Over the past 30 years, three-quarters of eastern US tree species have been shifting to the west, and at an astonishing rate of around 15.4 kilometres per decade (9.5 miles). That’s weird, because scientists have long predicted that the effects of climate change would send species towards the poles in search of familiar climates, but
Environment
Researchers in Antarctica have discovered rapidly growing banks of mosses on the ice continent’s northern peninsula, providing striking evidence of climate change in the coldest and most remote parts of the planet. Amid the warming of the last 50 years, the scientists found two different species of mosses undergoing the equivalent of growth spurts, with
As concerns grow over the condition of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, which has endured widespread coral bleaching in the past several years, scientists are finding similar damage on reefs all over the world, including in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Now, a recent expedition to the Chagos Archipelago, a collection of at least
If you could travel back in time 41,000 years to the last ice age, your compass would point south instead of north. That’s because for a period of a few hundred years, Earth’s magnetic field was reversed. These reversals have happened repeatedly over the planet’s history, sometimes lasting hundreds of thousands of years. We know
In the middle of the South Pacific, there’s a remote, uninhabited island, virtually hidden more than 5,000 kilometres (3,100 miles) from the closest major population centre. You’d think that this isolated sanctuary would be pretty unspoilt, but Henderson Island, which is so remote it’s only ever visited by scientists every five to 10 years, is in
Almost 500 years ago, Italy’s Campi Flegrei supervolcano erupted, spewing molten rock and thick plumes of smoke into the atmosphere for eight days straight, and literally forming a new mountain from the chunks of Earth it drew from below. Now, researchers are warning that this vast, fiery cauldron could be ready to blow once more,
Dutch innovator Boyan Slat’s audacious plan to clear plastic from the marine area known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is undergoing some major design changes. But the 22-year-old tells Business Insider that the first cleanup array is set to launch sooner than expected. “Instead of late 2020, the cleanup will now start in just 12 months from now,
The video opens with a close-up shot of a great white shark swimming solo in a turquoise ocean. But when it zooms out, the camera reveals the bustling coast of a Southern California beach. “You are paddleboarding next to approximately 15 great white sharks,” comes a voice from the local Sheriff’s Department. “The sharks are
A new global analysis of the distribution of forests and woodlands has ‘found’ 467 million hectares of previously unreported forest – an area equivalent to 60 percent of the size of Australia. The discovery increases the known amount of global forest cover by around 9 percent, and will significantly boost estimates of how much carbon
Do you wear runners, drink coffee or own a mobile phone? The chances are that these products cruised to you on a ship. In 2015, the global merchant fleet carried a record 10 billion tonnes of cargo, a 2.1 percent increase from the previous year. However, while it’s an essential part of international trade, shipping
Even as the Trump administration weighs withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate agreement, a new scientific paper has documented growing fluxes of greenhouse gases streaming into the air from the Alaskan tundra, a long-feared occurrence that could worsen climate change. The new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that frozen northern
Last night, Elon Musk announced via Twitter that orders would begin today (10 May, 2017) for his revolutionary solar roof hardware. In another tweet, he promised that ordering would be available in most countries throughout the world. He also clarified that people could expect to see delivery begin in the United States in late 2017,
An adult orca found dead on the Scottish island of Tiree last year wasn’t just notable for being one of the last surviving members of her species in the UK – she also died burdened by some of the highest levels of toxic pollutants ever found in a marine mammal. The 20-year-old Lulu died by
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and it doesn’t get more desperate than the Emirates Iceberg Project – a new plan to lug giant ice cubes halfway across the world to combat drought in the United Arab Emirates. The project, which was announced last week by Abu Dhabi-based firm, the National Advisor Bureau Limited, involves
If we want to cut the environmental impact of livestock, switching to insects and imitation meat products is our best bet, according to a new report. The inevitability of turning to insects to feed the world’s growing population has been looming for a while. And now we finally have some data on how much this