14 DAY TRIAL // Although many people believe that we, as a race, are currently at the height of our knowledge, scientists studying our planet could easily tell them otherwise. Though we mastered the secrets of space flights, we really don't have a comprehensive view of the way things are set up right below our feet. Here is a list of 6 amazing features of planet Earth, as compiled by New Scientist.
The oldest ice cubes on Earth, some 759,000 years old, were found in the Canadian Arctic. After they were discovered, they melted, due to high temperatures in the atmosphere. Though their “new” life was short, scientists say that they've gathered enough data to predict the fate of the Arctic permafrost – soil that is always frozen.
Sound speed in the oceans has now increased, and it reaches much greater distances around its sources, researchers say. Ocean acidification makes it easier for whales to communicate over ever-increasing ranges, but, also, makes it harder for coral reefs to grow, and forces microorganisms living on top of them to separate, thus leading to the bleached corals effect.
A newly-identified trend in the animal world is that of miniaturization. Wildlife experts say that the species that will manage to adapt to global warming will become smaller, as larger animals would have a very hard time adjusting to the fact that they have to lose heat more efficiently. Most likely, evolution will favor small creatures, because they generally have shorter a lifespan, which means they adjust faster.
As proof of our planet's ability to recover from disasters, the coral reef that was nuked in 1954 by the US military was last year found to be blooming, and in better shape than it was before the explosion. The Bikini atoll was the testing ground for a hydrogen bomb, and because humans left on account of the harmful radiation, less pollution helped the ecosystems thrive.
The fact that our planet “hums” is no secret to anyone. The vertical humming of the Earth, studied by researchers for years, is believed to be caused by large masses of water thumping against the ocean floors in the deep regions of the sea. However, a second, horizontal hum was identified last year, and experts in acoustics say that they have no intelligent guess as to where the sound originates from.
The "supercritical" state of water was only recently discovered, near thermal vents located at the bottom of the Atlantic. The water here, heated by lava flows from below the planet's crust, is so hot that oceanologists believe they may have found an explanation for how gold is sucked out of the Earth's core and brought to the surface.