Earth

  1. Chemistry

    Tear-resistant rubbery materials could pave the way for tougher tires

    Adding easy-to-break molecular connectors surprisingly makes materials harder to tear and could one day reduce microplastic pollution from car tires.

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  2. Climate

    Antarctic sea ice has been hitting record lows for most of this year

    Since hitting a record low minimum back in February, the amount of Antarctic sea ice has stayed well below normal all year.

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  3. Environment

    Dust from a shrinking Great Salt Lake may be accelerating Utah’s snowmelt

    About a quarter of the record-breaking, snow-melting dust on the Wasatch Mountains in 2022 may have come from exposed lakebed at Great Salt Lake.

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  4. Climate

    The snow forest of North America may be about to shrink

    From 2000 to 2019, the boreal forest’s northern boundary didn’t move while southern tree cover thinned due to climate change, wildfires and logging.

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  5. Earth

    Irrigation may be shifting Earth’s rotational axis

    Computer simulations suggest that from 1993 to 2010 irrigation alone could have nudged the North Pole by about 78 centimeters.

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  6. Ecosystems

    The Amazon might not have a ‘tipping point.’ But it’s still in trouble

    Scientists race to foretell the fate of the vast forest facing deforestation and climate change.

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  7. Climate

    Why is the North Atlantic breaking heat records?

    Record-breaking sea-surface temperatures off the coast of Africa may affect the 2023 hurricane season. What’s fueling the unusual heat is unclear.

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  8. Animals

    Camouflaging wheat with a wheat smell could be a new approach to pest control

    Wheat fields coated in wheat germ oil confuse the noses of mice, reducing seed loss by more than 60 percent, a new study finds.

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  9. Climate

    Wildfire smoke is blanketing the U.S. East Coast. It won’t be the last time

    Climate change will continue to exacerbate fire risk across the world’s boreal forests, making events like the dangerous smoke over the U.S. East Coast more common.

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  10. Environment

    Rising groundwater threatens to spread toxic pollution on U.S. coastlines

    Sea level rise is pushing groundwater into shallower layers of earth, threatening to spread hazardous chemicals from contaminated soils.

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  11. Environment

    Surviving a drought may help forests weather future dry spells

    Climate change is making droughts more intense and frequent, but conifer forests have a trick up their sleeve, airplane and satellite data show.

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  12. Life

    50 years ago, flesh-eating screwworms pushed scientists to mass produce flies

    "Fly factories” dreamed up in the early 1970s have helped North and Central America keep screwworms in check for decades.

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