Web cartoonist Randall Munroe skewers climate change deniers who say the climate's "always changing." A look at the phenomenon of "quantum teleporting." And scientists attempt to plot the origins of human myths back to the Paleolithic. It's Earthy Thursday, our weekly segment on science and Earth-related news! All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

One response many climate change deniers have to the evidence of global warming is that "the climate has changed many times before." While true, it tends to obfuscate the degree to which modern climate change is unusual, both in degree and rapidity. This comic by Randall Munroe succinctly paints a picture of how the deniers are wrong.

Speaking of global warming, one reason many in the Western world don't generally recognize its effects is because they are most profound in two locations where people are not generally found: the poles and the oceans. And now, near the North Pole, polar bears are struggling to survive in a rapidly changing environment.

Scientists often get annoyed when people employ "quantum mysticism" or the misapplication of quantum mechanics to explain pseudoscientific ideas and principles. But quantum physics is definitely a strange field, well-known for so-called "spooky action at a distance" among other bizarre phenomena. And now scientists believe they've pinned down the basic mechanics of "quantum teleportation."

The ongoing United States presidential election is a highly contested, polarized affair, with the public bitterly divided over which candidate, Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, represents the best path forward. But for many in academia and particularly the sciences, it's no contest. Astronomer Phil Plait talks about how Clinton could use science as a wedge issue against Trump (and the other candidates), highlighting the latter's embrace of pseudoscience and anti-academic viewpoints.

Myths and legends are old. But just how old? That's what some scientists are trying to discover now as they ambitiously attempt to trace different myths across the world to a shared origin tens of thousands of years ago.


Top image by Lucas Taylor