There was a time on Earth, about 635 million years ago, when almost the entire planet was covered in ice. At least, this is the idea underlying the Snowball Earth Hypothesis, which holds that there was a massive ice age before the proliferation of complex, multicellular life. Though it's still controversial,…

10,000 years ago, at a time when humans recorded historical events by telling mythical stories that got passed from one generation to the next, huge parts of the North American continent were deluged by massive walls of water. They were, as geologist David R. Montgomery writes in this month's Discover magazine,…

We sort of have a soft spot in our hearts for all the Ice Age animals. And the latest addition Ice Age: Continental Drift looks even more ridiculous than the last. Watch as the world breaks apart, separating the furry besties and creating our planet's continents. Plus, giant prehistoric crabs! Ice Age: Continental…

The Beasts of the Southern Wild is very much one of the most buzzed films at Sundance right now. Everyone either loves it or respects it greatly. Whether or not this movie about a young girl facing a flood and terrible hog-monsters catches on with a wider audience remains to be seen — but I feel confident saying that…

Siberia enjoys a well-deserved reputation as one of the coldest places on Earth. But the last time the planet got really cold, Siberia apparently didn't go along for the ride, providing animals a warm oasis from the Ice Age.

Newly discovered fossilized remains from Argentina are a bizarre new species that can only be described as a "sabre-toothed squirrel".

Hidden in the dark caves of southwest China, a fragment of Earth's last Ice Age might well survive. Sadly, there aren't any mammoths hiding out in there, but tiny plants might represent a last link to 30,000 years ago.

The most recent ice age was dominated by gigantic mammals like the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, and saber-tooth cat. But there's an evolutionary mystery here. How did these animals enter the ice age already perfectly adapted for such brutally cold climates?

The Ice Age can be explained by some well-placed specks of iron. Adding dust to the waters around Antarctica can supercharge plankton growth, causing global temperature drops. To stop climate change, we need a whole lot of iron filings.

The Sun has been unusually quiet lately, with the solar wind the slowest it's been in 50 years and the sunspot cycle reduced to nothing more than the occasional belch. But don't believe reports that this spells doom for humanity.