Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Climate
What the pandemic can teach us about ways to reduce air pollution
Data collected during COVID-19 shutdowns may help tease out the complicated chemistry that brews poor air quality.
- Earth
Plastic drinking water pipes exposed to high heat can leak hazardous chemicals
Lab tests exposing commonly used water pipes to wildfire-like heat show damaged pipes can leach the carcinogen benzene and other chemicals.
- Chemistry
A new iron-based catalyst converts carbon dioxide into jet fuel
Jet fuel made from carbon dioxide could one day reduce pollution from air travel.
- Climate
Wildfires, heat waves and hurricanes broke all kinds of records in 2020
Climate change did not take a break during the pandemic.
- Earth
Towering fire-fueled thunderclouds can spew as many aerosols as volcanic eruptions
A massive plume of smoke lofted into the stratosphere during Australia’s fires may represent a new class of “volcanic-scale” pyrocumulonimbus clouds.
- Animals
Plastic waste forms huge, deadly masses in camel guts
Eating plastic isn’t just a sea animal problem. Researchers found suitcase-sized masses of plastic in dromedaries’ guts in the United Arab Emirates.
- Earth
In the past 15 years, climate change has transformed the Arctic
Accumulating evidence and new tools have helped scientists better understand how the Arctic is changing, but the pace has been faster than expected.
- Archaeology
Ancient people may have survived desert droughts by melting ice in lava tubes
Bands of charcoal from fires lit long ago, found in an ice core from a New Mexico cave, correspond to five periods of drought over 800 years.
- Earth
An enormous supervolcano may be hiding under Alaskan islands
A geologic game of connect the dots reveals hints that Mount Cleveland, the Aleutians’ most active volcano, may sit on a giant undersea crater.
- Humans
Ancient humans may have deliberately voyaged to Japan’s Ryukyu Islands
Satellite-tracked buoys suggest that long ago, a remote Japanese archipelago was reached by explorers on purpose, not accidentally.
- Life
Dog ticks may get more of a taste for human blood as the climate changes
At high temperatures, some brown dog ticks that can carry the bacteria that causes Rocky Mountain spotted fever seem to prefer humans over dogs.
- Environment
Plastics are showing up in the world’s most remote places, including Mount Everest
From the snow on Mount Everest to the guts of critters in the Mariana Trench, tiny fragments called microplastics are almost everywhere.
