Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
How Green Are Your Travels?
This website offers a rough gauge of the carbon-dioxide emissions associated with flying around the country. Just plug in a starting point and destination and it gives you a round-trip estimate of the greenhouse-gas “footprint” of your travel. The goal is to encourage visitors to buy carbon-offsets to cover the greenhouse-gas cost of their treks. […]
- Earth
Laser printers can dirty the air
Some laser printers emit substantial amounts of potentially hazardous nanoscale particles.
- Earth
Lack of oxygen stunts fish reproduction
Seasonal oxygen shortages in coastal waters, increasing in severity because of pollution, may impair fish reproduction.
- Earth
What Goes Up
A massive scientific field study in Mexico City, along with lab experiments and computer simulations, show that pollution from the world's megacities has a global impact.
- Earth
Sonic Sands: Uncovering the secret of the booming dunes
The age-old mystery of sand dunes that produce loud, thrumming noises is explained by a new theory that involves a resonant layer of dry sand.
- Earth
Oxygen Rocks: Volcanoes spurred early atmospheric change
Earth owes its oxygen-rich atmosphere to a change in volcanic activity about 2.5 billion years ago.
- Earth
Tiny tubes, big pollution
Making carbon nanotubes also produces a lot of airborne carcinogens.
- Earth
Arctic snow was dirtier in early 1900s
Arctic snow collects less soot now than it did a century ago, but it's still dirtier than it was before the Industrial Revolution.
- Earth
Don’t Bite the Dust
Several studies show that children and adults accumulate substantial amounts of the flame retardants called PBDEs—from food, breast milk, and probably house dust.
- Earth
O River Deltas, Where Art Thou? Coastal sinking stalls sediment accumulation
The western coast of Siberia lacks river deltas because of the way the terrain has subsided since the end of the last ice age.
- Earth
Cat disease associated with flame retardants
An epidemic of hyperthyroidism in house cats may be the result of environmental exposure to certain flame retardants.
- Earth
It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature
Throwing tiny particles into the atmosphere to counteract global warming could cause extended droughts and other weather disruptions.
