Japan
Millions of Asians watched as a rare "ring of fire" eclipse crossed their skies early this morning. The annular eclipse, in which the moon passes in front of the sun leaving only a golden ring around its edges, was visible to wide areas across the continent. It will move across the Pacific and also be seen in parts of the western United States. In Japan, "eclipse tours" were arranged…
May 21, 2012
Guys, when your sweetheart says "No thanks" to sex, do you knock back a few stiff drinks to feel better? Turns out fruit flies do pretty much the same thing. That's the word from a new study that may explain why both species react that way. In yesterday's issue of the journal Science, researchers propose a biological explanation for why "Not tonight, dear" may lead to "Gimme another…
March 17, 2012
Japan
What happened last March 11 wasn't supposed to be possible. The seismic hazard maps didn't entertain the idea of a 9.0 magnitude earthquake off the Tohoku coast of Japan. But the Earth paid no heed to scientific orthodoxy. A massive slab of the planet's crust lurched 180 feet to the east. It rose about 15 feet, lifted the ocean and tipped the Pacific's waters onto the Japanese…
March 11, 2012
If Reps. Gary Hopper and Jerry Bergevin doubted they had won national attention this year with a pair of bills designed to change how evolution is taught in New Hampshire classrooms, they had only to look around them yesterday. Their legislation inspired a think tank to fly a representative in from Seattle to testify. The House Education Committee heard testimony yesterday on a…
February 10, 2012
After more than two decades of drilling in Antarctica, Russian scientists have reached a gigantic freshwater lake hidden under miles of ice for some 20 million years - a pristine body of water that may hold life from the distant past and clues to the search for life on other planets. Finally touching the surface of Lake Vostok, the largest of nearly 400 subglacial lakes in Antarctica,…
February 9, 2012
Scandinavia
A storm from the broiling sun turned the chilly northernmost skies of Earth into an ever-changing and awe-provoking art show of northern lights yesterday. Even experienced stargazers were stunned by the intensity of the aurora borealis that swept across the night sky in northern Scandinavia after the biggest solar flare in six years. "It has been absolutely incredible," British…
January 25, 2012
Fast on the heels of a solar storm that delivered a glancing blow over the weekend - triggering bright auroras in Canada and Scandinavia - the sun released an even more energetic blast of radiation and charged plasma overnight that could disrupt GPS signals and the electrical grid today, especially at high latitudes, space weather experts warned yesterday morning. Already, the…
January 24, 2012
A huge sunspot unleashed a blob of charged plasma Thursday that space weather watchers predict will blast past the Earth today. Satellite operators and power companies are keeping a close eye on the incoming cloud, which could distort the Earth's magnetic field and disrupt radio communications, especially at higher latitudes. "Our simulations show potential to pack a good punch…
January 22, 2012
For a world already weary of weather catastrophes, the latest warning from top climate scientists paints a grim future: More floods, more heat waves, more droughts and greater costs to deal with them. A draft summary of an international scientific report obtained by the Associated Press says the extremes caused by global warming could eventually grow so severe that some locations…
November 2, 2011
A prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong. In the end, he determined they were right: Temperatures really are rising rapidly. The study of the world's surface temperatures by Richard Muller was partially bankrolled by a foundation connected to global warming deniers. He pursued long-held skeptic…
October 31, 2011
Texas
For the monarch butterflies, life is complicated enough even in a good year. Now, though, they've got to deal with Texas. The monarchs in recent weeks have been beating their way south and west across eastern North America, riding winds a thousand feet above the ground, covering 25 miles or more every day. Now they've reached a vast area in Texas stricken by drought and charred…
October 9, 2011
Monitor editorial
Tonight, put down the mouse or hit the mute button, go outside, and listen. The choir of crickets and katydids is building to a crescendo. The night chorus waxes and wanes with the weather. It's at its loudest when it comes from the tall pines to the west, but on another, warmer and damper evening, it comes from high in the maples to the east. Like soloists standing beneath…
September 26, 2011
Space debris has passed the "tipping point," according to a report released yesterday by the National Research Council, which called on NASA to find ways to better monitor and clean up the orbiting junk threatening active satellites and manned spacecraft. "We're going to have a lot more (debris) collisions, and at an increasingly frequent rate," said Don Kessler, a former NASA…
September 2, 2011
New England
Few who travel along a quiet residential street in the southeastern Massachusetts city of Taunton would ever give much thought to what lies below: a rotting culvert built under the roadway decades ago to convey water from a narrow, unnamed stream that empties into the scenic Taunton River. But environmentalists are paying attention. And they are dismayed by what they are seeing.…
August 7, 2011
