The Time Is Now, Climate Experts Warn

Earlier this week, renowned NASA climate scientist James Hansen warned Congress of the dangers of climate change, exactly 20 years after he did so for the first time. The message he delivered was almost the same as it was in 1988, but there was one key difference: "The difference is that now we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb," he

First hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic storm season - Hurricane Bertha

Hurricane Bertha strengthened again into a Category 2 storm on Wednesday as it inched closer to Bermuda, but it remained uncertain whether the hurricane would actually strike the British mid-Atlantic colony, U.S. forecasters said.The first hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic storm season surprised forecasters with the speed and vigor at which it strengthened into a "major" Category 3 hurricane on

Arctic ice melting at record speed

Tens of thousands of years ago, "armadas of ice" crumbled off of the ice sheet covering North America into the Atlantic Ocean. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away on the other side of the continent, icebergs calved off of another ice sheet into the Pacific. Their synchrony -- just uncovered by new research -- suggests the events might be connected in a long-distance domino effect. The fact that

Rising Mississippi River threatens Midwestern towns

A small Illinois town was evacuated this morning after a levee breach along the Mississippi River. About 50 people in Meyer, Ill., have had to leave their homes. The evacuation order is likely not the last in Illinois or in neighbouring states. Towns along the Mississippi River were bracing for more floods Wednesday. The Mississippi broke through a levee near Gulfport, Ill., Tuesday, covering

Hawaii hopes to boost tourism with $3 million campaign

HONOLULU (AP) — The Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau has launched a $3 million advertising campaign aimed at luring travelers amid a sagging economy and major cutbacks in the airline industry. The recently launched campaign highlights discounted air and hotel packages to convince Americans that they can still afford to come to Hawaii despite rising travel costs. The ads have begun appearing on

Before & After: 3rd Largest Rain Forest Vanishing Fast

Satellite images show Papua New Guinea's Gulf Province rain forest intact in 1988 (left) and laid bare by logging in 2002. The images were released this week as part of a new study. At the current rate of destruction, 53 percent of the country's rain forest—said to be the world's third largest—will disappear by 2021, according to the study of three decades of satellite imagery. Between 1972 and

Aerial images prove existence of remote Amazon tribe

Deep in the Amazon jungle, one of the Brazil's last uncontacted indigenous tribes has been photographed from the air, to prove its existence.The pictures show tribesmen, painted red from head to toe, preparing to defend themselves with longbows against the aircraft carrying out the photography.The images, taken by the Brazil's department for Indian affairs (Funai), reveal a number of thatched

Erupting volcano prompts new evacuation in Chile

PUERTO MONTT, Chile, May 5, 2008 (Reuters) — Chile prepared to evacuate another town in its remote Patagonian south on Monday, as ash spewed from a snowcapped volcano for a fourth day after its first eruption in thousands of years.President Michelle Bachelet made her way to the small town of Futaleufu, the second town to be evacuated, as residents packed what belongings they could carry. The town

Heavy Rain Floods South America

Two months after intense rains began to pound much of South America, rivers along the northwest coast of Peru remained flooded. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured the top image of the flooded river systems on April 1, 2008. Streams and pools of dark blue water dominate what was a tan-pink desert in early February, immediately before the

Study shows life was tough for ancient Egyptians

CAIRO, Mar. 30, 2008 (Reuters) — New evidence of a sick, deprived population working under harsh conditions contradicts earlier images of wealth and abundance from the art records of the ancient Egyptian city of Tell el-Amarna, a study has found. Tell el-Amarna was briefly the capital of ancient Egypt during the reign of the pharaoh Akhenaten, who abandoned most of Egypt's old gods in

Avalanches On Mars Photographed By NASA Spacecraft

The High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took the photograph Feb. 19. It is one of approximately 2,400 HiRISE images being released today. Ingrid Daubar Spitale of the University of Arizona, Tucson, who works on targeting the camera and has studied hundreds of HiRISE images, was the first person to notice the avalanches. "It really surprised me," she

New Dinosaur Species Found In Montana

A dinosaur skeleton found 24 years ago near Choteau has finally been identified as a new species that links North American dinosaurs with Asian dinosaurs. The dinosaur would have weighed 30 to 40 pounds, walked on two feet and stood about three feet tall. The fossil came from sediment that's about 80 million years old.A paper on the finding was published in September's issue of the Journal of

Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Shatters All-time Record Low, Report Scientists

Scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center said today that the extent of Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its minimum for 2007 on Sept. 16, shattering all previous lows since satellite record-keeping began nearly 30 years ago.The Arctic sea ice extent on Sept. 16 stood at 1.59 million square miles, or 4.13 million square kilometers, as

Spectacular Hubble Image Of Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1672

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has delivered an unrivalled snapshot of the nearby barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672. This remarkable image provides a high definition view of the galaxy’s large bar, its fields of star-forming clouds and dark bands of interstellar dust.NGC 1672, visible from the Southern Hemisphere, is seen almost face on and shows regions of intense star formation. The greatest

Amazing Ocean Facts

Deep Waters The record for the deepest free dive is held by Jacques Mayol. He dove to an astounding depth of 282 feet without any breathing equipment. The deepest spot on Earth, Challenger Deep, is 35,802 feet (11,034 m) deep. It is found in the Mariana Trench, one of the many deep valleys of the Pacific Ocean. The pressure here is over 8 tons per square inch. Movie director James Cameron

Global Warming Will Bring Violent Storms And Tornadoes, NASA Predicts

NASA scientists have developed a new climate model that indicates that the most violent severe storms and tornadoes may become more common as Earth's climate warms.Previous climate model studies have shown that heavy rainstorms will be more common in a warmer climate, but few global models have attempted to simulate the strength of updrafts in these storms. The model developed at NASA's Goddard

Northwest Passage Opens: Arctic Sea Ice Reaches New Low

The area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has now (September 16, 2007) shrunk to its lowest level since satellite measurements began nearly 30 years ago, opening up the Northwest Passage – a long-sought short cut between Europe and Asia that has been historically impassable. Leif Toudal Pedersen from the Danish National Space Centre said: "We have seen the ice-covered area drop to just around 3

Bird Completes Epic Flight Across The Pacific

A female bar-tailed godwit, a large, streamlined shorebird, has touched down in New Zealand following an epic, 18,000-mile-long (29,000 km) series of flights tracked by satellite, including the longest non-stop flight recorded for a land bird. The U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center tracked the odyssey of the bird as part of an ongoing collaborative effort with colleagues in California

Marine Team Finds Surprising Evidence Supporting A Great Biblical Flood

Did the great flood of Noah's generation really occur thousands of years ago? Was the Roman city of Caesarea destroyed by an ancient tsunami? Will pollution levels in our deep seas remain forever a mystery?These are just a few of the questions that are being addressed by a new environmental marine research team from Tel Aviv University and the non-profit research and education organization,

Crater Mystery Cracked in Michigan

Eighteen hundred million years ago, an area that now spans the U.S.-Canadian border near Lake Huron was battered by a rain of molten debris and mega-tsunamis caused by what is thought to be the second largest impact in Earth's history. But the source of that collision has long been a mystery. Now, telltale signs of what's called the Sudbury impact of southern Ontario — including shocked quartz