Thursday, 24 May, 2012

One fact we know from childhood: every snowflake is unique. Isn’t it? UW-Madison’s snowflake expert, meteorology professor Pao Wang, gently delivered the grim news: “Not really. I think the saying is more or less a picturesque way of saying that there are so many varieties of snowflakes, thousands of different kinds.” Wang studies how snow [...]

Clouds are made of uncountable tiny particles, either water droplets or ice crystals, or a mixture of the two, says Grant Petty, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The water droplets are usually about 10-20 micrometers across, or about one-twentieth of the diameter of the period at the end [...]

Global warming is changing the planet: Antarctica is melting, sea level is rising, oceans are turning sour. Killing Amazon forests spreads malaria, reduces rainfall. How sick is our Earth?

Scientists have found ice on Mars. The frozen water, whose quantity may equal Lake Michigan, is within a meter of the surface.