Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
Reused paper can be polluted
Toxic chemicals can end up in recycled paper, making release of these reused materials into the environment potentially harmful.
- Earth
Going Down? Probe could ride to Earth’s core in a mass of molten iron
A geophysicist suggests that scientists could explore Earth's inner structure by sending a grapefruit-size probe on a week-long mission to the Earth's core inside a crust-busting mass of molten iron.
- Earth
Patterns from Nowhere
Scientists are developing geophysical models that may explain the polygonal patterns that appear in and on the ground in remote regions of the Arctic, Antarctica, and possibly the surface of Mars.
- Earth
Farm Harm: Ag chemicals may cause prostate cancer
On-the-job exposure to certain agricultural chemicals may be responsible for farmers' high rates of prostate cancer.
- Earth
The Fires Below
Underground coal fires help shape the landscape on many scales and in many ways, some transient and some long-lasting.
- Earth
Sensing a vibe
A sprawling network of seismometers that covers the Los Angeles area could be adapted to provide warning of damaging ground motions from earthquakes in the seconds before those seismic vibes arrive.
- Earth
Cars’ ammonia may sabotage tailpipe gains
Though cars' catalytic converters clean up some of the acidic contributors to urban haze and particulates pollution, a subset of these pollution-control devices seems to foster the production of ammonia, another pivotal ingredient in haze and particulates.
- Earth
Harbor waves yield secrets to analysis
New findings by ocean scientists may help port officials in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, predict potentially destructive waves in the city's harbor.
- Earth
Seismic waves resolve continental debate
New analyses of seismic waves that have traveled deep within Earth may answer a decades-old question about the thickness of the planet's continents.
- Earth
Feel the Heat: Rain forests may slow their growth in warmer world
During a long-term research project in a Central American rain forest, mature trees grew more slowly in warm years than they did in cooler ones.
- Earth
Prenatal nicotine: A role in SIDS?
New data suggest why exposure to nicotine in the womb can put an infant at greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome.
- Earth
Traces of lead cause outsize harm
Minute amounts of lead in blood are worse for children than had been realized.
