Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
Pumped-up Poison Ivy: Carbon dioxide boosts plant’s size, toxicity
Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could make poison ivy grow much faster and become more toxic.
- Earth
Three Gorges Dam is affecting ocean life
Oceanographic surveys suggest that China's Three Gorges Dam is already influencing biological productivity in the East China Sea, even though the structure is still under construction.
- Agriculture
Biotech cotton: Less spray but same yield
The way farmers grow transgenic cotton in Arizona lets them skip some of their regular spraying but end up with the same yield as traditional farmers, as well as the same impact on ants and beetles.
- Earth
Blast Survivors: Fragments of asteroid found in ancient crater
Pieces of an asteroid that blasted a 70-kilometer-wide crater in southern Africa millions of years ago may have been found intact inside the thick layer of once-molten rock that the impact left behind.
- Earth
Tainted by Cleanser: Antimicrobial agent persists in sludge
About 76 percent of a commonly used antimicrobial agent exits sewage-treatment plants as a component of the sludge that's often used as a farm fertilizer.
- Earth
Particular Problems
Toxicologists and chemists are forging a new field called nanotoxicology as they grapple with assessing the safety of engineered nanoparticles.
- Earth
Brain Delay: Air pollutants linked to slow childhood mental development
Pollutants spewing from vehicles and power plants may be harmful to fetal brains.
- Earth
Seismic Speed Traps: Iron-rich regions may slow deep-Earth vibes
Large quantities of iron-rich minerals may be responsible for the sluggishness of seismic waves traveling through certain regions deep within Earth.
- Earth
Greenland glacial quakes becoming more common
The number of earthquakes that occur beneath surging glaciers in Greenland has doubled in the past 4 years.
- Earth
Buried Treasures
Geologists have long understood the chemical processes that sculpt many cave formations, but they've only recently come up with a physical model that explains some of their shapes.
- Earth
Limited Storage: Lack of nutrients will constrain carbon uptake
Even though the carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere acts as a fertilizer for plants, the planet's vegetation won't be able to sequester large amounts of that greenhouse gas in the long term because it will quickly run out of other nutrients.
- Earth
Region at Risk
Scientists are still analyzing the magnitude 7.9 quake that struck San Francisco a century ago and, at the same time, are scrambling to estimate when the next large quake will strike the Bay Area.
