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Nuclear fission powers the movement of Earth's continents and crust, a consortium of physicists and other scientists is now reporting, confirming long-standing thinking on this topic. Using neutrino detectors in Japan and Italy--the Kamioka Liquid-Scintillator Antineutrino Detector (KamLAND) and the Borexino Detector--the scientists arrived at their conclusion by measuring the flow of the antithesis of these neutral particles as they emanate from our planet. Their results are detailed July 17 in Nature Geoscience .

What spreads the sea floors and moves the continents? What melts iron in the outer core and enables the Earth's magnetic field

An unmanned NASA probe made history 117 million miles from Earth on Saturday (July 16) when it arrived at the huge asteroid Vesta, making it the first spacecraft ever to orbit an object in the solar system's asteroid belt. The Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around Vesta after a four-year chase and will spend about a year studying the huge space rock before moving on to visit another asteroid called Ceres

A Brazilian project called ADAPTA will put hundreds of species from the Amazon in conditions that mimic what the world will be like after years of climate change. The mission: to see which animals adapt and which will need our help to survive.

Sepiolite is a lightweight porous mineral used in cat litter and other applications. The extraordinary properties of this clay make it a highly sought after mineral, despite its scarcity in the Earth's crust: only a few mines worldwide extract it, several of them clustered near Madrid in Spain, the world's biggest exporter of this material.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Nobody knows quite how life originated on Earth, but most scientists agree that living cells did not abruptly appear from nonliving cells in a single step. Instead, there were probably a series of pre-cellular life forms that arose from nonliving chemicals and eventually led to a living cell, one that could undergo metabolism and reproduce.

Spending on renewable energy is at an all-time high around the world, and in some of the poorest places on Earth, it may mean leapfrogging over dirty power sources in favor of clean ones. That's it folks

The reality of climate change is serious enough that it doesn't need to be exaggerated in order to be taken seriously.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER-- Atlantis lifted off Friday at 11:29 A.M. Eastern time after a last-moment hold at 31 seconds on its 33rd and final mission--both for it and NASA's 30-year-old manned space shuttle program, putting on hiatus the era of human access to low Earth orbit on board U.S. spacecraft.

NASA's shuttle program, set to make its final flight later this week, has resulted in the death of 14 astronauts. But it could have been a lot worse.

By Sid Perkins of Nature magazine Evidence of historical irregularities in the motions of both the Indian and African tectonic plates bolsters the contention that plumes of hot rock rising from deep within Earth's mantle can drive the planet's tectonic plates. About 68 million years ago, the tectonic plate that includes the Indian subcontinent--which, at that time, had yet to slam into southern Asia--lay northeast of Madagascar and was moving north-eastward at a tectonically typical few centimeters per year. [More]

By Katharine Sanderson of Nature magazine The most direct evidence yet for ancient photosynthesis has been uncovered in a fossil of a matted carpet of microbes that lived on a beach 3.3 billion years ago. Frances Westall at the Centre for Molecular Biophysics, a laboratory of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), in Orleans and her colleagues looked at the well-preserved Josefsdal Chert microbial mat--a thin sheet formed by layer upon layer of tiny organisms--from the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa. These layers of ancient microorganisms grew at a time when Earth's atmosphere did not contain oxygen

Sabi Sabi’s South African game lodge Earth Lodge has been renovated in a style that celebrates its natural surroundings, both in style and by adding several new activities for its guests. Timed with its 10th anniversary, the new design employs many local, natural materials like sisal, raw ivory, and wood. ...

Italian cops nab Anonymous hackers, Japan finds rare earths key to electronics, Google's missing Realtime search. This and more important news from your Fast Company editors, with updates all day

Dear EarthTalk : What are the major issues with protecting migratory birds that groups like the Nature Conservancy are working on?