Environmental Science

Whether you sail, surf, fish or collect shells, having one of these could help you out before you hit the water.

By Jennifer Horton

Diamonds are some of the most brilliant and expensive natural features Earth has to offer. This collection of images displays diamonds in all their uncut and polished shapes and sizes. Obligatory pictures of very large diamonds are included of course.

By HowStuffWorks.com Contributors

One grows from the ground and one from the ceiling, but sometime's it's hard to remember which is the stalactite and which is the stalagmite. How do they get there, anyway?

By John Fuller

In an effort to detect areas with poor air quality, China is training people to sniff out harmful levels of pollution. But what effect does this have on the human body? Learn about how the brain identifies and distinguishes among scents as well as new odor-detecting technology.

By Josh Clark

Scientists working with Foster's Brewing Company have made a fuel cell using bacteria and the brewery's waste water. They claim that their fuel cell generates non-polluting power as it cleanses the water. But is the "beer battery" simply a novelty?

By Jacob Silverman

When people talk about "the Ice Age," they generally mean the most recent one, but Earth has experienced them off and on for the last 600 million years. Are we on the brink of a new ice age?

By Tracy V. Wilson & Stephanie Watson

Where electricity is produced from a coal fired power station, how much coal is required to run a 100-watt light bulb 24 hours a day for one year?

You've probably never noticed how many of these you use everyday, but HowStuffWorks took the time to count them and take them apart to see what's inside!

By Marshall Brain

The dead zone, caused by massive amounts of algae growth, is a vast area off the Gulf of Mexico that is deadly to marine life. How is human activity making the dead zone worse?

By Jacob Silverman

What happens to all of that trash you put on the curb every week? It doesn't just disappear into a parallel universe. Much of it probably goes to the local landfill, and how it gets handled there is a very involved system.

By Craig Freudenrich, Ph.D. & Patrick J. Kiger

OK, so volts measure the potential for energy to travel and ohms measure the resistance to the electrical flow, but what are amps and watts?

By Dave Roos

The polar ice caps have been in the news recently because of their alleged shrinking due to global warming. How much would the oceans rise if the ice caps melted completely?

By Marshall Brain & Sascha Bos

Carbon-14 dating is something that you hear about in the news all the time. Everything from mastodons to the Shroud of Turin has been dated using this technique! Learn about how carbon-14 dating works and why it is so accurate!

By Marshall Brain

A fascinating article that describes the work of The Nature Conservancy and the benefits of its conservation projects to our environment and ecology!

How do they measure "sea level"? Is it the average of the tides? And is the sea level actually rising or not?

On the Flintstones, a small bird sits inside the light and turns it on every night before he goes to bed. In a modern streetlight, a small circuit replaces the bird.

Let's say you have a lunch date to make - and it's on the other side of the planet. Wouldn't it be convenient to pop down a hole through Earth's innards? But what would really happen if you did?

By Nicholas Gerbis

Is it possible to generate electricity directly from heat? Thermocouples do it, with no moving parts.

A seismograph can accurately measure the movement of the Earth during a quake. How does a seismograph work, though, and what is the Richter scale that is associated with earthquakes? Learn the answers to these questions in this article.

By Sascha Bos

Water is one of the most abundant substances on the planet. About 70 percent of our planet is covered by oceans, but just how much water is there on Earth?

By HowStuffWorks.com Contributors & Yara Simón

We know that paper comes from trees, but just how much does it take? Let's do the math and figure out how much paper your average tree can be made into.

During the summer I am always hearing about ozone warnings in my city. This ozone is bad. But then I hear about the ozone layer, which is good. How can ozone be both good and bad?

Charcoal is carbon. Activated charcoal is charcoal that has been treated with oxygen to open up millions of tiny pores between the carbon atoms. What does this have to do with its absorbancy?

There are seven different numbers you might see on a plastic container. And each number has its own meaning.

By Melanie Radzicki McManus & Desiree Bowie

Gravity is a force that we experience every minute of our lives, but hardly notice or give a passing thought to in our daily routines. Have you ever wondered what gravity is and how it works? Learn about the force of gravity in this article.

By Julia Layton & Austin Henderson