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Natural Resources
Natural navigator Tristan Gooley joins us to discuss the philosophy of reading nature’s hidden clues — and how relearning this ancient skill can help us see the world, and ourselves, with greater awareness.
In this excerpt from "Seven Rivers," historian Vanessa Taylor explores how Ancient Egyptian pharaohs harnessed the Nile River to build empires and secure their power.
The Moon is the most likely place for evidence from the dawn of life on Earth to be preserved in cold storage.
This may be the largest helium reservoir in U.S. history.
Across the subterranean United States, not all rocks were created equally.
No shots fired. No flags raised. And no dry land gained. Still, the U.S. effectively grew by the size of about two Californias in December.
Sometimes called “the new gold,” sand is the second most exploited natural resource in the world after fresh water.
McDermitt Caldera, the site of an ancient volcanic eruption, straddles the border of Oregon and Nevada.
The Schumann resonances are the background hum of the entire planet. But they don't affect humans in any way.
Despite the enormous mass of the Earth, simply depleting our groundwater is changing our axial tilt. Simple Newtonian physics explains why.
This year marks 2,000 years since the birth of the Roman author of the first natural encyclopedia.
What do you call it when the Earth shakes for three decades?
Why would the Earth suddenly start vomiting forth huge quantities of mud?
Cooperation was the first technology.
A team of scientists hopes deep-earth lithium could sustain America's vast demand for batteries. But extracting it won't be easy.
Singapore is a breeding ground of truly green buildings.
Scientists have known blobs existed for a long time, but how they have behaved over Earth’s history has been an open question.
In the Saudi Arabian desert, the Al Naslaa rock formation looks completely unnatural. Its perfectly vertical split remains a mystery.
The natural wonders of Mauritius include the spectacular sight of an underwater waterfall. Here's the science of how it works.
Impressive but deadly physics underlie catastrophic eruptions.
Surface deformation or other signs of an impending explosion may not occur. Instead, supervolcanic eruptions can be much more insidious.
Neither one reflects the other; they’re both blue for entirely different reasons. If you’ve ever been curious about the world you live in, you’ve probably wondered why the sky is […]
Sometimes, chemistry can be more important for color than even physics. All across the world, volcanic eruptions remind us of the destructive power residing beneath Earth’s surface. You might be used […]
Planets can ‘discover’ nuclear power on their own, naturally, without any intelligence. Earth did it 1.7 billion years before humans. If you were hunting for alien intelligence, looking for a surefire […]
Some wildfires will always be unavoidable. But nature, thankfully, recovers relatively quickly. The past few years have brought some devastating wildfires to large parts of the American west. A wildfire […]
Three great things all align this August, making the Perseids a can’t-miss show. Here’s how to take advantage. When it comes to meteor showers, we have these dazzling pictures in […]
Some say it’s more than all of humanity emits in a year. But people say a lot of things. What does the science say? “One volcano puts out more toxic gases — one […]
It’s not too late to change course, but we’re headed in the wrong direction faster than ever now. “Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,For strip-mined mountain’s majesty above the asphalt […]