Japan finally raised the nuclear threat level of its Fukushima Daiichi power plant from a level 5 to the highest level 7, putting it on a par with the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.Japanese government’s Nuclear Safety Commission had earlier revealed that
Yellowstone National Park hosts a variety of hot springs and geysers, all powered by a plume of molten rock under its surface. At times in the past, that plume has powered activity that was quite a bit less scenic: massive eruptions that have been capable of covering
April 8th at our observatory we carried out planned observations of Comet C/2010 X1 (Elenin). An analysis of the results of the observations shows a rapid growth of the coma. Besides the internal compact gas envelope, the forming rarified external coma is
New research shows that mangroves store exceptionally more carbon than most tropical forests, but they are being destroyed from coastlines at a rapid rate, causing significant emissions of greenhouse gases.Findings by scientists from the Center for International
Mark your calendars for an impressive and upcoming flyby of an asteroid (2005 YU55) that’s one of the larger potentially perilous space rocks in the heavens – in terms of smacking the Earth in the future.It’s the case of asteroid 2005 YU55, a round mini-world
Sudden death syndrome (SDS) of soybean was first discovered in 1971 in Arkansas and since then has been confirmed throughout most soybean-growing areas of the U.S. SDS is a fungal disease that also occurs in a disease complex with the soybean cyst nematode (SCN,
A major artery through southern Humboldt County was shut down on March 30 following a massive slide of mud and rocks, the California Highway Patrol said. Officials estimated that the stretch of Highway 101 could be closed for up to two weeks. Tons of debris tumbled
After just two years in orbit, ESA's GOCE satellite has gathered enough data to map Earth's gravity with unrivaled precision. Scientists now have access to the most accurate model of the 'geoid' ever produced to further our understanding of how Earth…
Last year record-breaking drought caused widespread reductions in the greenness of Amazon forests. A new NASA-based study has revealed that the level of Amazonian vegetation decreased dramatically over an area more than three and one-half times the size of Texas. It
Since the 1900, the freshwater content of the upper Arctic Ocean has increased by about 20 %. This corresponds to a rise of approx. 8,400 cubic kilometres and has the same magnitude as the volume of freshwater annually exported on average from this marine region in
