Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
Supervolcano blast would blanket U.S. in ash
A new simulation illustrates the explosiveness of the volcano that lurks beneath Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.
- Environment
Crops take up drugs from recycled water
Plants irrigated with recycled wastewater can soak up tiny amounts of pharmaceutical compounds but what this means for human health is unclear.
- Plants
Borrowed genes raise hopes for fixing “slow and confused” plant enzyme
Inserting some bacterial Rubisco chemistry into a plant might one day boost photosynthesis and help raise crop yields.
- Earth
Shrinking ancient sea may have spawned Sahara Desert
The Saharan Desert probably formed 7 million years ago as the ancient Tethys Sea, the forerunner of the Mediterranean Sea, shrank.
- Agriculture
Drug-resistant staph can cling to farm workers for days
Agricultural exposure to staph bacteria could threaten the health of laborers and people who live near farms, a study of pig farm workers suggests.
- Earth
Warming alone triggered Antarctic ice shelf collapse
Warming surface temperatures, not an unstable foundation, probably doomed Antarctica’s Larsen B ice shelf.
- Climate
Greenhouse gases reached new records in 2013
Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose more last year than any other year since 1984, according to a September 9 report by the World Meteorological Organization.
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- Oceans
Plastic may take unexpected routes to marine garbage patches
By redefining ocean boundaries, researchers offer new insight to how litter moves through the oceans and who’s to blame for the floating clumps of trash.
- Physics
Unusual turbulence seen along North Carolina coast
Storm winds in Currituck Sound, North Carolina, may have created just the right conditions for scientists to see a rare type of turbulence in ocean waves for the first time.
- Earth
Death Valley’s sailing stones caught on the move
Mysterious sailing stones wandering around Death Valley are powered by ice and wind.
- Materials Science
Greener water splitter for hydrogen fuel designed
A new gadget that runs on a single AAA battery might truly reduce the carbon emissions from hydrogen fuel cell production down to zero.
