Deep under the sea, a fossil the size of a sand grain is nestled among a billion of its closest dead relatives. Known as foraminifera, these complex little shells of calcium carbonate can tell you ...
More than 1.2 billion lightning flashes occur around the world every year. Each of those billion lightning flashes produces a puff of nitrogen oxide gas (NOx) that reacts with sunlight and other ga...
Scientists in Washington, D.C. are reporting laboratory evidence supporting the possibility that some of Earth's oil and natural gas may have formed in a way much different than the traditional...
As the climate gets warmer, arid soils lose nitrogen as gas, reports a new study. That could lead to deserts with even less plant life than they sustain today, say the researchers.
Despite the fact that summer 2009 had more sea ice than in 2007 or 2008, scientists are seeing drastic changes in the region from just five years ago and at rates faster than anticipated.
Predictions made over the last decade about the impacts of climate change on biodiversity may be exaggerated, according to a paper published in the journal Science.
In foods, soil samples or customs checks, plant fragments sometimes need to be quickly identified. The use of DNA "barcodes" to itemize plant biodiversity was proposed during the 1992 Rio...
The seriousness of current global warming is underlined by a reconstruction of climate at Maxwell Bay in the South Shetland Islands of the Antarctic Peninsula over approximately the last 14,000 yea...
When small earthquakes shake the central US, citizens often fear the rumbles are signs a big earthquake is coming. Fortunately, a new study instead shows that most of these earthquakes are aftersho...
New research examines some of the potential problems with current prediction methods and calls for the use of a range of approaches when predicting the impact of climate change on organisms. The st...