Recent rapid advances in the development of LLM–based chatbot systems that can generate responses to natural language prompts and carry on sophisticated conversations may reshape how people engage with science topics like climate change. What is LLM short for? Credit: iStock.com/Anastasia Usenko
A land of vast glaciers and heavy snows that feed many major rivers, the _____ _____, often considered to be Earth’s “Third Pole,” is also a major influence on the global climate system. Credit: Tenace10/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
What nutrient is prevalent in agricultural fertilizer but also contributes to algal blooms, eutrophication, and dead zones in waterways? Credit: Jerry Ackerman, U.S. EPA
True or false? Studies have found that mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and loneliness are prevalent among Ph.D. students. Credit: iStock.com/David Schaffer
An ingredient that is part of the biochemistry of life has been found on Enceladus. What are the six essential elements of life? Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Scientists have measured Arctic sea ice every September since 1979. How much sea ice has been lost since then? Credit: NASA/Kathryn Hansen, Public Domain
True or False? Beaver dams tend to degrade local ecosystems because they reduce habitat for other animals and hoard water that would otherwise be distributed more widely. Credit: Schmiebel/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Which baseball stadium will experience the largest increase in the number of home runs thanks to climate-driven warming? Credit: Rex Hammock, CC BY-SA 2.0
Are you downtown D.C. or an isolated island? Make some Earth and space sciences choices and we’ll let you know. Shown here is the Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park in Utah. Credit: DonyaNedomam/Depositphotos.com
Choose some of your favorite Earth sciences and we’ll tell you who on Earth we think you are—a deep, brooding ocean or a bright, sunny plain? Credit: NASA
True or false? Firsthand “felt reports” from people who experienced earthquakes are better at identifying low-impact quakes than high-impact quakes. Credit: Walter Mooney, USGS
Scientists recently found that a landslide in what country might have been the first Arctic landslide caused by climate change? Credit: Kristian Svennevig
True or false? In California, transportation and agriculture are both significant contributors to nitrogen dioxide emissions. Credit: Amelia Cui, Unsplash
True or false? In a new study, scientists described a new method that can pinpoint where in a cloud a lightning strike begins. Credit: Mathias Krumbholz/Wikimedia, CC-BY-SA 3.0
Geologists can harpoon the Whaleback anticline in which U.S. state? (Hint: It is a former coal mine located in the Middle Anthracite region). Credit: Universities Space Research Association/Earth Science Picture of the Day/Dave Kerr
True or false? Breakdown products from pharmaceuticals are always less toxic than their original parent compound. Credit: SharonDawn/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
True or false? Heavy physical cables are still necessary for the Internet to work as we expect it to. Credit: TeleGeography’s Submarine Cable Map, CC BY-SA 4.0
Are you a spark of lightning or a glacial glide? Find your signature Earth or space science phenomenon with our fun and scientifically silly 10-question quiz.
Researchers recently completed an open-access geospatial database of the Prince Edward Islands. Where are the Prince Edward Islands? Credit: Liezel Rudolph
To be useful in evacuation planning in places like Hawaii, models that forecast lava flows must accurately predict what characteristics?. Credit: A. Lerner/U.S. Geological Survey, Public Domain
True or false? Across the city of Indore, India, a network of low-cost sensors revealed that most air pollution comes from a single type of source. Credit: Ikshit Patel, Unsplash
Glaciers in Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska, can terminate over land, lakes, or the ocean. Which type of glacier is slowest to retreat? Shown here is Holgate glacier.
Most deltas are susceptible to land loss during sea level rise, whereas others gain land because of changes in the courses of rivers. This famous delta is experiencing land loss in most areas but gaining in others. What delta are we looking at?
Astronomers have only found 8 planets around pulsars, those cosmic lighthouses that are born when massive stars die. By which methods have pulsar planets been found?
According to new research, about how much methane do lakes (including Lake Carezza in Italy, pictured) release into the atmosphere every year? Credit: Umberto Salvagnin/Flickr, CC BY 2.0
High school students from the Azores used a Raspberry Pi to measure Earth’s magnetic field and pinpoint its pole locations using data from the ISS. Where are the Azores?
In Florida, stormwater ponds protect the quality of nearby waterways by containing sediment, which sinks to the bottom of the ponds, and prevent erosion by limiting runoff. How many stormwater ponds are in Florida?
As wildfire smoke rises into the atmosphere, sunlight spurs chemical reactions that alter the smoke’s original components (primary organic aerosols) and create new ones, called what?
Lake Snow Eagle is 198 meters (650 feet) deep, 48 kilometers (30 miles) long, and 14 kilometers (9 miles) wide. Why was it discovered only 4 years ago?
A coronal mass ejection from a star 450 light years from Earth sent two billion billion pounds of mass rocketing into space. (Yes, billion billion.) Where is the coronal mass ejection on this illustration?
What information is helping scientists study ancient landslides off the coast of New Zealand to better assess the modern-day risk of tsunamis around the Tasman Sea?
