Urbanization is just one of the many effects of overpopulation here on Earth, along with the rapid dwindling of the natural environment as a whole. The general consensus across the scientific community is that a number of factors have contributed to global overpopulation. More than 7.7 billion people live on Earth as of 2020, largely due to longer life expectancies, improved sanitation, and advancements in medicine over the last few centuries.
Scientists have found the oldest material on Earth in a 7 billion-year-old meteorite – a space rock that is way older than the Earth and even older than our solar system! For comparison, the age of Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years, with an error range of about 50 million years. The Sun is about 4.6 billion years old.
Leopard (scientific name: Panthera pardus) is one of the five big cat species in the genus Panthera, a member of the Felidae. The other members of the Panthera genus are Lion (Panthera leo), tiger (Panthera tigris), jaguar (Panthera onca), and snow leopard (Panthera uncia). The leopard is the fourth biggest cat in the world, after the tiger, lion, and jaguar. Here are 20 amazing leopard facts.
Here are the top 10 most beautiful Earth photos taken by the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), the orbiting laboratory, in 2019. Which one is your favorite? Or if your favorite image was not listed here, please leave a comment below. To see all images taken from the International Space Station and published by NASA, visit Space Station Images webpage.
In collaboration with Dr. Christine Houser (@seismodoc), a specially appointed assistant Professor of solid Earth geophysics at the Earth-Life Science Institute in Japan, NASA Goddard Planetary Scientist Dr. James O’Donoghue (@physicsJ) created another amazing animation titled “Scale and Composition of Earth’s surface: Major constituents of the crust, water, and atmosphere” and published on his YouTube channel.
Young software developer Neal Agarwal (Twitter: @nealagarwal) created an amazing interactive visualization showing life in the depth of the oceans. Named “The Deep Sea” (click here to see the visualization), the interactive webpage shows the living depths and also the maximum diving points of various animals. Be prepared to be amazed!
This incredible 4k time-lapse, published by Oliver Schmid shows sunrises, sunsets, clouds, and the Milky Way from Mount Pilatus, Switzerland. A breathtaking video that reminds us of how amazing a place our planet is. Enjoy!
The Earth rotates at a speed of 460 m/s, which is approximately 1650 km/h (about 1025 mph) at the equator. But, if you’re not living on the equator, you’re spinning slower. Here’s how to calculate your spinning speed.
For most people, continents are Earth’s seven main large landmasses.
But geoscientists have a different take on this. They look at the type of rock a feature is made of, rather than how much of its surface is above sea level.
In the past few years, we’ve seen an increase in the discovery of lost continents. Most of these have been plateaus or mountains made of continental crust hidden from our view, below sea level.
Maria Seton, University of Sydney; Joanne Whittaker, University of Tasmania, and Simon Williams, University of Sydney
Yesterday, I published a post titled “Koalas are ‘Functionally Extinct’ now“, based on an article on Forbes. It seems this isn’t the case: science journalist Erin Biba (@erinbiba) wrote on Twitter that “The news that Koalas are functionally extinct is from a press release that was issued in May, before the fires, from a group that has been saying they’re extinct for years. Koalas ARE IN TROUBLE but there is still hope for conservation.”