EarthDate

Sole Survivors

Imagine there was not one species of human…but many. One stronger. One smaller. All different, but closely related. Around 40,000 years ago, that’s exactly how it was. H

Gold is Abundant

Gold is rare. Except in one place on Earth that it’s incredibly plentiful. But we’ll probably never get to it. Over the course of human civilization, people have searche

Life on Mars?

Is there life on Mars? That’s the question NASA wanted its first Mars mission to answer – in 1976. They designed their remarkable Viking rover -- well before modern comp

Warm Springs for Winter Manatees

A large manatee can top 1000 pounds and eat 15% of its weight in seagrass each day. That may sound hardy, but manatees are actually very sensitive. There are three speci

Mapping a Killer

In the mid-1800s, London’s SoHo neighborhood was a terrible smelling place to live, as raw sewage ran through the gutters into open cesspools. When a cholera epidemic br

Ocean Cleanup

Plastic has remarkable value to humans. But it’s also a major source of ocean plastic pollution. Most of it is nets and rope from fishing boats, or municipal garbage tha

The Right Kind of Sand

Sand is incredibly common. There are oceans of it – in oceans, and deserts too. But, for our purposes, that’s not the right kind of sand. We use sand in concrete, to mak

Dangerous Downbursts

In 1985, a passenger jet landing at DFW airport was forced to the ground by an unusual downward blast of wind called a downburst. The plane struck cars on the highway and

Beating the Heat

Before modern energy gave us modern air conditioning, we had sweat to keep us cool. And shade. And maybe a jump in a lake. Animals still rely on those today to beat the

Mangrove Mayhem

If you’ve been on a boat, pretty much anywhere in the tropics, you’ve seen mangrove forests. There are at least 75 species of these small trees, evolved to live in harsh

Turning Up the Urban Heat

On another episode, we told you about urban heat islands. Buildings and asphalt absorb summer heat -- from sun and air, cars and trucks, power plants and air conditioning

Urban Heat Islands

Summer in the city. It’s sweltering. The sun beats down all day. Its heat is absorbed by concrete buildings and blacktop, which hold that heat at night -- and into the ne

Mining, Past and Present

Today we make stuff in three ways. Plants and animals make our food, wood and fiber. Oil and gas make plastic, fuels, chemicals and clothing.   And rocks, dug out of a m

Mining, The Future

In another EarthDate, we talk about how mining provides the materials to build the modern world.  But new technology is changing that world. We’re building huge new data

Urban Mining

On another episode, we talk about how mines have a large environmental footprint. Think of a giant pit, with huge machines digging out ore.  By contrast, think of your o

The Water and Energy Link

Our modern supplies of water and energy are miraculous – and tightly interlinked.  Only 3% of Earth’s water is fresh. And 99% of that is frozen in glaciers or stuck unde

Lakes of Life

Charles Darwin proposed that life on Earth may have started in bodies of highly alkaline water called soda lakes. New research suggests he may have been right.  You migh

Light Speed Under the Sea

In 1858, Queen Victoria sent a telegraph to U.S. President Buchanan, via the first undersea cable.  The cable worked for just a few weeks, but it launched an internation

The Crystal Eye of Ninevek

During World War 2, an American pilot flying over the Canadian arctic saw something extraordinary. A midnight blue lake, 2 miles across, shaped in a perfect circle.   Th

We Changed Horses

Horses changed human history. But first we had to change horses.   The horse evolved in North America 50 million years ago, and migrated across the Bering land bridge in