Oregon and Washington states should be much more dangerous places to live. Located above a zone where the Pacific oceanic crust is sliding underneath the North American continent, the states should experience regular devastating earthquakes. That they don’t, it seems, is down to the lubricating effect of the Yellowstone plume. Image: DirectDish
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Blink and you might miss it. Researchers have captured the rapid formation of buckyballs – carbon spheres just 1 nanometre in diameter – on film for the first time. Image: St Stev
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Can scientific respectability be tarred by association? The US House Committee on Science and Technology seems to think so. It is scrutinising ExxonMobil’s motives for funding research by an astrophysicist into the impact of climate change on the polar bear population of western Hudson Bay in Canada. Image: Carol Moshier
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It is an almost poetic act of nature. Each year, under the same late-spring full moon, hundreds of coral species simultaneously spawn into the water. Now reef biologists have figured out how they might do it. Image: Isthmene
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No sooner is the Nobel prize in the bag than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is coming under fire for not being quick enough on its feet. Levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are rising faster than any climate models predict, and this has prompted some climate scientists to call for an urgent overhaul of the IPCC. Image: Atmospheric Infrared Sounder
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