Unprecedented Weather EventsIf you have had it up to here with floods in England, if you are left cold by the snow in the United States or mystified by the unseasonably mild temperatures in Scandinavia, blame it on Santa Claus! Continue reading Are the Jet Streams Dynamics Santa’s Revenge? No, really.
Evergreen Energy from AlgaeEngineers have designed a continuous chemical process that produces useful crude oil in under an hour. All from a verdant green algae paste with the consistency of pea soup… Continue reading Algae to Bio-Crude Oil in 60 Minutes?
Manmade Carbon CO2 Pollution Has Already Put Us on Track for 20 Metres of Sea Level RiseThe bad news is that we’re all but certain to end up with a coastline at least this flooded: 20 metres or 69 feet. The “good” news Continue reading Sea Level Rise vs Atmospheric CO2
Why has the Sun been so quiet?The Sun ought be awash with activity right now. But space scientists are baffled… The Sun has reached its solar maximum: the point in its 11-year cycle where activity is at a peak. Yet it has hit a lull. And to see when the Sun was this inactive last… you’ve got to go back about 100 years… Continue reading Silent Sun
A Rambling Geomagnetic PoleMagnetic North made an unusual and historic shift. For the first time in more than 220 years of map making, Ordnance Survey has noted that North lies East, and not West, of Grid north for parts of Southern Britain. But how does this shift in magnetic field affect map reading in Scotland’s hills? Continue reading North by Northeast: The Trouble with the Earth’s Shifting Magnetic Field
An Essential Molecule for the Sustainability of LifeWater. H2O. The chemical formula is simple. Two atoms of hydrogen H and one atom of oxygen O, held together by covalent bonds, are all it takes to make what is perhaps the most fundamental substance to life on Earth. Continue reading Water of Life
Olivine, A Common Earth MineralOlivine is a common green mineral, present in the Earth’s subsurface. The mineral is also called ‘peridot’ and ‘chrysolite’ when mined as a semi-precious stone.
When exposed at the Earth’s surface, olivine weathers quickly. The serpentine mineral that results is of increasing interest to scientists looking for a viable solution to clean the atmosphere from CO2. Continue reading Olivine – Squeezing Hydrogen from Stone and Capturing Carbon
The Coral Barrier Reef is Only in the Mood Once a Year.Aawww!! What? Not what you were expecting? What are you like… Anyway, it made you look! 😉
This great sex show, the greatest sex show on Earth, happens every year, around about now, in November. When the tides are just right and the Moon is full, the Coral Reef literally erupts! Continue reading November’s Greatest Sex Show on Earth
Typhoon Haiyan of the PhilippinesTyphoon Haiyan was a huge weather system. If you haven’t heard about the devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines by now, then you probably don’t care… Continue reading In the Eye of Super Typhoon Haiyan
The Day of the Chelyabinsk AsteroidJust nine months ago, a massive asteroid blew up above the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia. The explosion created by the Chelyabinsk asteroid on Friday 15 February 2013 was the Continue reading Chelyabinsk Asteroid: Nine Months After The Russian Meteor Impact
What is Energy?And what does the Law of Conservation of Energy actually mean? In science and Nature, the word ‘energy’ conjures up a wealth of images associated with speed of movement, activity and work. Energy does appear in many guises. Even matter is a form of energy. Actually, everything in the Universe is nothing more than energy in one form or another… Continue reading The Law of Conservation of Energy: Life’s a Roller Coaster!
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just released its latest summary of the science behind human-caused climate change or, to use its catchy official title, the IPCC Working Group 1 Fifth Assessment Report Summary for Policy Makers – Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis.
The document summary is 36 pages long. The report includes 14 chapters and a dizzying amount of graphs, data and figures. Here are just a few… Continue reading IPCC 2013 Stockholm – Latest Findings on Climate Change
Over 50,000 deaths each year in the UK are attributed to air pollution. Physicist, entrepreneur and father Mark Richards is concerned about the environment and in particular the air pollution that we expose our children to. He has developed a handy machine which can monitor air quality. He wants people to see how bad air pollution is, so that we all think more carefully about our lifestyles and travel methods.
Sun Light in a Bottle“God gave the Sun to everyone”, Alfredo Moser states modestly. And Moser gave his light to everyone. Over the last couple of years, Moser’s ingenious innovation has spread throughout the World, bringing the bottle lamps to locations from Brazil to the Philippines and Bangladesh. By early next year, it is estimated that one million homes will have benefited from his simple idea… Continue reading The Moser Bottle Lamp: ‘Divine Light’
Scottish Downpours Tropical-StyleNear-tropical thunderous rain downpours have succeeded the balmy high temperatures that summer has brought to Glasgow of late. Deep black skies. Thunderbolts. Lightning. (♫ Very, very frightening! Galileo Galileo… ♫) Unusual conditions even for a very wet Scotland. Continue reading Tropical Thunderstorms in Glasgow: The Tale of the Atmospheric River
One of a Rare Status UpdateApparently, the phrase “once in a blue moon”, in the sense of something that occurs very rarely, dates back to 1824. I will check this out as soon as I have time… Continue reading Once in a Blue Moon…
Our planet is surrounded by layers of gas, the ‘atmosphere’, maintained around it by the very gravitational attraction of the Earth. An important part of the atmosphere that we use to breathe and that plants use in photosynthesis is the ‘air’. Continue reading Earth’s Atmosphere
Today, Friday 15th February 2013. Russia’s Ural mountains. A fireball streaks through the clear morning sky. Loud bangs follow. A meteor crashes in Russia about 1,500 kilometres (930 miles) east of Moscow. Continue reading Meteors over Russia
Rainbows: Technicolor Symphonies in the SkyRainbows are one of Nature’s most gorgeous optical spectacles to behold, brightening up clouded skies with an ephemeral palette of colours when the light falls just right… Continue reading Rainbows, Rainbows Everywhere!
Earth’s Electric FieldThe Earth has an electric field. On average, this field points vertically downwards and it has a magnitude of about 100 N C-1 (Newtons per Coulomb). It exists because the Earth’s surface carries a negative charge of – 5 x 105 C, while the upper atmosphere carries a compensating positive charge. An average of 400,000 thunderstorms a day Continue reading Lightning and the Earth’s Electric Field
14th October 2012. During his ultimate high-altitude parachute jump, Felix Baumgartner spends approximately 4 minutes and 22 seconds in freefall, at the maximum speed of 1,342 kilometres per hour. Continue reading Fallen from Outer Space…
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