Earth
- Tech
Antarctic test of novel ice drill poised to begin
Any day now, a team of 40 scientists and support personnel expects to begin using a warm, high pressure jet of water to bore a 30 centimeter hole through 83 meters of ice. Once it breaks through to the sea below, they’ll have a few days to quickly sample life from water before the hole begins freezing up again. It's just a test. But if all goes well, in a few weeks the team will move 700 miles and bore an even deeper hole to sample for freshwater life that may have been living for eons outside even indirect contact with Earth’s atmosphere.
- Life
Early life forms may have been terrestrial
A controversial theory suggests that at least some of the earliest widespread complex life forms lived on land.
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- Science & Society
Descending to the Challenger Deep
Director James Cameron reveals the science of his deep-sea exploration.
- Life
Among bass, easiest to catch are best dads
Recreational fishing may be inadvertent evolutionary force, favoring cautious fish over better caretakers of the young.
- Life
Immune disease an added blow to fungus-ridden bat populations
Rare immune complication previously seen only in people devastates animals that had appeared to evade white nose syndrome.
- Earth
Grand Canyon could be much older than thought
Disputed dating of rock erosion pegs the ancient chasm as 70 million years old.
- Earth
Shrinking polar ice caused one-fifth of sea level rise
Comprehensive analysis quantifies ice sheet loss in Greenland and Antarctica.
- Life
Trees worldwide a sip away from dehydration
Plumbing systems operate on a razor’s edge, making even moist forests highly vulnerable to drought.
- Earth
Mexican silver made it into English coins
Chemical tests of currency help reveal where New World riches flowed.
- Earth
Gulf spill harmed small fish, studies indicate
Effects vary but dire impacts seen with some very low exposures.
