Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
Sticky Situation: Nonstick surfaces can turn toxic at high heat
Nonstick cookware can, if overheated, sicken people and kill birds, according to a new analysis of research published over the past 40 years.
- Earth
Whale meat in Japan is loaded with mercury
Some people in Japan who eat dolphins and other toothed whales are ingesting amounts of mercury that exceed legal health limits.
- Earth
Vermiculite turns toxic
Federal agencies issued a warning that much of the vermiculite ceiling insulation installed a decade or more ago may be tainted with cancer-causing asbestos.
- Earth
To contain gene-altered crops, nip them in the seed
Researchers have demonstrated that, in principle, they can add genes that block genetically modified crops from breeding with conventional varieties and thus from spreading their artificial traits.
- Agriculture
Mad Cow Future: Tests explore next generation of defenses
As Canadian health officials investigate mad cow disease within the country's borders, researchers are already working on the next generation of defenses.
- Earth
Count Down: Chemicals linked to inferior sperm
New data suggest that typical exposures to chemicals called phthalates are associated with reduced fertility in men, but the specific phthalates they finger aren't those that researchers most expected to cause problems.
- Agriculture
Global Food Trends
Last year, for the third year in four, world per-capita grain production fell. Even more disturbing in a world where people still go hungry, at 294 kilograms, last year’s per capita grain yield was the lowest in more than 30 years. Indeed, the global grain harvest has not met demand for 4 years, causing governments […]
- Agriculture
How Olives Might Enhance Potatoes—and Strawberries
Many people savor the flavor of olive oil. Few who have ever encountered the “cake” that remains after the oil is pressed, however, savor the experience. Thats because the pressed olive flesh ends up in unused, smelly heaps. In the European Union alone, olive processors produce some 8 million metric tons of these rank wastes […]
- Earth
A Dam Shame? Project may slam China’s biodiversity
When the Three Gorges Dam begins to impound the waters of the Yangtze River in China later this year, dozens of mountains and other elevated areas upstream will become islands—an outcome that will probably devastate the rich diversity of species now living along the river.
- Earth
When pollutants take the Arctic route
The highest North American concentrations of at least one air pollutant from Asia can be found in Newfoundland, the continent's easternmost region.
- Earth
What’s happening to German eelpout?
Reproductive anomalies in eel-like fish may represent good markers of exposure to hormones or pollutants that mimic them.
- Earth
Flame retardants morph into dioxins
Sunlight can break down common flame retardants, now nearly ubiquitous in the environment, into unusual chemicals in the dioxin family.
