All Stories by Carolyn Gramling
- Climate
Today’s global warming is unlike the last 2,000 years of climate shifts
Temperatures at the end of the 20th century were hotter almost everywhere on the planet than in the previous two millennia. And it’s only gotten hotter.
- Climate
Slow hurricanes, like Dorian, become dangerous and hard to predict
The warming seas associated with climate change may be fueling powerful but sluggish hurricanes, the type that 2019’s Dorian exemplifies. A climate scientist explains why.
- Fossils
A flexible bone that aids mammals in chewing arose during the Jurassic
A flexible bony structure that helps with chewing may have helped give rise to the Age of Mammals, a new fossil suggests.
- Climate
Climate change made 2019 European heat wave worse
An intense heat spell gripped much of Europe in June. A network of climate scientists now reports finding that global warming made the event much more likely.
- Earth
Three things scientists want to know after California’s July earthquakes
Major back-to-back earthquakes struck northern California on July 4 and 5 — but not where geoscientists were expecting them. That’s raised some questions about how things might be changing.
- Earth
Record seaweed belt spanned from Africa to Gulf of Mexico
Blooms of Sargassum seaweed used to form at the mouth of the Amazon River each year. In 2011, they mushroomed in size to where they now span from South America across to Africa.
- Animals
A million species could vanish, and people are to blame
Human activities are putting a million plant and animal species at risk of extinction, a new study finds. But it’s not too late to save many of them, scientists add.
- Physics
Dry sand can bubble like the blobs in a lava lamp
Put two types of sand grains together in a chamber and they can flow like fluids. All it takes is a jiggle and some gas.
- Planets
Was that a Marsquake?
‘Marsquakes’ could help scientists learn more about the Red Planet’s inner activity.
- Earth
A million tiny quakes shook Southern California — and no one knew
By putting millions of tiny quakes on record, scientists hope to learn more about what triggers the big ones.
- Earth
Microplastics are blowing in the wind
Tiny pieces of plastic are traveling through the air, a new study shows. A remote mountaintop saw just as much plastic deposited per day as falls on downtown Paris.
- Fossils
Paleontologists find the first fossilized egg inside an ancient bird
For the first time, paleontologists have found an unlaid egg inside an ancient bird fossil. That egg may have caused its mother’s death.
