Charles Q. Choi, Oldest Water on Earth Found Deep Underground, LiveScience.com, 15 May 2013 (Photo at Source)
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A pocket of water some 2.6 billion years old - the most ancient pocket of water known by far, older even than the dawn of multicellular life - has now been discovered in a mine 2 miles below the Earth's surface.The finding, announced ( Read more... )

‘You Can’t Take Away My Hope’: Thirty Years Of Climate Scientists Helplessly Describing Our Dangerously Changing World
In a new video by Peter Sinclair, prominent climate scientist Michael MacCracken discusses how the last thirty years have confirmed the predictions he and others made in 1982 and earlier. The scientific understanding of how burning ( Read more... )

Are you scientifically literate? Take our quiz
You may have an opinion on climate change, evolution education, stem-cell research, and science funding. But do you have the facts to back up your opinion? This quiz will test your basic scientific literacy.

50 multiple choice questions.

Some of these are gimmes. Some of them are more math then ( Read more... )

Scientists have measured the way Loch Ness tilts back and forth as the whole of Scotland bends with the passing of the tides.

It is a tiny signal seen in the way the waters at the ends of the 35km-long lake rise and fall.

When combined with the direct tug from the gravity of the Moon and Sun, the loch surface goes up and down by just 1.5mm.

The study ( Read more... )

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - The sand dunes among which Navajos have eked out austere livings for generations are growing fast and becoming mobile as the climate changes, says U.S. Geological Survey geologist Dr. Margaret Hiza Redsteer, whose interviews with elders and historical research augment her decade-long research on Navajo Nation land.
Redsteer will ( Read more... )

Virginia earthquake waves ripple across the US!
This is very cool: seismometers deployed across the United States detected the seismic waves from the magnitude 5.9 earthquake that hit Virginia on August 23, 2011. In this animation showing the data you can actually see the wave rippling across the country!

Click to view

What you’re seeing here are vertical ( Read more... )

Quake Experts to Be Tried for Manslaughter

Seven scientists and technicians who analyzed seismic activity ahead of the devastating earthquake that struck the Italian town of L'Aquila on 6 April 2009 will indeed face trial for manslaughter, a judge announced last week. The defendants are members of Italy's great risks committee, whose job is to ( Read more... )

 By Duncan Geere, 28 March 11.

Previous attempts to reach the area below the Earth's crust have failed, but that hasn't deterred a team of geologists and oceanographers from planning to have another go in 2020.

The first attempt took place in Spring 1961, and was known as Project Mohole, because the team behind it were trying to drill a hole through ( Read more... )

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 03.16.11  & by Beth Lebwohl in association with Earthsky.org

The 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan on March 11 shortened Earth's day by 1.8 millionths of a second, according to NASA scientists. Earth still tilts on its axis by 23.5 degrees, as before. But, since the March 11 earthquake, Earth is spinning faster than ( Read more... )

Methane bubble "doomsday" story debunked
For several days, bloggers and journalists have been passing around a news story about how the BP oil disaster will unleash a "giant methane bubble" and initiate a mass extinction. Yes, it's a myth. And we've busted it.

In this article, called "Doomsday: How BP Gulf disaster may have triggered a 'world- ( Read more... )