuel prices led to the opening of the massive, controversial Trans-Alaska Pipeline System—and a host of problems and pollution that came with it. Sound familiar?
Photo: Mara/Flickr One of our top 10 environmental news stories of 2011 was the troubling violence that environmental activists face in many parts of the world, particularly in Brazil, where three high-profile activists were slain last May. While researching that…
Simulated wetland used in silver nanoparticle research at Duke University. Photo: Benjamin Espinasse In recent years, many outdoor apparel manufacturers have embraced a new range of anti-microbial textile coatings that are designed to inhibit the growth of bacterial and fungus that cause odors. Less stinky…
Photo: Kesu/Shutterstock I know, it's Friday and in your head you're probably half-way down the nearest trail or river already. But next week, world leaders are meeting in Rio, 20 years after their last meeting there (thus, “Rio+20”) to try to hammer out some…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Go3vsLnjEDc%3Ffeature%3Dplayer_embedded Sure, summer reading lists are usually filled with the latest mysteries or epic dramas to hit paperback. But for your list, consider adding a series of reports by the Salt Lake Tribune, “Our Dying Forests.” The series recently claimed the The Grantham Prize…
AquaBounty salmon, the unreported disaster at a Panama grow-out facility, and the Georgian libertarian who took control of the fish farm and may soon move it outside the watch of the Food & Drug Administration. Meet what could soon be the first GE animal allowed for human consumption.
Bob Evans' GasPod devices. Photo: GasPods Armed with an engineering degree that he earned not from a university but from “watching nature,” and with years of experimenting and designing better scuba fins, a Santa Barbara-based entrepreneur has created a small airfoil…
The Environmental Protection Agency just released its long-awaited study of the potential effects of the proposed—and highly controversial—Pebble Mine on Alaska's watershed and famed salmon, but the conclusions, tepid as they are, probably won't please either side
The Potomac River Photo: MV Jantzen/American Rivers River conservancy American Rivers just released its 27th annual America’s Most Endangered Rivers report, naming the Potomac the most threatened river. This waterway earned the top spot not so much…
I'm looking for ways to gauge improvement. If I can soak through my wicking base layers, I call that a good day. Do better athletes sweat more?
Courtesy of planet–earth.ca On May 10, Gizmodo posted this 122-megapixel picture they call the single highest resolution photo of earth. Not long ago, NASA made…
A resort lights up. Photo: S. Borisov/Shutterstock The Golden Eagle Award is not, as it sounds, an accolade for Boy Scouts. It's an accolade for ski areas that give a hoot, so to speak, and are actively reducing their environmental impacts. The…
Photo: Walter Siegmund/Wikimedia Commons On Saturday, flash flooding on the Seti River destroyed a number of villages in Nepal's Kaski district (near Annapurna), claiming at least 26 lives, according to recent news reports. Around 40 others, however, are still…
Wildfire via Shutterstock Photo by Jon Beard This summer's wildfire season is already well underway, with tragic repercussions. The Lower North Fork Fire in Colorado last month claimed three lives and many homes. It prompted Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper to put a moratorium…
Jason Mecier artwork, on auction for Keep America Beautiful. Brought to you by Glad Bags. “If I get one more email on the subject, I'm going to celebrate Earth Day by kicking Gaia in the nuts,” declared journalist…
Fluorescent colors and reflective stripes certainly make you more visible to drivers when you're running at dusk or in the dark. But a new study by Brooks Running shows that low light perception is more scientific than just throwing some glare at oncoming traffic. Brooks Running product…
Veronika Scott's initial coat design, with Tyvec shell. Photo: Brittany Thomasson In 2010, while pursuing her degree in product design at Detroit's College for Creative Studies, a single idea changed the course of Veronika Scott's life. She decided to make a coat. Not just any…
Some might say this is the perfect telescope for the star-searching newbie. If you can't hone in on the galaxy you're looking for on your own power, Celestron's Prodigy 6 robotic self-aligning telescope will find it for you. Using electronic motors, an intelligent on-board computer, a…
Shivling Peak via Shutterstock Photograper: Galyna Andrushko As mountaineers from around the world converge in Nepal and prepare for the 2012 Everest climbing season, Apa Sherpa, the porter-turned-professional-climber who has summited the mountain 21 times, is in the midst of…
A Q&A with former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed on his incredibly shrinking country
