Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
Weather affects timing of some natural hazards
Seasonal patterns in earthquakes and volcanic eruptions can be linked to rain and snow in certain locations.
- Earth
Dead Sea once went dry
The Holy Land’s salt lake ran out of water during a warm spell about 120,000 years ago, which suggests it could disappear again.
- Health & Medicine
E. coli evade detection by going dormant
When stressed, bacteria can temporarily turn comatose and dodge germ-screening tests.
- Earth
Arctic has taken a turn for the warmer
Northern climate has changed substantially in the last five years, and the shift is probably permanent.
- Earth
Polar ice sheets are synchronized swimmers
Glaciers in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres advance and retreat together.
- 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.
