Earth's interior

(Newser) - If you were born before 2009, you lived through a time when the center of the Earth stopped spinning. So say seismologists, who believe they've discovered a mysterious cycle that sees the inner metal core of the planet speed up, then decelerate and ultimately come to a standstill before...

(Newser) - Scientists have discovered a new dimension to the sub-aural sound emanating from our planet’s crust, dubbed “Earth’s hum.” Researchers have known about the hum, detectable only by seismometers, for a decade, though its ultimate cause is unclear. They expected to find hidden oscillations, but the amplitude...

(Newser) - Forget deep-space exploration; even basic questions about Earth still have scientists scratching their heads, LiveScience reports. A panel of geologists and planetary scientists lists its top lingering mysteries.

1. How did Earth form into such a distinct body?
2. What happened during Earth's first 500 million years?
3. How did life start on

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(Newser) - Climate change has sparked heated debate about the Earth’s surface, but a controversial new theory is directing scientists to its core, Der Spiegel reports. To explain why contintental plates drift on the surface of the Earth's molten mantle, Maruyama Shigenori, a leading geophysicist, argues that continents actually have life...