Revisiting the 'Pillars of Creation'

 In 1995, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took an iconic image of the Eagle nebula, dubbed the "Pillars of Creation," highlighting its finger-like pillars where new stars are thought to be forming. Now, the Herschel Space Observatory has a new, expansive view of the region captured in longer-wavelength infrared light.

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Ancient Popcorn Discovered in Peru

People living along the coast of Peru were eating popcorn 1,000 years earlier than previously reported and before ceramic pottery was used there, according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences co-authored by Dolores Piperno, curator of New World archaeology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and emeritus staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

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Pink Core of Omega Nebula:Image Captured by ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT)

 A new image of the Omega Nebula, captured by ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), is one of the sharpest of this object ever taken from the ground. It shows the dusty, rose-coloured central parts of this famous stellar nursery and reveals extraordinary detail in the cosmic landscape of gas clouds, dust and newborn stars.

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Debris of Pacific Ocean, Possibly Heading to US

ScienceDaily (Dec. 29, 2011) — Debris from the tsunami that devastated Japan in March could reach the United States as early as this winter, according to predictions by NOAA scientists. However, they warn there is still a large amount of uncertainty over exactly what is still floating, where it's located, where it will go, and when it will arrive. Responders now have a challenging, if not impossible situation on their hands: How do you deal with debris that could now impact U.S. shores, but is difficult to find.

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Canada to formally withdraw from Kyoto accord

Canada will formally withdraw from the Kyoto accord on climate change, Environment Minister Peter Kent said.
Kent made the announcement in the foyer of the House of Commons, after his return from an international summit in Durban, South Africa, on the issue of global warming.

Canada to formally withdraw from Kyoto accord

Landsat Satellites Track Yellowstone's Geothermal Activity

Yellowstone National Park sits on top of a vast, ancient, and still active volcano. Heat pours off its underground magma chamber, and is the fuel for Yellowstone's famous features -- more than 10,000 hot springs, mud pots, terraces and geysers, including Old Faithful.But expected development by energy companies right outside Yellowstone's borders have some fearing that Old Faithful could be cheated out of its energy.

The park funded a study by Lawrence and his co-author Shannon Savage to apply a new perspective to the problem of tracking geothermal activity. Their work is being presented at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco on December 9. Lawrence and Savage used both visible light and heat-sensitive Landsat data channels to get a broad view of the park's geothermal activity....

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Whales win, walruses lose in warmer Arctic

The Arctic zone has moved into a warmer, greener "new normal" phase, which means less habitat for polar bears and more access for development, an international scientific team reported.Arctic air temperatures were higher - about 2.5 degrees F (1.5 degrees C) higher in 2011 than the baseline number for the previous 30 years - and there was a dramatic loss of sea ice and glacier mass, the scientists said in a telephone briefing.

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Walnut Trees May Not Be Able to Withstand Climate Change

Warmer, drier summers and extreme weather events considered possible as the climate changes would be especially troublesome -- possibly fatal -- for walnut trees, according to research at Purdue University.

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