Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Life
Truffles aren’t laced with radioactive cesium
Fallout from the Chernobyl disaster hasn’t made truffles dangerously radioactive, scientists find.
- Plants
Genetic battle of the sexes plays out in cukes and melons
Genetics reveals new approach to preventing inbred seeds and encouraging more fruitful crops.
- Climate
Geoengineering is world’s last hope, new book argues
Geoengineering is humankind’s only viable solution to curb climate change impacts, a journalist contends in The Planet Remade.
- Life
‘Racing Extinction’ documents plight of endangered species
The new documentary "Racing Extinction" offers hope that people can halt the sixth mass extinction.
- Earth
Earth’s water originated close to home, lava analysis suggests
Scarcity of a hydrogen isotope called deuterium in molten rock from Earth’s depths suggests that the planet’s H2O originated from water-logged dust during formation, not comets.
- Paleontology
Land life spared in Permian extinction, geologists argue
New rock layer dating in South Africa’s Karoo Basin suggests that extinctions of land species didn’t coincide with the Permian extinction around 252 million years ago.
- Climate
Kangaroo farts may not be so eco-friendly after all
Kangaroos fart methane, but not much thanks to the metabolism of gut microbes
- Science & Society
Quantum spookiness, magnetic mysteries and more feedback
Letters and comments from readers on quantum spookiness, Earth's magnetic field, and more.
- Earth
New recipe for diamonds: Just add acid
Rises in acidity during interactions between rocks and water in Earth’s interior can spark diamond formation, simulations show.
- Earth
New recipe for diamonds: Just add acid
Simulating the chemistry, pressures and temperatures in Earth’s interior, scientists have discovered a new way diamonds can form.
- Climate
Eocene temperature spike caused by half as much CO2 as once thought
Revised experiments demonstrate that hot temperatures during the Eocene resulted from lower carbon dioxide concentrations than previously thought.
- Climate
How to melt an ice cave
Frigid winter air keeps gives ice caves their perpetual chill, researchers find, warning that airtight seals on some ice caves could cause the frigid formations to melt within decades.
