Earth
- Tech
Chernobyl’s lessons for Japan
Radioactive iodine released by the Chernobyl nuclear accident has left a legacy of thyroid cancers among downwinders — one that shows no sign of diminishing. The new data also point to what could be in store if conditions at Japan’s troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power complex continue to sour.
- Tech
Radiation: Japan’s third crisis
As if the magnitude-9 earthquake on March 11 and killer tsunami weren’t enough, a new round of aftershocks — psychological ones over fear of radiation — are rocking Japan and its neighbors.
- Humans
Record ozone thinning looms in Arctic
Depletion could expose the northern midlatitudes to higher-than-normal ultraviolet radiation in coming weeks.
- Earth
Cave formations record Black Sea deluges
Stalagmites in a Turkish grotto document 670,000 years of flooding.
- Earth
Japan quake location a surprise
Based on regional tectonics, seismologists expected the biggest events in the island's southern half.
- Earth
How continents do the splits
East African seismic study reveals how land gives way to ocean crust.
- Earth
Earth/Environment
Dangerous levels of cadmium in children's jewelry, plus a lost satellite and 'cloudshine' in this week's news.
- Paleontology
New dinosaur species is titanic
Titanoceratops may be the oldest known member of the triceratops group.
- Earth
Understanding storm spin-offs
Meteorologists seeking to better predict tornadoes probe the differences between tempests that spawn twisters and those that don't.
- Earth
Great quake one of the biggest ever in Japan
BLOG: Magnitude-8.9 tremor will go down in seismology’s record books
- Physics
Soot hastens snowmelt on Tibetan Plateau
Black carbon pollution is a more potent driver of melting in the region than increases in carbon dioxide, a new computer simulation suggests.
- Earth
Earth/Environment
The carbon footprint of Brazilian beef, plus the health effects of pollution and electrification in this week's news.
