Chemistry
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
Iron-loving elements tell stories of Earth’s history
By studying geochemical footprints of rare elements, researchers get a glimpse of the planet’s evolution.
- Earth
Ancient air bubbles could revise history of Earth’s oxygen
Pockets of ancient air trapped in rock salt for around 815 million years suggest that oxygen was abundant well before the first animals appear in the fossil record.
- Chemistry
Nuclear bomb debris can reveal blast size, even decades later
Measuring the relative abundance of various elements in debris left over from nuclear bomb tests can reveal the energy released in the initial blast, researchers report.
- Earth
Winning helium hunt lifts hopes element not running out
A volcanic region of Tanzania contains more than a trillion liters of helium gas, enough to fill 1.2 million medical MRI scanners — or hundreds of billions of balloons, researchers report.
- Archaeology
Ancient Europeans may have been first wine makers
A new chemical analysis uncovers the earliest known wine making in Europe.
- Chemistry
Movie viewers’ exhaled chemicals tell if scene is funny, scary
Changes in trace gases exhaled by movie audiences could point the way to a subtle form of human communication.
- Chemistry
Four newest elements on periodic table get names
Four elements officially recognized in December, highlighted in yellow, now have names that honor Japan, Moscow, Tennessee and physicist Yuri Oganessian.
- Chemistry
Four newest elements on periodic table get names
Four elements officially recognized in December, highlighted in yellow, now have names that honor Japan, Moscow, Tennessee and physicist Yuri Oganessian.
- Environment
Bikini Atoll radiation levels remain alarmingly high
Lingering radiation levels from nuclear bomb tests on Bikini Atoll are far higher than previously estimated.
- Planetary Science
Comet 67P carries two ingredients for life: glycine, phosphorus
Two ingredients essential for all life, phosphorus and the amino acid glycine, have been found floating around a comet.
- Climate
Climate-cooling aerosols can form from tree vapors
Climate-cooling, cloud-seeding aerosols can form in the atmosphere without the sulfuric acid spewed from fossil fuel burning, new research suggests.
- Earth
Remnants from Earth’s birth linger 4.5 billion years later
Shaken, not stirred: Tungsten isotopes reveal that mantle convection has left some remnants of ancient Earth untouched for 4.5 billion years.
