Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Physics
Glacier found to be deeply cracked
A new study finds deep fissures in Alaska ice that could affect future responses to melting.
- Earth
Contemplating an Arctic oil spill
The waters off northern Alaska may be “the largest oil province in the United States” after the Gulf, notes Edward Itta, a native of Barrow, Alaska. He is also mayor of the North Slope Borough, an 88,000-square-mile jurisdiction that runs across the upper part of the state. And in a September 27 videoconference with the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, he tried to impress upon the commissioners just how remote his neck of the tundra is.
- Chemistry
BP oil: Gulf sediment at risk, oceanographer claims
Most of BP’s spilled oil remains in the Gulf — with little sign of degrading, according to Ian MacDonald of Florida State University. And much of this surviving oil could be in sediment or on its way there, the scientist reported at a September 27 meeting in Washington, D.C.
- Physics
Being single a real drag for spores
Launching thousands of gametes at once helps a fungus waft its offspring farther.
- Tech
Poor initial Gulf spill numbers did ‘not impact’ response
In the early weeks after the catastrophic blowout of the deep-water well in the Gulf of Mexico this spring, BP — the well’s owner — provided the government dramatically low estimates of the flow rate of oil and gas into the sea. Did telling Uncle Sam and the public that the flow rate was 1,000 barrels per day and later 5,000 barrels per day — when the actual rate was closer to 50,000 to 65,000 barrels per day — affect the spill’s management?
- Climate
Annual Arctic ice minimum reached
Melt isn’t as bad as 2007, but still reaches number three in the record books.
- Earth
Clean out your medicine cabinet: Today!
For years, people have been chastised for pitching unused drugs into the trash, turning them into potentially toxic pollutants that can leach into the environment. On Saturday, September 25, the Drug Enforcement Administration is offering to take those drugs off our hands. For free. No questions asked.
- Health & Medicine
Disease donations
Sometimes organ donors share more than a functioning body part. They can unwittingly bestow quickly lethal infections. That’s what happened, beginning last November, according to a new case report.
- Life
Lone Star cats rescue cousins in Sunshine State
Florida panther numbers have tripled since the introduction of females from Texas injected vital genetic diversity, a new report says.
- Earth
Gulf spill may have been somewhat bigger than feds, BP estimated
Researchers estimate the oil output using a new technique developed for measuring the output of marine hydrothermal vents.
- Earth
Back to the moon’s future
New crater and composition measurements from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter are helping scientists understand the moon’s history and scout for future landing sites.
- Environment
Gases dominate Gulf’s subsea plumes
Shipboard experiments in June show that natural gas dominates the Gulf oil plumes and that its components are the favorite choice of microbes.
