Earth

  1. Health & Medicine

    Wheat genome announcement turns out to be small beer

    The DNA sequence released by U.K. team still requires assembly.

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  2. Climate

    Academies recommend that IPCC make changes

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an authoritative scientific organization set up in 1989 to assess climate science, took some heat today from a group that it commissioned to investigate its credibility. The oversight group reported findings procedural weaknesses that preclude IPCC from responding nimbly to events — or from reliably identifying errors in its assessments.

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  3. Earth

    Primordial bestiary gets an annex

    A classic Canadian fossil trove extends to thinner deposits, geologists find.

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  4. Earth

    ‘Bug traps’ in Gulf to use BP oil as bait

    To assay how appetizing polluting oil is to native Gulf micobes — and how rapidly they degrade it — researchers plan to set 150 “bug traps” on August 26.. Their bait: the same oil that had been spewed for months by BP’s damaged Deepwater Horizon well.

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  5. Chemistry

    Deep-sea plumes: A rush to judgment?

    A new report suggests a deep-sea plume of oil in the Gulf of Mexico has been gobbled up by microbes. But the scientist who described the incident doesn't "know" that. He can't — yet.

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  6. Chemistry

    Deep-sea oil plume goes missing

    Controversy arises over whether bacteria have completely gobbled oil up.

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  7. Earth

    Most BP oil still pollutes the Gulf, scientists conclude

    Below the surface, plumes of oil are proving slow to disperse and break down.

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  8. Planetary Science

    Worldwide slowdown in plant carbon uptake

    A decade of droughts has stifled the increasing growth of terrestrial vegetation.

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  9. Earth

    Tsunami triggered by one-two punch

    Geologists report the first recorded observation of an unusual earthquake sequence.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Traffic may drive some people to diabetes

    Urban air pollution — especially the particles and gases emitted by heavy traffic — can increase a senior citizen’s risk of developing type-2 diabetes, according to a new German study. If confirmed, its authors say, pollution would represent a “novel and potentially modifiable risk factor” for the metabolic disorder.

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  11. Earth

    Perforated blobs may be early sponges

    Odd shapes in Australian rocks could be the oldest fossil evidence of multicellular animals.

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  12. Earth

    Scour power

    Big storms shift coastal erosion into overdrive.

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