Some people seem to believe that knowing the science behind the nature you're looking at will somehow detract from the esthetic appreciation of nature. The last time I hiked up Bare Mountain was before my geologic education. This time, when I saw the boulders of conglomerate among the basalt, I knew from whence the glacier had brought them; I ( Read more... )

Take a look at this cool video of a launch that passes through the atmospheric layer that holds a sundog, and makes visible shockwaves that disrupt the sundog. Amazing!


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In the early 1900s rumors began to circulate about the poinsettia's supposedly darker side--some claimed the plant was poisonous if ingested. Then, in 1919 the poinsettia's fate was sealed when a story circulated that a two-year-old boy died after eating a poinsettia leaf.
Well ( Read more... )

Check this out! (I'm sure it will be all over the news real soon.)

Wednesday morning, Dec. 9th, people in arctic Norway were stunned when a gigantic luminous spiral formed in the northern sky. "We are used to seeing lots of auroras here in Norway, but this was different," says Nick Banbury of Harstad who witnessed the phenomenon on his way to ( Read more... )

Nifty bioluminescence video, though it's not particularly "flashy ( Read more... )

First, go look at the nifty* new images from the renovated Hubble Telescope at http://www.hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2009/25/Read more... )

The Perseid earthgrazers are scheduled to put on a show between 9 and 11 PM on Tuesday, Aug. 11.

Read more at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/10aug_horseflies.htm?list58076

According to Accuweather (http://www.accuweather.com/news-story.asp?article=8) it is supposed reach 85 to 95 degrees (F) in Canada's Northwest Territories this week!


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So cool! This is a photo of a Russian volcanic eruption, taken from the ISS!


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... but I received a copy of the National Geographic Atlas of American History today, and it starts out with geologic history. In both the timeline and the little set of continental position maps, it shows Rodinia. Pretty cool, eh?