Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Humans
Germs’ persistence: Nothing to sneeze at
Years ago, I read (probably in Science News) that viruses can’t survive long outside their hosts. That implied any surface onto which a sneezed-out germ found itself — such as the arm of a chair, kitchen counter or car-door handle — would effectively decontaminate itself within hours to a day. A pair of new flu papers now indicates that although many germs will die within hours, none of us should count on it. Given the right environment, viruses can remain infectious — potentially for many weeks, one of the studies finds.
- Life
Biology’s big bang had a long fuse
The fossil record’s earliest troves of animal life are the result of more than 200 million years of evolution.
- Life
Cretaceous Thanksgiving
A fossilized feathered dinosaur dined on bird not long before its own demise.
- Earth
Oxygen a bit player in Earth’s outer core
Sulfur and silicon may be more abundant in the planet’s heart than thought.
- Animals
Lost to history: The “churk”
More than a half-century ago, researchers at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center outside Washington, D.C., engaged in some creative barnyard breeding. Their goal was the development of fatherless turkeys — virgin hens that would reproduce via parthenogenesis. Along the way, and ostensibly quite by accident, an interim stage of this work resulted in a rooster-fathered hybrid that the scientists termed a churk.
- Climate
Matt Crenson, Reconstructions
In ancient Southwest droughts, a warning of dry times to come.
- Earth
Dirty air fosters precipitation extremes
Changes to clouds encourage drought in dry areas and torrential downpours in moist places.
- Tech
Hooking fish, not endangered turtles
A tuna fisherman has taken it upon himself to make the seas safer for sea turtles, animals that are threatened or endangered with extinction worldwide. He’s designed a new hook that he says will make bait unavailable to marine birds and turtles until long after it’s sunk well below the range where these animals venture to eat.
- Humans
Contrasting the concerns over climate and ozone loss
On November 7, ozone and climate scientists met in Washington, D.C., to discuss whether the history of stratospheric ozone protection offered a useful case study about how to catalyze global action on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The simple answer that emerged: No.
- Earth
Pollution may be strengthening Asian cyclones
Sooty brown clouds may underlie the recent emergence of mega-storms striking from India to the Middle East.
- Humans
Infected bats can recover . . . with lots of help
Researchers reported new data today confirming that with enough coddling, many heavily infected bats can recover. The rub: These scientists also pointed out that there really aren’t sufficient resources to save more than a handful this way.
- Earth
A particulate threat to diabetics
As levels of soot and other fine air pollutants increased, so did blood pressure in patients whose disease was not well-controlled, a study finds.
