Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
Forecast: Heavy winds, plasma showers
A new spacecraft has snapped the first images of a region of ionized gases in Earth's magnetic field.
- Earth
Getting to know carbon
A new research initiative will focus on the complex life of carbon as it cycles through Earth's land, water, and atmosphere.
- 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
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
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
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.
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- Earth
Prescribed fire burns out of control
A fire set by the National Park Service to clear underbrush burned out of control, consuming more than 44,000 acres around Los Alamos, N.M.
- Earth
U.S. smog limit permits subtle lung damage
Ambient concentrations of smog ozone in many regions can cause lungs to leak, potentially compromising the health of even robust people.
- Agriculture
Downtown Fisheries?
Advances may make fish farming a healthy prospect, even for inner cities.
- Earth
Global warming is marmot wake-up call
Marmots are coming out of hibernation earlier, while chipmunks and ground squirrels sleep longer-effects that could be attributed to global warming.
- Earth
Impurities clock crystal growth rates
A novel method for measuring tiny amounts of hydrogen-containing impurities allows researchers to determine growth rates along different directions in a quartz crystal.
