Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
BP oil rig’s sinking and gushing crude raise questions
Around 10 p.m. local time on April 20, the Deepwater Horizon — a floating oil-drilling platform leased to British Petroleum — suffered an explosion and fire about 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. While the aftermath of that devastating accident is now being observed and chronicled in painful detail, even the most basic features of what triggered it remain sketchy.
- Earth
Wringing hope from crashing biodiversity
Biodiversity losses have not slowed despite a treaty designed to protect variety in the natural world.
- Paleontology
Dinos molted for a new look
In one species, adolescents appear to have sprouted a new type of feathers as they matured.
- Ecosystems
Forests on the wane
Early last decade, the world’s tree coverage dropped by more than 3 percent.
- Space
Life in the sticky lane
Tropical asphalt lake could be analog for extraterrestrial microbial habitat.
- Earth
Emerging Northwest fungal disease develops virulent Oregon strain
Uncommon but sometimes fatal infections of the lung or brain can show up months after someone inhales spores.
- Agriculture
Rural ozone can be fed by feed (as in silage)
Livestock operations take a lot of flak for polluting. Researchers are now linking ozone to livestock, at least in one of the nation's most agriculturally intense centers. And here the pollution source is not what comes out the back end of an animal but what’s destined to go in the front.
- Earth
Studies aim to resolve confusion over mercury risks from fish
Several new papers suggest strategies by which American diners can negotiate a mercury minefield to tap dietary benefits in fish.
- Earth
Severe weather has favorite spots
New analyses of tornadoes and lightning highlight U.S. danger zones.
- Humans
Mercury surprise: Rice can be risky
A new study out of China shows that for millions of people at risk of eating toxic amounts of mercury-laced food, fish isn't the problem. Rice is.
- Earth
Ash from Icelandic eruption may just be the start
A recently awakened volcano often goes off in tandem with a much bigger one nearby.
- Health & Medicine
Gulf War Syndrome real, Institute of Medicine concludes
U.S. veterans who claim to suffer from Gulf War Syndrome just received powerful new ammunition against arguments that their symptoms are trivial, if not altogether fictional. On April 9, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences issued a report that concludes military service in the Persian Gulf War has not only been a cause of post-traumatic stress disorder in some veterans but also is "associated with multisymptom illness” – as in Gulf War Syndrome.
