Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
Newspaper’s Footprint: Environmental toll of all the news that’s fit to print
The environmental impacts of getting a newspaper dropped on your doorstep each morning vastly outweigh those of receiving the same information via a handheld electronic device.
- Earth
Limiting Dead Zones
To limit algal blooms and the development of fishless dead zones in coastal waters, farmers and other sources of nitrate are investigating novel strategies to control nitrate runoff.
- Earth
Geyser Bashing: Distant quake alters timing of eruptions
A powerful earthquake that struck central Alaska on Nov. 3, 2002, changed the eruption schedule of some geysers in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park, more than 3,100 kilometers away.
- Earth
Killer weather on Mount Everest
An analysis of weather patterns around Mount Everest in May 1996, when eight climbers died, suggests that a sudden drop in barometric pressure may have played a significant role in the deaths.
- Earth
Dead Waters
Coastal dead zones—underwater regions where oxygen concentrations are too low for fish to survive—are mushrooming globally, threatening to transform entire ecosystems.
- Earth
Big Thaw Coming: Climate change may slam Arctic
If the changes in climate predicted for this century come to pass, the people and creatures of the Arctic will face some of the largest challenges.
- Earth
Global Vineyard
Recognizing that continued climate change may leave some renowned grape-growing regions too hot or too dry to support vineyards, growers may turn to new technology and techniques to produce consistently better fruit.
- Earth
A Portrait of Pollution: Nation’s fresh water gets a checkup
Virtually all of America's fresh water is tainted with low concentrations of chemical contaminants, according to a new nationwide study.
- Earth
Filtered air cuts down mutations
Microscopic particles in the air may mutate the DNA of sperm.
- Agriculture
Rethinking Refuges? Drifting pollen may bring earlier pest resistance to bioengineered crops
Pollen wafting from bioengineered corn to traditional varieties may be undermining the fight to keep pests from evolving resistance to pesticides.
- Earth
Underwater Pavement: Asphalt deposits cover parts of Gulf of Mexico
Explorations of the seafloor in the southern Gulf of Mexico have revealed lavalike flows of asphalt that are home to a thriving ecosystem of microbes, mussels, tubeworms, and crabs.
- Earth
Marsh Farming for Profit and the Common Good
A move is now afoot to get farmers to embrace wetlands as part of their business.
