Satellite images centered on Houston taken on May 2, before Harvey, and Aug. 31, 2017, afterward. (Source: NASA Worldview)
As Harvey has lumbered to the northeast, the clouds have dissipated, finally giving satellites a clear view of what the 1,000-year flooding event in southeast Texas looks like.
The animation above tells the tale.
Image source: NASA Worldview
I created it using images acquired by NASA’s Terra satellite, the first on May 2nd, long before Harvey stormed asho ...read more
(Credit: Essento)
A Swiss supermarket is doing its part to get Westerners hooked on the eco-friendly superfood of the future: bugs.
Coop is one of Switzerland’s largest food retailers with over 2,200 outlets throughout the country, and it operates as a co-op with some 2.5 million members. Recently, Coop started stocking bug burgers and bug balls (like falafel) that are made by fellow Swiss company Essento. And according to Essento, the burgers and balls, made with ground mealworm and othe ...read more
Researchers on their way into the field. (Credit: Gail Ashton)
A perennial problem for climate science is that much of it lies in the realm of abstraction. Various models and forecasts compete for relevance, based on arcane statistical formulations that appear as so much gibberish to science reporters and readers alike.
Well, rest easy, weary travelers — here’s a climate study that leaves the ponderous math behind in favor of a real-world simulation of warming A ...read more
Yes, Frog and Toad Are Friends, but they aren’t moral authorities for your children. That’s the finding of a new, fun-spoiling study on little kids and picture books. It found that kids learned a lesson about sharing from a book with human characters—but not from a book about a cute raccoon.
Many children’s books, of course, feature animals that act like people. And anthropomorphized animals have been imparting moral lessons since the time of Aes ...read more
Grand Prismatic Spring, one of the geothermal features of the Yellowstone Caldera. Photo by Brocken Inaglory/Wikimedia CC-by-SA 3.0
Let’s cut to the chase: The purported NASA plan to “defuse” Yellowstone is pure science fiction.
OK, now that we have that out of the way, let’s get into the details of the numerous articles that have jumped all over what might best be termed a “thought experiment” by scientists at NASA. Yellowstone, the massive caldera in the mi ...read more
Earlier this week I tweeted a link to a Quora post which, I felt, was rather silly. The post was a response to the question “Are people with very high IQs generally happy?” and it answered in the negative:
Let’s say high IQ is a blessing which comes with a terrible price. And each and every person with reading east from 135 has paid that price.
HIgh IQ persons usually have also extremely vivid and wide spectrum of emotions and emotional life, and when they are happy, they are ...read more
These tough bats can tussle with the deadliest scorpions in North America and win.Photo by Connor Long
Pallid bats (Antrozous pallidus) are quirky little creatures, the sole species in their genus. Their long ears, which can equal half their body length, make them look quintessentially batty, but unlike most of their night hunting relatives, they prefer to tackle ground-dwelling dinners—a strategy called “gleaning.” Pallid bats glean as much as half their body w ...read more
(Credit: Horia Bogdan/Shutterstock)
Twenty years ago, a pasture in Costa Rica was nearly barren farmland, choked by invasive grasses. Today, it blooms anew with a rich tangle of jungle plants. The magic ingredient for this resurgence? Oranges.
In the mid-1990s, Del Oro, a newly established orange juice manufacturer in Costa Rica was looking for a way to get rid of the rinds and pulp left over after juice extraction. They planned on building an expensive processing plant, but two ecologist ...read more
Pikas are related to rabbits and live at high elevations in the mountains of North America. Climate change is shrinking the areas where they can live. (Credit: Alison Henry)
According to a survey from Yale University’s Program on Climate Change Communication, 70 percent of Americans think global warming is happening, but only 40 percent believe it will harm them personally.
But what if those same people who believe they are somehow immune from harm were told climate change is being blame ...read more
