News
Fossil discovery solves 500-million-year-old mystery about the dawn of animal life
2+ hour, 12+ min ago (763+ words) Tiny honeycomb-like colonies from southern China have opened a long-running gap in the story of animal life. For decades, bryozoans seemed oddly absent from the Cambrian explosion, the burst of diversification that filled ancient seas with most major animal groups....
Six-satellite 'Storm Wall' could stop dangerous solar storms before they hit Earth
6+ hour, 28+ min ago (1173+ words) Simulations suggest six spacecraft could weaken geomagnetic storms before they disrupt Earth's satellites, GPS, and power grids. (CREDIT: AI-generated image / The Brighter Side of News) The most dangerous weather around Earth does not come with clouds. It comes from the…...
In 2010, Earth's molten core suddenly reversed direction and scientists don't know why
1+ week, 6+ hour ago (1183+ words) Swarm constellation satellites and ground data reveal a startling 2010 reversal in molten core flow beneath the Pacific and suggest it may now be weakening. (CREDIT: ESA) A river of molten iron, more than 2, 000 kilometers below the surface, appears to have…...
Ancient fossils suggest complex life got its start on an oxygenated seafloor
1+ week, 5+ day ago (972+ words) Fossils from ancient Australian seas suggest early eukaryotes depended on oxygen and lived mainly on the seafloor. (CREDIT: Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4. 0) Early eukaryotes, the lineage that later gave rise to animals, plants and fungi, may have depended on oxygen from…...
Scientists reveal why the Earth's upper atmosphere is cooling while the surface is heating up
3+ week, 1+ day ago (1001+ words) New research explains why rising CO2 cools the stratosphere even as it warms Earth's surface. (CREDIT: Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4. 0) The air high above Earth has been moving in the opposite direction of the world below it. A new analysis from researchers…...
New tool tracks lost continents and moving plates over the last 320 million years
1+ mon, 19+ hour ago (1088+ words) New tool tracks where any place on Earth sat up to 320 million years ago, helping decode ancient climate and fossil records. (CREDIT: Faculty of Geosciences Utrecht University) Latitude shapes climate in a basic but powerful way. It controls the angle…...
How ancient shorelines played a crucial role in the survival of early sea creatures
2+ mon, 4+ week ago (1066+ words) A Science study using 300, 000 fossils finds east-west coastlines trapped species at one latitude, raising extinctions over 540 million years. (CREDIT: Science) Coastlines can look like simple lines on a map. Over Earth's history, they acted more like gates and traps. A…...
An important ice cap vanished in Greenland about 7, 000 years ago
3+ mon, 3+ week ago (1316+ words) Sediment drilled from beneath Greenland's Prudhoe Dome shows the ice cap vanished about 7, 000 years ago, offering new clues about future melt. (CREDIT: Jason Briner/University at Buffalo) Deep under Greenland's ice, a thin layer of frozen dirt and rock has…...