How This Supercolony of 1.5 Million Penguins Stayed Hidden for Nearly 3,000 Years

 Posted on December 18, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  753 words  |  Patria Henriques

This year, scientists announced an incredible discovery by looking at poop stains in satellite images — 1.5 million Adélie penguins were living and thriving on a little patch in Antarctica surrounded by treacherous sea ice called the Danger Islands. It turns out that these elusive seabirds had lived on the islands undetected for at least 2,800 years, according to new, unpublished research presented Dec. 11 at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Washington, D. [Read More]

Japan's Mount Kirishima Eruptions Caught on Video

 Posted on December 18, 2022  |  2 minutes  |  293 words  |  Trudie Dory

A Japanese volcano famous for its role in a James Bond movie is continuing its recent explosive run. Mount Kirishima, a volcano on the southern island of Kyushu, began erupting on Jan. 26. An eruption on Feb. 1 was nine times larger than a 1959 eruption of the volcano, its previous largest, said the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan. Ash shot over 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) into the air. [Read More]

Loma Prieta Earthquake: 25th Anniversary in Pictures

 Posted on December 18, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  429 words  |  Trudie Dory

The magnitude-6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake struck on Oct. 17, 1989 at 5:04 p.m. The devastating shaking wrecked buildings and collapsed freeways from Watsonville north to West Oakland. With much of the country tuned in for the World Series at San Francisco's Candlestick Park, it was one of the world's first shared natural disasters. Twenty-five years and $30 billion dollars later, San Francisco has new waterfront, a new Bay Bridge and revived neighborhoods. [Read More]

Outside of Earth's 'shell,' SpaceX's Crew-3 reveal turtle as zero-g indicator

 Posted on December 18, 2022  |  5 minutes  |  896 words  |  Patria Henriques

The "turtle-takeover" of outer space has begun. Just moments after entering Earth orbit on Wednesday (Nov. 10), SpaceX Crew-3 astronaut Kayla Barron released a sparkling sea turtle to float(opens in new tab) above her head. The "zero-g indicator," a doll used to show that she and her three crewmates' were in the microgravity environment of space, was also a signal that "The Turtles" had arrived. "We do have a few things in store . [Read More]

Rare silver coin portraying King Charles I discovered in a field in Maryland

 Posted on December 18, 2022  |  5 minutes  |  1037 words  |  Trudie Dory

An almost 400-year-old silver coin found in a field in Maryland suggests that the remains of a nearby fort are all that's left of one of the earliest English colonial settlements in the Americas, archaeologists said. The coin is a silver shilling — worth the equivalent of maybe $8 in the 17th century — that portrays a likeness of the English king Charles I. Research shows it must have been minted in London in about 1633 — more than a decade before Charles was executed by his Parliamentarian enemies in 1649, during the English Civil War. [Read More]

This Andean Volcano Is Restless. But Should We Expect an Explosive Eruption?

 Posted on December 18, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  687 words  |  Trudie Dory

The Laguna del Maule, a field of volcanoes in the Andes, is restless. The Earth's surface in the region has been rising, and not slowly. Satellite photos taken over the past 10 years have shown that the surface has been rising by around 8 inches (20 centimeters) a year — much faster than any other volcanic area in the world. Because this region is historically known to have explosive eruptions, geologists are trying to figure out what's going on below the surface to better predict when and how such catastrophic events may occur. [Read More]

Will It Really Take Joshua Tree '200 to 300' Years to Recover from the Shutdown?

 Posted on December 18, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  701 words  |  Patria Henriques

While the U.S. government was partially shut down for 35 days, the country's national parks suffered damage that could last generations. Now, as volunteers and conservationists assess the environmental and economic damage around the country, it seems that Joshua Tree National Park — a wonderland of spiky trees and surreal, time-sculpted rocks in Southern California — has experienced some of the worst damage. "What's happened to our park in the last 34 days is irreparable for the next 200 to 300 years," [Read More]

'Russian doll' set of stomach-bursting parasites released inside butterfly on remote Finnish island

 Posted on December 17, 2022  |  5 minutes  |  947 words  |  Trudie Dory

An ecologist's blunder led to the release of a "Russian doll" set of stomach-bursting parasites onto a remote Finnish island, a new study has revealed. Thirty years ago, when ecologist Ilkka Hanski introduced Glanville fritillary butterflies (Melitaea cinxia) onto the island of Sottunga in the Åland archipelago, he planned to watch how a population of one species that had been placed inside a harsh habitat could survive.  But he had no idea that a trio of nested parasites would come along for the ride — with two parasites living inside another parasite, which was itself nested inside some of the butterflies. [Read More]

52 Polar Bears 'Invade' a Russian Town to Eat Garbage Instead of Starve to Death

 Posted on December 17, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  505 words  |  Trudie Dory

Fifty-two hungry polar bears have occupied Guba, a work settlement in a remote Russian Arctic archipelago. The animals reportedly attacked locals, ransacked garbage dumps and barged into residential buildings, according to a government statement translated from Russian and released this weekend. The massive invasion of polar bears prompted regional officials to declare a state of emergency on Saturday (Feb. 9). "People are scared, afraid to leave the house … afraid to let their children go to school," [Read More]

Did Human Ancestor 'Lucy' Have a Midwife?

 Posted on December 17, 2022  |  6 minutes  |  1148 words  |  Patria Henriques

How might the ancient relative of humanity dubbed "Lucy" have given birth? In a manner in between that of chimpanzees and humans, with newborns undergoing a bit of tilting in the birth canal as they were born, a new study finds. Lucy and other members of her species may also have relied on midwives, researchers said. These findings could shed light on how modern human childbirth evolved and made way for large brains, scientists added. [Read More]