Scientists have spent decades debating whether asteroids and comets hit the Earth at regular intervals. At the same time, a few studies have found evidence that the large extinction events on Earth – such as the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 66m years ago – repeat themselves every 26m to 30m years.

Researchers at Harper Adams University in Shropshire are trying to sow, look after and then harvest a field of barley using only robots and autonomous vehicles. No humans are allowed into the pilot-plot at all.

Popular Science reports that humans are overheating the planet, and have raised Earth’s temperature to almost 59F.

Don’t believe our planet is warming up? Look at this. | Popular Science

They say fossil fuels cause both global warming and global cooling.

NOAA has been very slow in releasing the final tornado data for 2016, but it is finally out now. As the provisional indicated at the time, last year was another very quiet year for tornadoes and continued the pattern of a lower level compared to the 1970s.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/#data

A major strategic think-tank suggested that assuring U.S. victory in a space war requires the military to develop a network of small satellites capable of rapidly replacing destroyed space assets.

This week, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) sent a letter to DOE Secretary Rick Perry, scolding him [for saying oceans have a greater impact on the climate than CO2] when he spoke with CNBC on June 19.

At any given moment, as many as 10 million wild jets of solar material burst from the sun’s surface. They erupt as fast as 60 miles per second, and can reach lengths of 6,000 miles before collapsing. These are spicules, and despite their grass-like abundance, scientists didn’t understand how they form.

A cry for help has come from planetary scientists pleading for a Next Mars Orbiter—or NeMO for short.

Some 100 million years ago, much of what is now North America was underwater. The body of water scientists calls the Western Interior Seaway covered a swath of land that stretched over the entire Midwest. But its secrets have been preserved in countless fossils—and now, over 100,000 of these fossils are being digitized.

Astronomers have yet to confirm the existence of a ninth planet lurking beyond Pluto. But a new analysis of the Kuiper Belt suggests a planetary mass is likely hiding in the outer reaches of the solar system.

It was all over the news a couple of days ago that human-caused climate change is so severe that Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, is having to ground planes.

“Too Hot to Fly? Climate Change May Take a Toll on Air Travel” New York Times, June 20, 2017

“It’s so hot in Phoenix that airplanes can’t fly” – Washington Post, June 21, 2017

“Extreme heat grounds flights in Phoenix” – AOL, June 21, 2017

Most of the “greenhouse gases” are in Alabama. Why aren’t they grounding flights in Birmingham?

Scientists have developed a new low-temperature catalyst for producing high-purity hydrogen gas while simultaneously using up carbon monoxide (CO).

Subsidizing the purchase of electric cars in Canada is an inefficient way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and it’s not cost-effective, according to a Montreal Economic Institute study released Thursday.

Sunny skies sound like a positive for energy production, but this week’s heat wave in California isn’t a boon for solar power.

That’s because solar panels actually become less efficient as the mercury rises.

California has by far the country’s worst air quality even despite decades of environmentalism, according to research scientists at California State University (CSU) published Thursday.

Around the world, countries are claiming obscure and difficult-to-reach tracts of the deep-sea floor, far from the surface and further still from land. Why?