Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
Problems with eradicating polio
The oral vaccine's live but attenuated virus may in rare cases revert to the disease-causing form, which can then turn up in natural waters even in regions now certified free of the wild-type virus.
- Earth
Infectious stowaways
A new study finds that ballast water can move huge quantities of cholera germs and other microbes between ports around the globe.
- Earth
New database describes all the marbles
Analyses of the isotope ratios of carbon and oxygen in hundreds of samples of Greek marble may help researchers identify the quarries that supplied the stone for some of Europe's most famous statues and architecture.
- Earth
Sprawl’s aquatic pollution
A new study links the traffic associated with urban sprawl to an unexpectedly large rain of air pollutants entering local waters.
- Earth
Toxic color TVs and computer monitors
High concentrations of lead can leach from the X-ray-filtering glass used in picture tubes, suggesting that this glass should be treated as hazardous waste.
- Earth
Prenatal exposures affect sperm later
Boys exposed in the womb to hormone-mimicking pollutants may mature into men who produce impaired sperm.
- Earth
A slump or a slide? Density decides
Using a full-scale simulator, researchers showed that just a small difference in soil density determines whether a landslide becomes a fast-moving killer or merely one that slowly slumps downhill.
- Earth
Flaws make it a geologist’s best friend
By analyzing some of a diamond's trapped impurities, researchers were able to measure remnants of the gargantuan pressure that produced the gem.
- Earth
Allergic to computing?
The plastic cases of certain computer monitors emit a chemical—triphenyl phosphate—that can cause allergic reactions.
- Earth
Smoking out a source of painful menses
Breathing in secondhand smoke may contribute to the development of menstrual cramps.
- Earth
Even Nunavut gets plenty of dioxin
Within a few weeks, some of the dioxin generated by industrial activities in the United States and Mexico falls out in the high Arctic.
- Earth
Two microbes team up to munch methane
Aggregates of two different microorganisms in methane-bearing ocean sediments collected off the Oregon coast appear to collaborate to consume methane despite a lack of oxygen.