Photo: Young Hoon Oh Young Hoon Oh, South Korean PhD candidate in anthropology at UC Riverside, is headed to Nepal at the end of the month to attempt his second Everest summit. But his itinerary extends well beyond the days he'll try to reach the top…
Photo: Flickr/gailf548 A study published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows how ecotourists, researchers, and others who are lucky enough to step foot on Antarctica might be leaving more than footprints. Seeds and other plant material hitch-hikes there by way of…
Researchers wield the collection trawl Photo: Stiv Wilson Despite what you might have heard, there are no huge, visually striking debris fields of plastic shopping bags and PET bottles swirling around the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. But if that's the good news, the bad news is much worse:…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=YGGUfYFdFrc%C2%A0 The Telluride MountainFilm Festival came through Santa Fe recently, and I had the opportunity to catch up with half a dozen terrific adventure flicks that I'd missed over Memorial Day weekend in Colorado. Going to see Mountainfilm always takes ten years off my life—in a good…
A U.S. Army sergeant launches a UAV. Photo: The U.S. Army Ecologists and conservationists have long and frustrating lists of hurdles that keep them from doing field work. Aside from the wild, dangerous miles between them and the remote regions of the world they need to…
Badenoch, training. Photo: Joe Bell This spring, Andrew Badenoch plans to launch a 7,000-mile trip from Bellingham, Wash., up to the southern coast of the Arctic Ocean, before looping back. His locomotion will…
Nancy Black, a 49-year-old marine biologist and the co-owner of a whale watching operation in Monterey, California, has pleaded not guilty to charges that she was feeding killer whales during two filming expeditions. According to the Monterey County Herald, the government has also been investigating the Jean-Michel…
Scouring the country’s premier film festival for the best environmental and adventure documentaries
It’s late January. The days are getting longer, the sun is getting just a teensy bit stronger. Who doesn't have beach days or bluebird powder days on the brain? Which brings to mind one of parenthood’s more onerous tasks: applying sunscreen. It’s sticky, the kids are wriggly, and if…
On the afternoon of December 26, 2011, surf forecasting guru and media mogul Sean Collins died of a heart attack. What will the loss of the sport’s oracle mean for the surfing industry and for the sport?
New workouts, a marathon birth, and revolutionary new studies: Here are the headlines that defined health and fitness news in 2011
From bureaucratic wrangling to the death of the sport's most exciting star, the sport of running was in flux a year before the Olympic Games
Harold Camping was wrong—twice—about 2011 ushering in the end of days, but the year certainly had its share of environmental catastrophes. Thankfully, there were a few glimmers of hope, as well.
A collection of the web's best running blogs, from journalists, fans, and runners
The best sites for health advice and commentary, so you can get online and go outside
Tomorrow, November 30, is the last day of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season. To mark the occasion, NOAA released a video that condenses the entire six-month, seven-hurricane season into a 4 minute and 42 second video. A few notes on the…
The best environmental blogs, from one-sided political commentators to prolific aggregators and reporters breaking news.
In late September, a surveyor found a small dead bat lying on the ground at a 6,500-acre wind farm in Pennsylvania, prompting an indefinite shutdown of night operations. With demand for green energy on the rise, is pulling the plug on a wind farm over one dead bat the right call?
The Solyndra solar debacle has some in Congress arguing that government needs to get out of the renewable-power business. Don’t tell that to the Marine Corps, the bravest new recruit in the clean-energy revolution.
How does a visionary marine biologist convince brain researchers to help him revolutionize ocean conservation? With lots of hugs, a million blue marbles, and one very unorthodox conference.
Before the Tar Sands protests and before Occupy Wall Street, a young activist named Tim DeChristopher disrupted a federal oil- and gas-lease auction. The act made him a martyr for a newly radicalized environmental movement—and landed him in prison. This is his story.
Recording engineer Jeff Rice is on a mission to preserve the sounds of nature. Why? Listening to them might actually make us healthier.
They control the lands you play on, the athletes you worship, the gear you buy, even the food you eat. Meet the 25* most influential people in the world outside. *Ranked in order of influence
Located in California's Sequoia National Park, The General Sherman is the largest living single stem tree on Earth. Or at least the largest living single stem tree that we know about. No, it's not the tallest. (That award goes to the Hyperion…