환경 관련 기사

This week's severe winter storm, which dumped record amounts of snow in the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, had most residents scrambling for the safety and warmth of their homes. However, the animals at the Smithsonian's National Zoo were not going to let Washington, DC's first significant snowfall in two years go to waste....

The invention of plastic has been a double-edged sword for humanity. While the cheap, versatile material has made life convenient, it is virtually indestructible and takes centuries to decompose. Since avoiding plastic is impossible, companies worldwide are coming up with innovative ways to repurpose the millions of tons of polymer waste that end up in our landfills annually. Among the latest is California-based TechniSoil Industrial, which has devised an ingenious way to reuse plastic waste to repave roads....

With over 4.1 billion people, or around 55 percent of the world's population, living in urban areas, cities and towns worldwide are getting increasingly congested. In addition to spending an excessive number of hours stuck in traffic, residents are also exposed to high air pollution levels caused by transportation emissions. Now, Saudi Arabia hopes to revolutionize urban living with "The Line" — a futuristic city designed around nature, without cars and roads!...

After erupting almost continuously for over three decades — from 1983 to 2018 — Hawaii's Kilauea volcano finally seemed to lose steam, producing no lava for nearly two years. The slumber ended on the night of December 20, 2020, when the active volcano began spewing out dramatic lava fountains and giant puffs of gas and steam from a fissure in the northwest wall of the Halemaʻumaʻu crater....

The cameraman zooms in on the anxious elephant, who paces back and forth. However, the pachyderm's demeanor instantly calms down upon hearing a soothing ballad from Disney’s Cinderella, “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes," sung to him by none other than American singer and actress Cher. The now-viral poignant video, published on YouTube on November 30, 2020, was the culmination of the pop singer and animal activist's four-year-long quest to save Kaavan, “The world's loneliest elephant."...

Killer whales, or orcas, are the largest members of the oceanic dolphin family. While the intelligent mammals, which hunt in large pods, are known for their orchestrated attacks on unsuspecting marine animals, they have never posed a threat to humans. However, since late July, the normally social animals have been intentionally attacking sailboats off the coasts of Spain and Portugal. The unusual hostility is puzzling scientists worldwide....

Researchers have long been aware of the presence of rust, or hematite, on Mars caused by the chemical reaction between the iron ore on the planet's surface and water and oxygen from the ancient past. However, they had never expected to find the reddish-brown iron oxide on the Moon, given that our satellite is missing two of the three key components — moisture and oxygen. Now, a new study, based on recent data from India's Chandrayaan-1 Moon-orbiting spacecraft, suggests that the Moon is displaying signs of rust and it may be Earth's fault....

Visitors enjoying a quiet breakfast at the Singita Ebony Lodge, a luxury hotel in South Africa's Sabi Sand Game Reserve, were treated to a rare encounter with a leopard in early September 2020. The handful of guests watched in awe —and a little trepidation — as the majestic animal, who appeared to be searching for a tasty morsel, calmly explored the various areas of the restaurant. Fortunately for the humans, nothing on the "menu" seemed to catch the leopard's fancy, and it left as abruptly as it had arrived....

Experts have long predicted that 3D printing will revolutionize the construction industry by making home builds cheaper, faster, and more environmentally-friendly. However, the uptake has been slower than anticipated because 3D technology to create fully-functional homes has been considered lacking. That perception may change soon with the recent unveiling of the world's first two-story home printed in a single piece in Antwerp, Belgium....

Scientists from the University of Texas at Austin have finally solved the mystery of a massive fossil that has been sitting unlabeled and unidentified at a Chilean museum for almost a decade. The relic, which resembles a deflated football, is the largest-known soft-shelled egg from a marine reptile that inhabited Earth over 66 million years ago — about the time of the mass animal extinction event. Measuring more than 11 by 7 inches it is also the second-largest egg belonging to any known animal, behind only the now-extinct elephant bird....

Bei Bei's 2019 departure from the Smithsonian's National Zoo, to join the giant panda breeding program in China's Wolong Nature Reserve, left a big void for fans. What made the loss of the adorable cub even more poignant was the belief that his mother, Mei Xiang, was too old to have more offspring. However, on August 21, 2020, the 22-year-old proved experts wrong by giving birth to a healthy cub....

