Earth

Planetary Science

Warmth in the dark age

Lower reflectivity kept Earth from freezing under a fainter young sun.

Chemistry

Mothballs deserve respect

I don’t use mothballs — except sometimes to sprinkle down the burrows of animals excavating tunnels beneath the deck floor of my pergola. It’s the most effective stop-work order for wildlife that I’ve found. But I won’t use these stinky crystals inside my home because they scare me. And those fears appear justified, according to Linda Hall of the California Environmental Protection Agency.

Tech

Smokin’ entrees: Charcoal grilling tops the list

At the American Chemical Society meeting, earlier this week, I stayed at a hotel that fronted onto the kitchen door of a Burger King. This explained the source of the beefy scent that perfumed the air from mid-morning on – the restaurant’s exhaust of smoke and meat-derived aerosols. A study presented at the meeting confirmed what my nose observed: that commercial grilling can release relatively huge amounts of pollutants.

Humans

Wildlife trade meeting disappoints marine scientists

The 15th meeting of signatories to the CITES treaty ended on March 25 without passing several proposals to protect high-profile fish species.

Earth

Alternative flame retardants leach into the environment

Supposedly safer chemicals are spotted in peregrine falcon eggs in California.

Paleontology

Tyrannosaurs lived in the Southern Hemisphere, too

Australian fossils suggest the kin of T. rex dispersed globally 110 million years ago.

Chemistry

Building a cheaper catalyst

Using perovskite instead of platinum in catalytic converters could shave many hundreds of dollars off the cost of a diesel car.

Chemistry

The skinny on indoor ozone

Indoor concentrations of ozone tend to be far lower than those outside, largely because much gets destroyed as molecules of the respiratory irritant collide with surfaces and undergo transformative chemical reactions. New research identifies a hitherto ignored surface that apparently plays a major role in quashing indoor ozone: It’s human skin. And while removing ozone from indoor air should be good, what takes its place may not be, data indicate.

Earth

Bacteria show new route to making oxygen

New discovery adds to the few known biological pathways for making and metabolically using the gas.

Chemistry

BPA found beached and at sea

Food chemists have been showing for years that bisphenol A, an estrogen-mimicking building block of polycarbonate plastics and food-can coatings, can leach into food and drinks. But other materials contain BPA – and leach it – such as certain resins used in nautical paint. And Katsuhiko Saido suspects those paints explain the high concentrations of BPA that he’s just found in beach sand and coastal seawater around the world.

Ecosystems

Athlete’s foot therapy tapped to treat bat-killing fungus

Over the past four years, a mysterious white-nose fungus has struck hibernating North American bats. Populations in affected caves and mines can experience death rates of more than 80 percent over a winter. In desperation, an informal interagency task force of scientists from state and federal agencies has just launched an experimental program to fight the plague. Their weapon: a drug ordinarily used to treat athlete’s foot.

Plants

Bees face ‘unprecedented’ pesticide exposures at home and afield

Honey bees are being hammered by some mysterious environmental plaque that has a name — colony collapse disorder – but no established cause. A two-year study now provides evidence indicting one likely group of suspects: pesticides. It found “unprecedented levels” of mite-killing chemicals and crop pesticides in hives across the United States and parts of Canada.