The Dukovany Nuclear Power Station in the Czech Republic. (Credit: zhangyang13576997233/Shutterstock)
There are 99 nuclear reactors currently operating in the United States. The power they generate is free of carbon dioxide emissions, but as a byproduct, they also generate small amounts of nuclear waste in the form of depleted uranium.
Even after the uranium in the fuel reactors is spent, or depleted, it remains radioactive, and that means storing it is difficult. Controversy over a permanent ...read more
As more than 140 new wildfires erupted in British Columbia and Washington State, a weather satellite captured this dramatic imagery
An animation of satellite imagery shows multiple wildfires burning across British Columbia and other parts of the Pacific Northwest. Areas of active burning look like glittering embers in a campfire. (Source: RAMMB/CIRA/GOES-16 Loop of the Day)
Wildfires blazing in California have received a huge amount of attention in recent weeks. But this summer& ...read more
Researchers say a new Utah pterosaur, skull fragments sketched in (b), appears closely related to another species of the flying archosaur from England (c). (Credit Britt et al 2018, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0627-y)
More than 200 million years ago, a shadow traveled across the hot, arid landscape of what’s now the western United States. It belonged to a Late Triassic pterosaur that may have been the biggest of its time. Describing its size, features and home turf, resea ...read more
In the year 1006, our ancestors witnessed the biggest natural light show in recorded history. A new “guest star,” as Chinese astronomers called it, appeared one night without warning. It was brighter than a crescent moon and visible in daytime. As months passed, the star dimmed until it was no longer visible over a year later.
Today, we know the guest star of 1006 was a supernova. The most violent explosions known, supernovas can briefly outshine the rest of a galaxy. The most common ...read more
Along Antarctica’s west coast near the Amundsen Sea, great white glaciers the size of U.S. states slowly slide into the ocean. In the early ’80s, scientists dubbed it the continent’s “weak underbelly” after learning that ice here — which helps hold back the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet — is anchored below sea level.
If oceans warmed, this unfortunate topography could cause rapid and irreversible retreat. In decades past, glaciologists had assumed thes ...read more
In 2008, Discover profiled amateur archaeologist Sam Osmanagich, who claimed to have discovered the oldest and largest pyramids in the world. Located near the Bosnian city of Visoko and billed as “the most monumental construction complex ever built on the face of the planet,” the pyramids were allegedly made by a highly advanced civilization some 12,000 years ago.
While Osmanagich had no evidence, he did gather worldwide media attention, hundreds of volunteers aiding his excavation a ...read more
Growing AwarenessAlthough not exactly invented at Burning Man, the practice of contemporary archaeology is fairly new, and still far from mainstream. Arguably the earliest example, and still one of the most famous, originated in 1973 when a University of Arizona archaeologist named William Rathje decided to study garbage in Tucson.
As a specialist in Maya civilization, Rathje was well practiced in the study of middens, heaps of ancient rubbish that had provided his field with most of its knowled ...read more
On the fringes of the Gulf Stream, off the east coast of Florida, the sea is very deep and very blue. I hold tight to the railing on the fly deck of the dive boat as it rolls sharply from side to side, and look down into water that’s a thicker, denser color than I’ve ever seen.
For a moment I imagine that if I leaned over the side and dipped my hand in the water, it would come out coated in blue, like paint. Golden fragments of seaweed float by, escapees, perhaps, from the Sargasso S ...read more
Paul arrives at the emergency department by ambulance. Paramedics wheel in the 70-year-old on a stretcher and help him sit on the edge of a bed. He’s wearing an oversized T-shirt and paint-splotched pants. His arms are crossed, and he’s staring at his shoes, as if giving the room the silent treatment.
Paul speaks no English, only Portuguese. Through a translator, he says with a sneer that his wife, Janet, called the ambulance. “I am fine,” he says. “You need to let ...read more