North America's relatively calm summer weather ended last week when a powerful derecho swept across the Midwest — from South Dakota to Ohio — on August 10, 2020, and a rare firenado struck Northern California on August 15, 2020. If you are like most people, you have probably never heard of either of the rare natural phenomena. Here is a brief explanation of the incredible extreme weather events....

Scattered across the ocean bed, and often hidden from the human eye, are hundreds, or perhaps even thousands, of "blue holes." The massive underwater sinkholes, which host a diverse biological community — ranging from coral to sponges to sharks to sea turtles — were formed thousands of years ago when groundwater dissolved karst, a type of porous limestone rock found on ocean floors....

Over the years, there have been numerous attempts to create "glow-in-the-dark" plants. However, none of the approaches — which included infusing plants with nanoparticles of the luciferins and enzymes needed for the phenomenon to occur, or incorporating them with bacterial bioluminescence genes – proved feasible....

A massive dust cloud that had been journeying 5,000 miles from the Sahara Desert across the Atlantic Ocean since June 15, 2020, finally hit the United States mainland on June 26, 2020. Nicknamed "Godzilla," the 3,500 mile-long plume broke into two chunks, thanks to the split in the mid-levels of the atmosphere....

With less than 55,000 grizzly bears left in the wild across North America, the sighting of even one is a cause for celebration. Hence you can only imagine how delighted Cara Clarkson and her family were when they spotted two young grizzlies — one with rarely seen all-white fur— foraging alongside the Trans-Canada Highway near Banff, Canada, on April 26, 2020....

Given their reputation as solitary creatures that come together only to mate and hibernate, the notion of snakes hanging out in groups with their "best friends" may sound a little far-fetched. However, a recent study conducted by researchers from Canada's Wilfrid Laurier University asserts that the reptiles not only actively seek out socialization with their peers, but are also extremely particular about who they spend time with....

Since early May, visitors to the Padre Island National Seashore off the coast of South Texas have been discovering specimens of the rare blue dragon, or Glaucus atlanticus. Though the name evokes images of flying, fire breathing monsters, the delicate creatures are a type of sea slug that spend their lives in the temperate and tropical waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans....

The negative health impacts of plastic on both wildlife and humans have been well-documented. However, the versatile material, which is used for everything from grocery bags to drink bottles to food packaging, is hard to avoid. Experts estimate that of the 359 million tons of plastics produced annually worldwide, about 150–200 million tons end up in landfills or the environment. To make matters worse, the material derived from the small percentage of plastic that is recycled is of lower quality and can only be used a few times for items like clothing or carpets before it has to be discarded....

NASA's ambitious plans to land humans on the Moon by 2024 just got one step closer to becoming a reality thanks to the first comprehensive map of our satellite's surface. Unveiled on April 23, 2020, the colorful 1:5,000,000-scale "Unified Geologic Map of the Moon" is the result of decades of painstaking work by scientists from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), NASA, and the Lunar and Planetary Institute....

Earth Day, which is celebrated annually on April 22, is usually commemorated with outdoor activities demonstrating support for environmental protection. These include planting trees, collecting roadside or beach trash, and conducting, or participating in, recycling and conservation programs....

Though many single-celled lifeforms have evolved to survive without oxygen, multicellular organisms have always been believed to need it to live. Now, scientists in Tel Aviv, Israel, have found that Henneguya salminicola, a parasite, which spends its life attached to the muscle tissue of fish, has adapted to living without oxygen....

Since the beginning of 2020, the East African country of Kenya has been battling the nation's worst desert locust outbreak in over 70 years. The destructive swarms, some as big as three times the size of New York City — an estimated 192 billion insects — are eating their way through thousands of acres of crops and animal pastures, decimating livelihoods in the process. Even worse, the locusts, which arrived from neighboring Somalia and Ethiopia, are now spreading to other countries, including Uganda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Congo....

California's Yosemite National Park is home to numerous stunning waterfalls. However, from mid-to-late February each year, the unlikely star of the pristine preserve is Horsetail Fall — a small, nondescript waterfall that forms over the eastern edge of the park's famous vertical rock formation, El Capitan, every winter. That's because, during the two-week-period, the temporary 1,000-foot fall frequently transforms into a spectacular "firefall" for about ten minutes a day during sunset....