Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
High-Flying Science, with Strings Attached
In the hands of scientists, kites do serious data gathering.
- Earth
Small quake shakes up hydrothermal vents
Long-term, post-earthquake fluctuations in the temperature and volume of water spewing from hydrothermal vents off the coast of Washington state suggest that the fluid flow feeding such vents may be much more complex than previously thought.
- Earth
Bt corn pollen can hurt monarchs
A second test of a strain of corn genetically engineered to make its own insecticide finds potential for harm to monarch butterfly caterpillars.
- Earth
Girls may face risks from phthalates
The high incidence of premature breast development in Puerto Rican girls has been linked with phthalates, a family of ubiquitous pollutants found in plastics, lubricants, and solvents.
- Earth
Cooking up a key chemical of life
Researchers have simulated the conditions and ingredients found at hydrothermal vents to create pyruvic acid, an organic chemical vital for cellular metabolism.
- Earth
Greenland ice variation appears normal
Changes in snowfall observed in parts of southern Greenland between 1978 and 1988 appear to be normal if gauged against the variations recorded in ice cores over the past 400 years.
- Earth
New Concerns about Phthalates
Boys may face an eventual reproductive risk from exposure to some of the ingredients that go into many common plastics, cosmetics, and medical supplies.
- Earth
Study gives new answer for muddy mystery
Geologists provide evidence that quartz silt in ancient seabeds doesn't come from eroded land rocks, but rather from the dissolved skeletons of tiny primitive creatures, possibly altering the fossil record and changing models of prehistoric climate and ocean geography.
- 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
Wildfires spread across a parched West
Dozens of lightning-sparked wildfires seared the western United States last week, adding hundreds of thousands of acres of charred terrain to a tally that promises to make this fire season the worst in recent decades.
- Earth
Where’s Waldo . . . and 6 billion others?
Scientists have combined satellite imagery and detailed census data to develop a worldwide database that can provide estimates of the number of people located in areas on a grid that has boxes with areas of 1 square kilometer or less.
- Earth
Early web-footed bird made impression
Researchers have discovered the fossil tracks of an otherwise unknown bird in 110-million-year-old sediments, which pushes back evidence of web-footed birds by at least 25 million years.
