For most of Earth’s history, life was limited to the microscopic realm, with bacteria occupying nearly every possible niche. Life is generally thought to have…
When early humans began to travel out of Africa and spread into Eurasia over a hundred thousand years ago, a fertile region around the eastern…
Throughout Earth’s long history, volcanic super-eruptions have been some of the most extreme events ever to affect our planet’s rugged surface. Surprisingly, even though these…
A topic of considerable interest to paleontologists is how dinosaur-dominated ecosystems were structured, how dinosaurs and co-occurring animals were distributed across the landscape, how they…
The geode of Pulpí is an 11-meter hollow ovoid with crystal-paneled walls. It is like those familiar couplets of stone interiors covered with bright crystallites,…
From the Great Pacific garbage patch to inland rivers, plastics are among the most widespread contaminants on Earth. Microplastics—particles of plastic smaller than five millimeters—are…
As Curiosity rover marches across Mars, the red planet’s watery past comes into clearer focus. In early 2017 scientists announced the discovery of possible desiccation…