Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Agriculture
Bt corn variety OK for black swallowtails
The first published field study of butterflies and genetically altered corn finds no harm to black swallowtail caterpillars from a common corn variety.
- Earth
Ocean View
Ocean observatories have revealed unexpected discoveries, and now scientists want to widen the lens.
- Earth
Solving Hazy Mysteries
Aerosols such as smoke, soot, and sea spray make for hazy vistas and stunning sunrises, but they also play major roles in Earth's climate and atmospheric chemistry.
- Earth
Child-care sites, health threats
Federal agencies have completed the first national study of lead, pesticides, and allergens in U.S. child-care facilities.
- Earth
El Niños came more often in Middle Ages
Analyses of layered sediments from a South American lake suggest that the worldwide warm spells known as El Niños occurred more frequently about 1,200 years ago, when Europe was entering the Middle Ages, than they do today.
- Earth
Taming Toxic Tides
A growing international cadre of scientists is exploring a simple strategy for controlling toxic algal blooms: flinging dirt to sweep the algae from the water.
- Earth
Outside-In: Clearing up how cloud droplets freeze
A fresh look at old experimental data suggests that water droplets in clouds freeze from the outside inward rather than from their core outward.
- Earth
Rural living may hobble sperm
An epidemiological study provides evidence that sperm concentrations in men residing in rural areas are significantly lower than those of men living in urban centers.
- Earth
The Short and Long of the Food Transport Story
Food is really getting around. One week before Thanksgiving, a new study by the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C., finds that food in the United States now travels 25 percent farther to reach the dinner table than it did just 2 decades ago. In the United Kingdom, food travels 50 percent farther than it did. […]
- Earth
Arsenic Agriculture? Irrigation may worsen Bangladesh’s woes
Researchers investigating an unfolding massive epidemic of arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh say they have evidence that local irrigation practices may be contributing to the problem.
- Earth
Dioxin cuts the chance of fathering a boy
More girls than boys are fathered by men who sustained a relatively high environmental exposure to dioxin from a 1976 factory explosion in Italy.
- Earth
Bursting in Air: Satellites tally small asteroid hits
On average, a small asteroid slams into Earth's atmosphere and explodes with the energy of 1,000 Hiroshima-size blasts once every thousand years or so, a rate that is less than one-third as high as scientists previously supposed.
