Were the Earth a crystal ball, you might gaze 2,900 kilometers down to its outer core with a telescope. The Earth, though, is frustratingly opaque — to light. Most knowledge of the planet’s internal structure comes from studying seismic waves, which give a kind of ultrasound image. Inferences about Earth’s internal chemistry rely on the elements found in near-surface rocks, meteorites and the sun. Recently, geoscientists have developed a new tool for probing the Earth’s innards. Borrowing a page from astrophysics, they are using the curious subatomic particles known as neutr...

Satellite data reveal more thunderheads forming as tropical sea-surface temperatures rise.

R.K. Pachauri, an engineer and economist by training, is director-general of The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, India, and a corecipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his role as chief of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC periodically issues consensus reports on the science of climate change. Senior editor Janet Raloff spoke with him about changes he hopes to see from the Obama administration.

Science News writers and editors looked back at the past year's stories and selected a handful as the year's most interesting and important in Earth. Follow hotlinks to the full, original stories.

Science News reports from San Francisco at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union

It appears that another physicist with Nobel ties is set to become the primary Obama adviser on science.

A new study shows some male dinosaurs may have been the primary caretakers of their young.