The greatest extinction in Earth’s history might not have been so great after all. A suspected colossal die-off of roughly 75 percent of land species didn’t accompany the Permian extinction around 252 million years ago, a team of geologists contend.
Modern animals such as rodents and platypuses dig underground labyrinths to confound predators. So did ancient insect larvae, new research suggests.
A boost in acidity deep inside Earth may yield some serious bling.
The hottest time since dinosaurs roamed the planet was caused by nearly half as much carbon dioxide in the air as previously thought, crystals from Earth’s past suggest.
Microscopic vampires may have prowled the ancient seas around 750 million years ago. The fossilized remains of their punctured victims may be the oldest direct evidence of predators hunting eukaryotes, a domain of complex organisms that includes plants and animals.
Adapted for Science News for Students.
If you want to keep an ice cave cold, don’t shut the door.
Gravitational tugs on a pair of spacecraft have revealed previously unseen blemishes on the moon’s face.
Earth’s long history starts with an epic preamble: A collision with a Mars-sized space rock rips into the young planet and jettisons debris that forms the moon. Over the next few billion years, plot twists abound. The oceans form. Life appears. Solar-powered microbes breathe oxygen into the air. Colossal environmental shifts reshape the planet’s surface and drive the evolution of early life.
A feature article on Earth's so-called boring billion, a seemingly uneventful time in the planet's history that's now the setting of a fierce debate between scientists over what delayed the rise of animals: evolution or the environment.
Wireless technology dangerously clutters the airwaves that meteorologists rely on to monitor thunderstorms, hurricanes and tornadoes, blacking out large swaths of weather radar maps.
Hurricane Patricia is now the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere, with maximum sustained wind speeds reaching 325 kilometers per hour (200 miles per hour), the National Hurricane Center reports.