Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
Here are 5 of the weirdest auroras, including the newly spotted ‘dunes’
A newfound type of aurora dubbed the “dunes” joins the ranks of black auroras, STEVE and other obscure auroral phenomena.
- Climate
Climate change may be speeding up ocean circulation
Circulation in the top 2,000 meters of the world’s oceans has increased as a result of faster winds around the globe, a study suggests.
- Climate
A new roadmap shows how the U.S. could be carbon-neutral by 2050
A new report charts a roadmap for the U.S. to have zero carbon footprint by 2050, but only with heavy and immediate investment in carbon removal technologies.
- Ecosystems
Fewer worms live in mud littered with lots of microplastics
The environmental effects of microplastic pollution are still hazy, but new long-term, outdoor experiments could help clear matters up.
- Life
Engineered honeybee gut bacteria trick attackers into self-destructing
Tailored microbes defend bees with a gene-silencing process called RNA interference that takes on viruses or mites.
- Earth
Tiny meteorites suggest ancient Earth had a carbon dioxide–rich atmosphere
Simulations of reactions between 2.7-billion-year-old micrometeorites and atmospheric gases hint Archean Earth’s atmosphere had high levels of CO2.
- Archaeology
Mount Vesuvius may have suffocated, not vaporized, some victims
A new study suggests people living near Pompeii who hid in stone boathouses died a slower death when the volcano erupted in A.D. 79.
- Earth
Fed by human-caused erosion, many river deltas are growing
Deforestation and river damming are changing the shape of river deltas around the globe.
- Earth
A 2.2-billion-year-old crater is Earth’s oldest recorded meteorite impact
The newly dated Yarrabubba crater in Western Australia extends Earth’s impact record by more than 200 million years.
- Earth
Volcanic gas bursts probably didn’t kill off the dinosaurs
A new timeline for massive bursts of volcanic gases suggests the Deccan Traps eruptions weren’t the real dinosaur killer 66 million years ago.
- Earth
2019 was the second-warmest year on record
2019 was the second-warmest year on record, ending a decade that topped 140 years of heat records.
- Life
The ‘Blob,’ a massive marine heat wave, led to an unprecedented seabird die-off
Scientists have linked thousands of dead common murres in 2015–2016 to food web changes caused by a long-lasting marine heat wave nicknamed the Blob.
