A small Scottish town raised £6 million to buy 10,500 acres from a major landowner; its new nature reserve is now restoring 190 hectares of degraded peatland
When people in the small Scottish town of Langholm set out to raise £6 million, they were not simply trying to buy a piece of countryside. Their campaign secured 10,500 acres and helped create the community-owned Tarras Valley Nature Reserve, turning an…
The average temperature at Antarctica’s Vostok station is minus 55°C, but a body of water the size of Lake Ontario has remained liquid under four kilometers of ice for 15 million years |
Antarctica is the coldest continent on Earth, characterized by extreme temperatures, high altitudes and deadly ice and snow. The average temperature at Russia’s Vostok Station is minus 55°C, and on July 21, 1983, it recorded the lowest reliably…
Rising sea levels make coastal flooding more common around the world; study finds |
Once considered unusual, coastal flooding is becoming an increasingly common part of life in many parts of the world, and rising sea levels appear to be a major cause. Gradual sea level rise is fundamentally changing the frequency of unusually high sea…
Augustus: Roman Emperor Augustus’ Quote of the Day: “We write our names in the sand, then the waves roll in and wash them away” and how all human achievements eventually disappear
“We write our names on the beach, and then the waves come and wash them away.” Stroll along any beach at sunset and you will sometimes see children and couples writing their names in the wet sand with a stick or a finger. Within minutes, rising waves…
Got run over by a car and survived? The strange physics behind iron beetles
Have you ever stepped on a bug underfoot and wondered why it kept buzzing? Now, imagine a car tire rolling over it; most creatures would be crushed, but not this evil ironclad beetle. Research published in the journal Nature found that this unusual…