Posted by Kim Martineau | Oct 9, 2009 | 1 Comments
Before airplanes and satellite phones, polar exploration was a more dangerous undertaking than it is now. Many who set out for the frozen ends of the earth did not come back. Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen and British explorer Ernest Shackleton were some of the few who brought their entire crews home safely.
Nansen began his expedition [...]
Posted by Kim Martineau | Sep 15, 2009 | 0 Comments
Bärbel Hönisch, an expert on ocean acidification at Columbia, will speak after a screening of the film “A Sea Change” this Thursday.
Posted by Kim Martineau | Jun 26, 2009 | 2 Comments
A power plant in Iceland is set to become the first in the world to try turning carbon dioxide emissions into solid minerals underground, starting this September.
Posted by Kevin Krajick | May 18, 2009 | 2 Comments
Too little water for too many people is a growing problem in poor countries–and in thriving suburban Rockland County, N.Y., just north of New York City. A new website, Water Resources in Rockland County, lays out the case, and neatly puts it into global context. The site is run by the Earth Institute’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network [...]
Posted by Kim Martineau | May 12, 2009 | 0 Comments
Another world lies beneath the Hudson River, as scientists have shown using pulses of sound to map the bottom. In recent years, the bathymetry maps developed at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Stony Brook University have turned up hundreds of shipwrecks and a new channel off Battery Park City, drawing interest from treasure hunters and mariners alike. Now a new group is finding inspiration: artists.
Posted by Kim Martineau | May 4, 2009 | 0 Comments
Landslides kill thousands of people each year but because they’re often triggered by earthquakes or heavy rains, the danger remains poorly understood.
“In densely populated areas, landslides take no prisoners,” said Art Lerner-Lam, a scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “They’ll wipe out an entire village at once. Even a small landslide can kill hundreds [...]
Posted by Kim Martineau | May 1, 2009 | 0 Comments
Even on a sunny day, nearly 13 million gallons of water are pumped from New York City subways. As global warming brings rising sea levels and stormier weather, more flooding is expected for New York’s transit system.
To adapt, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority needs to develop a master plan that lays out the costs of upgrading [...]
Posted by Kevin Krajick | Mar 11, 2009 | 0 Comments
In 1968, 14-year-old Paul Olsen of suburban Livingston, N.J., and his friend Tony Lessa heard that dinosaur tracks had been found in a nearby quarry. They raced over on their bikes. ”I went ballistic,” Olsen recalls. Over the next few years, the boys uncovered and studied thousands of tracks and other fossils there, often working into the night. It opened the [...]
Posted by Kevin Krajick | Mar 10, 2009 | 0 Comments
Iran seems to be moving toward an atomic bomb; North Korea reportedly could build a half dozen; and terrorist attacks have revived the specter of a faceoff between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India. Yet the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, forbidding nuclear testing, has failed to win ratification from the U.S. Senate and lawmakers of some other nations. Opponents say scientists cannot reliably detect clandestine tests: Why should [...]
