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Categories: Geoscience: Earth Science, Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology

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By restricting radiant heat flows between buildings and their environment to specific wavelengths, coatings engineered from common materials can achieve energy savings and thermal comfort that goes beyond what traditional building envelopes can achieve.

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Across the Midwest during the warmer months, studying the sky for signs of storms and tornadoes becomes one of the most popular pastimes. Working at the intersection of climate science and meteorology and using modeling, scientists are looking at the big picture of what causes severe storms and tornadoes -- and what dictates where they occur.

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Researchers have described some of the best-preserved three-dimensional trilobite fossils ever discovered. The fossils, which are more than 500 million years old, were collected in the High Atlas of Morocco and are being referred to by scientists as 'Pompeii' trilobites due to their remarkable preservation in ash.

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Why did multicellularity arise? Solving that mystery may help pinpoint life on other planets and explain the vast diversity and complexity seen on Earth today, from sea sponges to redwoods to human society. A new article shows how specific physical conditions -- especially ocean viscosity and resource deprivation -- during the global glaciation period known as Snowball Earth could have driven eukaryotes to turn multicellular.

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We often think of species as separate and distinct, but sometimes they can interbreed and create hybrids. When this happens consistently in a specific area, it forms what's known as a hybrid zone. These zones can be highly dynamic or remarkably stable, and studying them can reveal key insights into how species boundaries evolve -- or sometimes blur. Researchers now describe a hybrid zone between two manakin species in Panama that has overall remained relatively stable over the past 30 years.

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As more attention is drawn to possible severe weather around the world scientists are looking to improve planning for possible droughts, floods and other scenarios. A team of researchers created a new tool that will allow forecasting of El Nino Southern Oscillation by up to 18 months.

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Researchers have identified the likeliest timeline of the famous Hellenistic-era Kyrenia shipwreck, discovered and recovered off the north coast of Cyprus in the 1960s.

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Researchers have projected future marine heatwaves will cause coral reefs to be at severe risk of bleaching for longer periods than previously seen.

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Researchers have found a chemical clue in Italian limestone that explains a mass extinction of marine life in the Early Jurassic period, 183 million years ago. Volcanic activity pumped out CO2, warming oceans and lowering their oxygen levels. The findings may foretell the impact climate change and oxygen depletion might have on today's oceans.

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Researchers continue to expand the case for the Younger Dryas Impact hypothesis. The idea proposes that a fragmented comet smashed into the Earth's atmosphere 12,800 years ago, causing a widespread climatic shift that, among other things, led to the abrupt reversal of the Earth's warming trend and into an anomalous near-glacial period called the Younger Dryas.

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Scientists predict from geochemical data that Iceland is entering a new volcanic era that will last for decades, possibly centuries. Under an hour's drive from the country's capital city, the ongoing eruptions pose considerable risks for economic disruption, and they leave evacuated communities uncertain of a possible return.

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Clean, safe water is a limited resource and access to it depends on local bodies of water. But even dry regions have some water vapor in the air. To harvest small amounts of humidity, researchers developed a compact device with absorbent-coated fins that first trap moisture and then generate potable water when heated. They say the prototype could help meet growing demands for water, especially in arid locations.

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Colossal undersea mountains, towering up to thousands of metres high, stir up deep sea currents: impacting how our ocean stores heat and carbon. An international team used numerical modelling to quantify how underwater turbulence around these mountains, called seamounts, influences ocean circulation; finding it is an important mechanism in ocean mixing and one that is missing from climate models used in policymaking.

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A doubling of the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere could cause an increase in the average temperature on earth from 7 to even a maximum of 14 degrees. That is shown in the analysis of sediments from the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.

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Some 1,000 years ago, a small band of Polynesians sailed thousands of miles across the Pacific to settle one of the world's most isolated places -- a small, previously uninhabited island they named Rapa Nui. Eventually, their numbers ballooned to unsustainable levels, they wrecked the environment, and their civilization collapsed. At least that is the longtime story, told in academic studies and popular books. A new study challenges this narrative of 'ecocide' saying that Rapa Nui's population never spiraled to unsustainable levels.

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A professor analyzes the conflicting impacts of human activities on extreme spring droughts.

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Inland seas around the world are drying up due to increasing human water use and accelerating climate change, and their desiccation is releasing harmful dust that pollutes the surrounding areas during acute dust storms. Using the Great Salt Lake in Utah as a case study, researchers show that dust exposure was highest among Pacific Islanders and Hispanic people and lower in white people compared to all other racial/ethnic groups, and higher for individuals without a high school diploma. Restoring the lake would benefit everyone in the vicinity by reducing dust exposure, and it would also decrease the disparities in exposure between different racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups.

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For centuries, scientists thought they knew where the griffin legend came from. A new study takes a closer look at the data and folklore's influence on science.

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The impacts of climate change are being felt all over the world, but how will it impact how your hometown feels? An interactive web application allows users to search 40,581 places and 5,323 metro areas around the globe to match the expected future climate in each city with the current climate of another location, providing a relatable picture of what is likely in store.

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A new dinosaur has been identified and named. The dinosaur's name, Lokiceratops rangiformis, translates roughly to 'Loki's horned face that looks like a caribou.'