Environment

For centuries – millennia even – they’ve towered over the savannah like giants from another world, but their long, almost immortal watch is at last beginning to fade. The African baobab, the largest and longest-living tree among all angiosperm (flowering) plants, is in the midst of a deadly crisis, with new research finding several of

In 1999, radiologist Nicola Strickland went on a holiday to the Caribbean island of Tobago, a tropical paradise complete with idyllic, deserted beaches. On her first morning there, she went foraging for shells and corals in the white sand, when the holiday quickly took a turn for the worse. Scattered amongst the coconuts and mangoes

Scientists have reported finding traces of plastic and hazardous chemicals in Antarctica, which before now was the last part of the planet that remained mostly untouched by the damaging effects of human activity. Samples of water and snow, collected over a three-month period earlier this year, paint a sorry picture of the environmental consequences of

One minute, you’re chilling on a mountain. The next you’re being dwarfed by the biggest Moon you’ve ever seen – one that seems to be coming right down to rest on Earth’s surface. That’s what appears to be happening in this video on NASA’s Astronomy Picture of The Day (APOD) site for 4 June 2018.

They call Alaska the last frontier, but as the largest American state grapples with global warming happening twice as fast as anywhere else in the US, nobody knows for sure where its vast, changing landscape is headed. Our best guess comes in the form of a new analysis sourced from over 30 years of satellite

It was an unprecedented blip out of nowhere in 1982. For the first time, scientists confirmed the first earthquake in Antarctica – but it wouldn’t be the last. As the decades passed, researchers detected eight more seismic events in East Antarctica. And then all hell seemingly broke loose, with sensors picking up 27 earthquakes in

Dozens of people have been killed, and with many more missing, after Volcán de Fuego (Fuego) in Guatemala erupted on 3 June 2018. In recent years, Fuego has regularly ejected small gas and ash eruptions, which hold little risk to surrounding populations. But Fuego also has a reputation for producing larger explosive eruptions. These larger

Rescuers cradled it in a shallow canal, their arms wrapped around its slick, shuddering body. It could not eat and struggled to swim and breathe. Red umbrellas were opened above it to block the harsh sun. It was a race against time to save the male pilot whale, slowly dying after it was discovered Monday

Every Christmas, sailors from Japan go out into the Southern Ocean, taking “biological sampling” that aims to investigate “the structure and dynamics of the Antarctic marine ecosystem”. But no, they aren’t trying to understand more about climate change, or investigating the mating songs of the ocean. They’re out killing hundreds of Antarctic minke whales, and then

Anyone who thinks there’s no such thing as a stupid question, clearly hasn’t met an online troll before. This week, the US Geological Survey (USGS) was trying to keep the public informed about Hawaii’s ongoing volcanic eruption when suddenly, they were obliged to confirm that no, toasting marshmallows over a volcano is not really the

For the last 30,000 years the Great Barrier Reef has experienced all kinds of sea level rises, temperature changes, and sediment increases. But despite a staggering five near-death experiences for the reef, it kept bouncing back – at least in the past. A new study by a group of international researchers looked at fossil reef

Few geologic events capture the imagination like an erupting volcano. We thrill at the image: Hot, molten rock comes bursting out of the ground, destroying most everything in its path. Volcanoes can cause massive disasters that kill tens of thousands, and they can produce amazing sights like hypnotic lava fountains. With an eruption like the

Earth is full of bizarre landscapes. Some are land formations moulded over thousands of years, while others are human-made creations that have altered the planet in strange ways. From the bubbling lava lakes of Ethiopia, to a lake that has been nestled in the desert for 2,000 years, here are 29 landscapes that are so incredible,