Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
Clearing the Air: Ozone-killing bromine is on the decline
Chemical analyses of Earth's lower atmosphere show that the overall concentration of bromine, a component of some potent ozone-destroying chemicals, has dropped by 5 percent since peaking in 1998.
- Earth
On Shifting Ground
In earthquake-prone areas of the United States and elsewhere in the world, debates go on over whether—and how much—to reinforce buildings.
- Earth
Not So Green? Using hydrogen as fuel may hurt environment
Replacing fossil fuels with clean-burning hydrogen—considered to be a way to reduce globe-warming carbon dioxide—may create a different set of environmental problems, including larger and longer-lasting ozone holes.
- Earth
Saltier Water: Climate change can slow ocean’s absorption of carbon dioxide gas
A decrease in precipitation over the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii in recent years has left the ocean there saltier and has diminished its ability to soak up carbon dioxide.
- Agriculture
Fluid Security—Overcoming Water Shortfalls in the 21st Century
About 70 percent of Earth’s surface is covered with water, some 1.4 billion cubic kilometers of it. Too bad almost 96.5 percent of it’s salty, and another 2 percent is locked away as ice in remote places such as Greenland and Antarctica. All told, just a little more than 1 percent of our planet’s water […]
- Earth
Large lake floods scoured New Zealand
A volcanic region of New Zealand’s North Island experienced immense floods and severe erosion when lakes filling the craters of dormant volcanoes burst through the craters' rims and poured down the slopes.
- Earth
For European lakes, how clean is clean enough?
New research on lakes in Denmark suggests that agriculture has been affecting water quality there for more than 5,000 years.
- Earth
Extracting Estrogens: Modern treatment plants strip hormone from sewage
New research helps explain why state-of-the-art sewage treatment facilities are more effective than conventional plants at removing certain sex hormones from sludge.
- Agriculture
Local Foods Could Make for Greener Grocers
There was a time not so long ago when people tended to select the ingredients for their meals either from what was available that week at local markets or from out-of-season home-canned, -smoked, or -pickled goods in the family larder. No longer. Maryland cooks can pick up New Zealand lamb or Icelandic salmon any time […]
- Earth
Air Sickness
Studies have begun showing subtle but substantial harmful effects in outwardly healthy people who regularly breathe hazy air.
- Earth
Long-Term Ocean Venting: Seafloor system has been active for ages
Analyses of mineral deposits in and around a unique set of hydrothermal vents beneath the Atlantic Ocean suggest that the site's tallest towers of minerals have been growing for at least 30,000 years.
- Earth
Catch Zero
It generally has taken less than a generation for modern, industrial-scale fishing, once deployed in a new plot of ocean, to exhaust the vast majority of the sea’s edible bounty and leave behind decimated ecosystems and depleted economic opportunities.
