A large, decomposing creature washed ashore in Maine, and through beachgoers for a loop. It wasn’t a whale, it was a basking shark.

State arises via interactions between electron-hole pairs.

New observations of Pallas reveal a strange, crater-rich world.

Seeking Delphi host Mark Sackler discusses After Shock, the new book that reflects on the 50 year legacy of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, with two of the contributing essayists. (Andrew Curry and Jerome Glenn)

What happens to your body after you die?

Read more

Yellowstone’s supervolcano won’t erupt anytime soon. Neither will other similar systems around the world. A new study says we’ll see many warning signs before a supervolcano erupts.

The hidden undersea continent of Zealandia underwent an upheaval at the time of the birth of the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Zealandia is a chunk of continental crust next door to Australia. It’s almost entirely beneath the ocean, with the exception of a few protrusions, like New Zealand and New Caledonia. But despite its undersea status, Zealandia is not made of magnesium- and iron-rich oceanic crust. Instead, it is composed of less-dense continental crust. The existence of this odd geology has been known since the 1970s, but only more recently has Zealandia been more closely explored. In 2017, geoscientists reported in the journal GSA Today that Zealandia qualifies as a continent in its own right, thanks to its structure and its clear separation from the Australian continent.