Study: Mountaintop Coal Mining Causes Appalachian Rivers to Run "Consistently Saltier"

Mountaintop-removal coal mining causes many streams and rivers in Appalachia to run consistently saltier for up to 80 percent of the year, a new study by researchers at the University of Wyoming and Duke University finds.

The costs of coal storage and its impact on disadvantaged communities

While the negative health and environmental effects of mining and burning coal are well documented, simply transporting and storing coal can also adversely affect the health outcomes of individuals living near coal-fired power plants.

NASA Gives Hurricane Fernanda a Close-Up

Hurricane Fernanda is moving through the deep tropics and there’s nothing in its way to prevent it from becoming a major hurricane. NASA’s Terra satellite took a closer look at the strengthening storm.

FSU researcher makes deep-sea coral reef discovery in depths of North Pacific

Scientists have long believed that the waters of the Central and Northeast Pacific Ocean were inhospitable to deep-sea scleractinian coral, but a Florida State University professor’s discovery of an odd chain of reefs suggests there are mysteries about the development and durability of coral colonies yet to be uncovered.

New research uses satellites to predict end of volcanic eruptions

Researchers from the University of Hawai?i at M?noa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) recently discovered that infrared satellite data could be used to predict when lava flow-forming eruptions will end.

Discovered one of the brightest galaxies known

According to Einstein’s theory of General Relativity when a ray of light passes close to a very massive object, the gravity of the object attracts the photons and deviates them from their intial path. This phenomenon, known as gravitational lensing, is comparable to that produced by lenses on light rays, and acts as a sort of magnifier, changing the size and intensity of the apparent image of the original object.

The last survivors on Earth

The world’s most indestructible species, the tardigrade, an eight-legged micro-animal, also known as the water bear, will survive until the Sun dies, according to a new Oxford University collaboration.

Unabated climate change would reverse the development gains in Asia: report

Unabated climate change would bring devastating consequences to countries in Asia and the Pacific, which could severely affect their future growth, reverse current development gains, and degrade quality of life, according to a report produced by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

Severe weather model predicted tornado's path hours before it formed

As severe weather brewed in the Texas panhandle late in the afternoon of May 16,  NOAA’s National Weather Service forecasters alerted residents in parts of western Oklahoma about the potential for large hail and damaging tornadoes that evening, particularly in the area around Elk City.

Ninety minutes later, a dangerous, rain-wrapped EF2 tornado struck the small town. It killed one, injured eight and destroyed about 200 homes and more than 30 businesses.  

CEO Says Mexico Oil Find Is 'Multiples Of What We Thought'

It’s been a few years of soul-searching for Tim Duncan, the CEO of Talos Energy. The Houston-based oil company has long specialized in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana and Texas. Yet the oil bust that began in 2014 has made the region deeply unpopular. Facing dwindling prospects for big new finds offshore, companies have instead flocked to the Permian basin of west Texas, where layer upon layer of oil-saturated rock promises decent returns even at stubbornly low oil prices.

“We resisted the temptation to join the land race onshore,” says Duncan. But Talos did go somewhere new: Mexico.