Author: Doyle Rice
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Massive crack in Antarctica ice shelf grows 11 miles in only 6 days
A massive crack in an Antarctic ice shelf grew by 11 miles in the past six days as one of the world’s biggest icebergs ever is poised to break off. The crack in the Larsen C ice shelf is now about 120 miles long, and only eight miles remain until the crack cuts all the way…
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Climate agreement withdrawal: ‘Trump just stepped on the gas’ toward catastrophe
President Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement drew the ire of top environmental and science groups Thursday, who called it a major step backward both for the climate and the country as a leader in environmental issues. The U.S. might as well put up a “closed for business” sign up…
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Climate change is causing a nightmare — lost sleep
Climate change is even getting in the way of a decent night’s sleep. Hotter nighttime temperatures are disrupting sleep patterns, a new study finds, with more sleep lost in the summer and among elderly and lower-income Americans. It’s the largest real-world study yet to link lack of sleep and unusually warm nighttime temperatures, and the…
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Looks like chicken? New feathered dinosaur discovered in China
We may not know how it tasted, but it certainly looked like a chicken. A new species of feathered dinosaur — the earliest known bird ancestor — was recently discovered by a team of paleontologists in Lioaning, China. What they found there was a remarkably well-preserved, 125-million-year-old fossilized skeleton of the three-foot long animal, which has been named Jianianhualong tengi.…
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Huge asteroid to zip ‘near’ Earth on Wednesday
It’s a near-miss in space terms. A 2,000-foot-long asteroid, almost twice the size of the Rose Bowl, will zip safely past Earth on Wednesday at a distance of about 1.1 million miles, about 4.6 times the distance from Earth to the moon. Although there is no possibility the asteroid colliding with our planet, it will be…
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Newly identified fault line in California could unleash monster earthquake
Southern California could be in for some serious shaking. Scientists uncovered a newly identified fault line that could unleash a magnitude-7.4 earthquake in the region, which other researchers say is already long overdue for a whopper of a temblor along the infamous San Andreas fault. The concerns are detailed in separate studies that put the quake…
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Antarctica sets new record high temperature
The continent of Antarctica officially has a new record high temperature of 63.5 degrees, scientists from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced Wednesday. The record was set on March 24, 2015, at the Argentine Research Base Esperanza, located near the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. It replaces the previous record of 59 degrees at Vanda Station, Antarctica, on…
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The Arctic just received its annual report card, and it’s not good
The world’s air conditioner is on the fritz. Unprecedented, record-breaking warmth in the Arctic this year triggered declines in sea ice, snow, the Greenland ice sheet and a remarkable delay in the annual freeze of sea ice in the fall. Overall, the Arctic in 2016 saw its warmest year ever recorded. “Rarely have we seen…
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3 Earth-like planets orbiting nearby star could have life, water
Our science fiction dreams of Martians may never come true, but three earth-like planets discovered orbiting a nearby star have potential life and water, astronomers announced Monday. The sizes and temperatures of these worlds are similar to those of Earth and Venus, and hold the best promise yet for the search for life outside the solar…
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Out of this world: Dust devil spotted on Mars
NASA’s unmanned robot on Mars recently snapped a photo of a dust devil spinning on the surface of the red planet. NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity took the image using its navigation camera on Thursday. Just like down here on Earth, dust devils are created by rising, rotating columns of hot air. When the columns whirl fast…