Earth

  1. Earth

    Earth & Environment

    Cities can break up passing storms, plus wild boar contamination, altered spider sense and more in this week’s news.

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  2. Earth

    Hawaii heat source debated

    A pancake, not a plume, may fuel the island chain’s volcanoes.

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  3. Tech

    Cans bring BPA to dinner, FDA confirms

    Federal chemists have confirmed what everyone had expected: that if a bisphenol-A-based resin is used to line most food cans, there’s a high likelihood the contents of those cans will contain at least traces of BPA.

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  4. Life

    Microbes may sky jump to new hosts

    The role of microbes in cloud formation and precipitation may not be an accident of chemistry so much as an evolutionary adaptation by certain bacteria and other nonsentient beings, a scientist posited at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

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  5. Earth

    Germy with a chance of hail

    Aerial microbes can trigger precipitation and may influence global warming.

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  6. Earth

    Earth/Environment

    Earth’s iron heart can melt, plus Atlantic weather and more ice thinning in this week’s news.

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  7. Physics

    Rogue waves captured

    Re-creating tiny versions of these monster swells in a laboratory tank reveals their mathematical underpinnings.

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  8. Life

    Numbers flap has minor implications for global extinctions

    A statistical technique used to estimate rates of species disappearance is flawed, two ecologists charge — but not enough to invalidate recent dire assessments.

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  9. Humans

    It’s time to put a price on carbon, NRC says

    “It is imprudent to delay actions that at least begin the process of substantially reducing emissions [of greenhouse gases],” according to a May 12 report by the National Research Council. It didn’t get a lot of press play in the past week, perhaps because its 144 pages don’t say anything readers might not have expected this august body to have proclaimed years ago. But that shouldn’t diminish the significance of this report, its authors contend.

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  10. Chemistry

    Melting icebergs fertilize ocean

    Releasing extra iron into the water boosts carbon dioxide uptake by plankton.

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  11. Earth

    Earth/Environment

    Earthquake risk in Chile, plus an ancient Greek island and casino pollution in this week’s news.

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  12. Earth

    Ozone hole on the mend

    Researchers claim to see atmospheric healing more than a decade earlier than a detectable uptick was expected.

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