GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

The pyroclastic flow deposits red-hot material on the slope of the volcano. After a few minutes, air heated by the deposit establishes a convective regime and due to the speed of the rising air a series of small tornados are formed.
During daylight it is difficult to imaging how hot the deposit is. Click here to see a pyroclastic flow deposit glowing at night from this same location.

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English language has “borrowed” words for centuries. But is it now lending more than it’s taking, asks Philip Durkin, deputy chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.  Knowledge of what is being borrowed, and from where, provides an invaluable insight into the international relations of the English language.  Today English borrows words from other languages with a truly global reach.

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ESPN Video: Jeremy Schaap details the threats to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.

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Understanding mistakes of the past can help guide U.S. transportation policy in the future.

In 2010, Americans drove for 85 percent of their daily trips, compared to car trip shares of 50 to 65 percent in Europe. Longer trip distances only partially explain the difference. Roughly 30 percent of daily trips are shorter than a mile on either side of the Atlantic. But of those under one-mile trips, Americans drove almost 70 percent of the time, while Europeans made 70 percent of their short trips by bicycle, foot, or public transportation.  The statistics don’t reveal the sources of this disparity, but there are nine main reasons American metro areas have ended up so much more car-dependent than cities in Western Europe.

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The supercontinent Pangaea, with its connected South America and Africa, broke apart 200 million years ago. But the continents haven’t stopped shifting — the tectonic plates beneath our feet (in Earth’s two top layers, the lithosphere and the asthenosphere) are still traveling at about the rate your fingernails grow. Michael Molina discusses the catalysts and consequences of continental drift.

 

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Watch a video that explains Ukraine’s crisis in two minutes or read this quick article that covers the same material.  

 

Ukrainians have been protesting since Nov. 21, when President Viktor Yanukovych rejected a deal for closer integration with the European Union, instead drawing the country closer to Russia. They are still in the streets in huge numbers and have seized regional government buildings in several parts of the country. In Kiev, the capital, clashes between protesters and security forces have become violent, killing several people. On Tuesday, the prime minister resigned. No one is quite sure what will happen next.

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Black gold has brought big-money jobs and severe growing pains to once-sleepy North Dakota towns.

A remarkable transformation is underway in western North Dakota, where an oil boom is changing the state’s fortunes and leaving once-sleepy towns bursting at the seams. In a series of stories, NPR is exploring the economic, social and environmental demands of this modern-day gold rush.

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