The Columbian

Science & Technology

Yaquina Bay in Newport, Oregon, one of the major Dungeness crab fishing towns in the state.

Low oxygen levels along Pacific Northwest coast a ‘silent’ climate change crisis

October 4, 2021, 6:02am Latest News

Nearly two decades ago, fishers discovered an odd occurrence off the coast of Oregon. They were pulling up pots of dead or lethargic crabs. Read story

This image made available by the European Space Agency (ESA) shows planet Mercury taken by the joint European-Japanese BepiColombo spacecraft Mercury Transfer Module's Monitoring Camera 2, Friday, Oct. 1, 2021.

Spacecraft swings past Mercury, snaps photo

October 2, 2021, 5:51pm Nation & World

A joint European-Japanese spacecraft got its first glimpse of Mercury as it swung by the solar system’s innermost planet while on a mission to deliver two probes into orbit in 2025. Read story

Fossilized human footprints are seen at the White Sands National Park in New Mexico. According to a report published in the journal Science on Thursday, the impressions indicate that early humans were walking across North America around 23,000 years ago, much earlier than scientists previously thought.

Footprints are oldest found in North America

September 28, 2021, 6:03am Life

Fossilized footprints discovered in New Mexico indicate that early humans were walking across North America around 23,000 years ago, researchers reported Thursday. Read story

FILE - In this July 22, 2017, file photo the midnight sun shines across sea ice along the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The Biden administration is stepping up its work to figure about what to do about the thawing Arctic, which is warming three times faster than the rest of the world. The White House said Friday, Sept. 24, 2021, that it is reactivating the Arctic Executive Steering Committee, which coordinates domestic regulations and works with other Arctic nations. It also is adding six new members to the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, including two indigenous Alaskans.

White House steps up work on what to do about thawing Arctic

September 24, 2021, 9:54am Life

The Biden administration is stepping up its work to figure about what to do about the thawing Arctic, which is warming three times faster than the rest of the world. Read story

The carcasses of dead white-sided dolphins lay on a beach Sept. 12 after being pulled from the blood-stained water on the island of Eysturoy, which is part of the Faeroe Islands. The dolphins were part of a slaughter of 1,428 white-sided dolphins that is part of a four-century-old traditional drive of sea mammals into shallow water where they are killed for their meat and blubber. The hunt in the North Atlantic islands is not commercial and is authorized, but environmental activists claim it is cruel.

Annual dolphin slaughter sparks renewed debate

September 21, 2021, 6:03am Life

The recent slaughter of 1,428 white-sided dolphins, part of a four-century-old traditional drive of sea mammals into shallow water where they are killed for their meat and blubber, has reignited a debate on the Faeroe Islands. Read story

Sand that blew off farmers' fields is piled up in a ditch outside Lingo, N.M., near the Texas-New Mexico border on Tuesday, May 18, 2021. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is encouraging farmers in a "Dust Bowl zone" that includes parts of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado to establish and preserve grasslands to prevent wind erosion as the area becomes increasingly dry.

Farmers in ‘Dust Bowl Zone’ adapt to lack of water

September 20, 2021, 6:05am Life

For decades, the Texas Panhandle was green with cotton, corn and wheat. Wells drew a thousand gallons a minute from the seemingly bottomless Ogallala aquifer, allowing farmers to thrive despite frequent dry spells and summer heat. Read story

Abdullah Gohar, an Egyptian researcher at Mansoura University, shows the fossil of a 43-million-year-old four-legged prehistoric whale known as the "Phiomicetus Anubis" at the university's paleontology department lab, in Mansoura, Egypt.

Egyptian team identifies fossil of land-roaming whale species

September 19, 2021, 6:03am Latest News

Egyptian scientists say the fossil of a four-legged prehistoric whale, unearthed over a decade ago in the country’s Western Desert, is that of a previously unknown species. The creature, an ancestor of the modern-day whale, is believed to have lived 43 million years ago. Read story