Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
Earth/Environment
Monsoons may have sped India's tectonic plate, plus saber-toothed reptiles and leaden bones in this week's news.
- Humans
Noise is what ails beaked whales
Large-scale experiments reveal a sensitivity to sonar, apparently at lower levels than other species.
- Earth
Global gale warning
Over the world’s oceans, the strongest winds may be getting more powerful, a new study shows.
- Life
Fruit-eating fish does far-flung forestry
Overfishing may be robbing trees in the Amazonian floodplain of vital seed dispersers.
- Earth
Earth/Environment
Nuclear-test monitoring eavesdrops on volcanoes, too, plus tiny tar balls and nonstick hemoglobin in this week’s news.
- Tech
U.S. network detects Fukushima plume
Traces of radioactivity attributable to the earthquake-damaged Fukushima reactor complex in Japan have reached the West Coast of the United States.
- Tech
Chernobyl’s lessons for Japan
Radioactive iodine released by the Chernobyl nuclear accident has left a legacy of thyroid cancers among downwinders — one that shows no sign of diminishing. The new data also point to what could be in store if conditions at Japan’s troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power complex continue to sour.
- Tech
Radiation: Japan’s third crisis
As if the magnitude-9 earthquake on March 11 and killer tsunami weren’t enough, a new round of aftershocks — psychological ones over fear of radiation — are rocking Japan and its neighbors.
- Humans
Record ozone thinning looms in Arctic
Depletion could expose the northern midlatitudes to higher-than-normal ultraviolet radiation in coming weeks.
- Earth
Cave formations record Black Sea deluges
Stalagmites in a Turkish grotto document 670,000 years of flooding.
- Earth
Japan quake location a surprise
Based on regional tectonics, seismologists expected the biggest events in the island's southern half.
- Earth
How continents do the splits
East African seismic study reveals how land gives way to ocean crust.
