Oct 19, 2023 | Salon.com
When the Sun suddenly erupts, it creates what’s known as solar flares and coronal mass ejections — and they can cause a lot of mischief when the resultant electromagnetic radiation reaches Earth. One particularly intense geomagnetic storm in 1859, the so-called Carrington Event, knocked out telegraph lines and tricked many people into thinking it was morning at 1 a.m....
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Oct 18, 2023 | Salon.com
The Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella) is among the most beloved sea animals, with its wet puppy dog eyes, big white whiskers, rolly poly gray body and slippery flippers. Unsurprisingly, the fur seal is almost universally regarded as adorable. The act of clubbing one for its fur is a horrific practice that has thankfully been banned — but in a way, humans are still clubbing these animals over the head with drastic changes to the global climate....
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Oct 17, 2023 | Salon.com
A new study reveals a potential genetic basis in altruism — or demonstrating selflessness to benefit others — and it does so by looking no further than the common honey bee. According to a recent paper in the journal Molecular Ecology, it comes down to the development of female honey bees....
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Oct 16, 2023 | Salon.com
In the 1973 sci-fi movie “Soylent Green,” the year 2022 is depicted as a world so ravaged by pollution that the temperature never drops below 90°F (32°C). Food is scarce; millions of people are homeless and crowd together in hallways just to sleep; the government has become overtly authoritarian. While things are not currently that bad (at least not yet), studies on climate change repeatedly indicate that the heat-based premise of “Soylent Green” is rapidly becoming close to reality....
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Oct 15, 2023 | Salon.com
According to a recent study in the scientific journal PeerJ, a bright yellow snail unlike any other discovered species lives in the Florida Keys. It’s official name is Cayo margarita, which refers both to the type of small, low island where it lives and the bright yellow alcoholic drink that it so closely resembles....
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Oct 14, 2023 | Salon.com
The 1973 horror film “The Exorcist” was so scary that audiences left the theater up and out — throwing up and passing out, that is.
Local news reports from the time confirm that some people left the auditoriums early to treat their nerves; others passed out from their fear or vomited profusely....
Originally posted on salon.com
Oct 13, 2023 | Salon.com
The most iconic aspect of a volcanic eruption is the massive plume of smog that emits from its crater. Many greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, are included in this chaotic haze that can sometimes trigger dazzling lightning storms. Not surprisingly, this has an outsized impact on our climate. However, while it’s true that volcanoes contribute to climate change, that does not mean that our current climate change crisis — you know, the one that is driving a sixth mass extinction and shattering temperature records — is being caused by volcanoes alone....
Originally posted on salon.com
Oct 13, 2023 | Salon.com
It’s a bit mind-boggling to imagine something as big as the planet Neptune crashing into a similar-sized planet, but astronomers caught this exact scenario, as described in a recent study in the journal Nature. A pair of ice giants — or massive planets the size of Uranus and Neptune, but composed of elements that are heavier than hydrogen and helium — collided into each other as they passed in front of the star they orbit, ASASSN-21qj....
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Oct 12, 2023 | Salon.com
A recent study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives reveals that nearly all of the adolescents living in the agricultural county of Pedro Moncayo, Ecuador (98%) have high concentrations of a common pesticide, glyphosate, in their urine. In addition, it found that 66.2% of the participants had an herbicide in their urine known as 2,4-D....
Originally posted on salon.com
Oct 10, 2023 | Salon.com
Space weather is exactly what it sounds like: variations in the environment between Earth and the Sun, influenced by factors like solar wind and the ionosphere, the buzzing layer of the atmosphere that is ionized by solar radiation. Birds rely on the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate, yet until recently it was unclear whether space weather could make it more difficult for these same birds to fly....
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