Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- 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.
- Earth
Future Looks Cloudy for Arctic Ozone
Clouds that drive ozone loss in the Antarctic turned up in force during the most recent Arctic winter.
- Earth
Warm band may have girdled snowball Earth
A swath a liquid ocean may have hugged the planet's midriff even during the most frigid global climatic episodes between 800 million and 600 million years ago, allowing life to survive.
- Earth
Finned Pollution Is One Cost of Our Exotic Tastes
Diners in most countries are accustomed to having an international array of foods in their pantries and eateries. It started more than a millennium ago when spice traders plied the caravan routes linking China to Istanbul. From Turkey, traders shipped their condiments throughout Europe and eventually to the New World. Northern or Chinese snakehead (Channa […]
- Earth
Shaked Alaska: A sleepy fault wakes and reveals new links
One of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded on U.S. land shook south-central Alaska on Nov. 3, revealing activity along the Denali fault.
- Earth
Pesticides block male hormones
Some common pesticides can block the ability of androgens, male sex hormones, to trigger normal gene activities.
- Earth
Weed killer feminizes fish
The weed killer atrazine can turn normally hermaphroditic fish into females, a new study shows.
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- Earth
Wildfire Below: Smoldering peat disgorges huge volumes of carbon
Set alight by wildfires, thick beds of decaying tropical plant matter can pump massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, rivaling those produced globally each year from the combustion of fossil fuels.
