National Geographic

Land on “Goldilocks” Planet for Sale on eBay

The alien planet Gliese 581g set off a firestorm of controversy in 2010 when astronomers loudly declared it to be the first truly habitable planet found outside our solar system. One of several planets known to orbit the red dwarf star Gliese 581, the headline-grabbing world was described by one researcher as being “just the [...]

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Alarming Amazon Drought – River Hits New Low

by National Geographic

From The National Geographic Hard-hit by a months-long drought, a waterway within the Amazon Basin trickles to a halt in Manaus, Brazil (see map), on November 19, 2010. The Negro River (right), a major tributary of the Amazon River, dropped to a depth of about 46 feet (14 meters), the lowest point since record-keeping began [...]

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Conservation is Working, but One in Five Animals is Running Out of Time

by National Geographic

From David Braun of National Geographic Do we need to double our conservation efforts? One fifth of the world’s vertebrates–mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fishes–is threatened with extinction, according to a worldwide assessment by thousands of scientists. But had it not been for conservation measures, they say, the number of species on the threatened list [...]

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Why the Leopard Got its Spots

by National Geographic

From National Geographic Why have big cats evolved such beautiful and intriguing variation in their colors and markings? British scientists have worked out some answers. Detailed patterning of the spots or stripes of big cats evolved for camouflage, researchers at the University of Bristol, UK, said today. Analysis of the evolutionary history of the patterns [...]

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Looking for new chemicals – Do not try this at home!

by Valerie C Clark

Valerie Clark is on a mission to find unique chemicals in nature that can have life-saving potential for human beings. She needed to find a way to figure out which frogs and salamanders should go to the lab for analysis and which could be left in their natural environment. Valerie found a piece of equipment [...]

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National Geographic: Goldilocks Planet is “Just Right”

by National Geographic

John Roach for National Geographic News Astronomers studying a nearby star say they’ve found the first potentially habitable planet, likely a rocky place with an atmosphere, temperate regions, and crucially, liquid water, considered vital for life as we know it. Other extrasolar planets have been called Earthlike, but, astronomer Paul Butler assured, “this is really [...]

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Season your beef – and reduce greenhouse gasses?

by National Geographic

Oregano Moves Cows Toward Climate Neutral From Rachel Kaufman for National Geographic A dash of oregano does more than make pizza taste delicious: it also can reduce the amount of methane in cow burps, new research shows. Scientists have been trying to decrease methane from livestock for years; methane is over 20 times more potent [...]

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The health of the ocean: What’s at stake?

by National Geographic

By Ford Cochran of National Geographic National Geographic hosted a live recording of National Public Radio‘s Talk of the Nation at our Washington, D.C. headquarters yesterday. During the program’s first hour, host Neal Conan spoke with journalist Joel Bourne (author of National Geographic magazine’s October 2010 cover story on the Deepwater Horizon disaster), NPR science [...]

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Cockroach Brains May Hold New Antibiotics?

by National Geographic

By Christine Dell’Amore National Geographic News Published September 9, 2010 Cockroaches may make your skin crawl, but the insects, or, to be exact, their brains, could one day save your life. That’s because the central nervous systems of American cockroaches produce natural antibiotics that can kill off bacteria often deadly to humans, such as methicillin-resistant [...]

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Running Dry

by National Geographic

We’re flesh and blood, resigned to our three score and ten, but rivers are the lifeblood of the earth, created long before us, to remain long after we’re gone. If there’s only one thing I could share with the 30 million people who depend upon the Colorado River, it’s this: If we have the power to wrest a river from the Delta, we also have the responsibility to restore it.
As for what I got out of the 1,450 mile trip, I have let go of my mother. But losing our river is a death I cannot abide.

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