Earth & Climate

Featured picture: A barrel full of poison

This heavily rotten barrel has been standing on the seabed off the coast of Southern California for around 50 years. It contains highly...

How the first roots developed

Artistic reconstruction of Asteroxylon mackiei. (Image: Matt Humpage) When the plants conquered the land, they had to develop completely new structures - including the...

Featured picture: Fast and economical: the HoreKa supercomputer

These cool blue shining computer towers belong to the HoreKa supercomputer, the new high-performance computer of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). It...

Out and about with a mammoth

Male woolly mammoth in Alaska. (Image: James Havens / University of Alaska Museum of the North) Mammoths are icons of Ice Age fauna, but...

World Climate Report: It’s serious

The earth's climate is changing at an unprecedented rate. (Image: bestdesigns / iStock) It has been around eight years since the Intergovernmental Panel on...

Featured picture: Looked into the hailstone

There is a hailstone behind this colorfully patterned image: its unique internal crystal structure has been made visible using the latest technology. It...

Danger of climatic risk of heated limestone?

Left: Satellite image of Northern Siberia. The two trains of limestone formations in Northern Siberia are marked with broken yellow lines. Top...

Featured picture: Excavation with a difference

These scientists are not just looking for bones and other tangible evidence of the past. In the Satsurblia Cave in the Caucasus, they...

Earliest animal life 890 million years ago

Location of the fossils. (Image: Elizabeth Turner / Laurentian University) The first animals could possibly have lived 890 million years ago: On reefs in...

Even babies pterosaur could fly

Pterosaurs of the species Pterodaustro guinazui. (Image: Mark Witton) At what age could pterosaurs fly? Up to now, this question has been a...

3.42 billion year old microbial fossils discovered

Microscopic image of the fossil microbe filaments. (Image: B. Cavalazzi) Methane-forming microbes - possibly the oldest organisms of this kind - cavorted in hydrothermal...

Featured picture: Aurora australis over the South Pole

This brightly colored aurora shines above the telescopes of the Amundsen-Scott polar station at the South Pole. Like the northern lights, the aurora...

Featured picture: The “zombie” frog

This orange-spotted, pointed-nosed frog belongs to a species newly discovered in the Amazon region. However, it owes its name, Synapturanus zombie, not to its...

Why some dinosaurs shrank

Four Alvarez sauroids illustrate the size differences. (Image: Zhixin Han / https://www.artstation.com/xinyanjun) While most of the dinosaurs grew larger and larger in the course...

Threatened “sea ice refuge”

The "Last Ice Area" is a haven for polar bears and co. (Image: Kristin Laidre / University of Washington) For polar bears and co. It...

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