Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Humans
BP spill: Gulf is primed to heal, but . . .
Every day, Mother Nature burps another 1,000 barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, along with additional quantities of natural gas. Normally, these hydrocarbons don’t stick around long because local bacteria have evolved to eat them about as fast as they appear. Which is potentially good news, she explained in testimony during a pair of June 9 House subcommittee events on Capitol Hill, because those bugs are now in place to begin chowing down on the oil and gas entering the Gulf from BP's damaged Deepwater Horizon well.
- Earth
Feds up estimates of BP-spill rate
At a news briefing on June 10, Marcia McNutt, who chairs the National Incident Command’s brain trust of experts calculating the likely release rate of the ongoing Gulf of Mexico oil spill, pegged the best available estimates at between 20,000 and more than 40,000 barrels per day.
- Earth
Ancient marine reptiles losing their cool
Warm-bloodedness may help explain the creatures’ evolutionary success, a new study suggests.
- Earth
Gulf gusher is far and away the biggest U.S. spill
As cleanup efforts progress, scientists try to track missing oil roaming below the surface.
- Earth
BP oil isn’t the only source of Gulf’s deep roaming plumes
During a June 8 briefing for reporters, a NOAA science officer described deep strata of water tainted with oil identified during a recent cruise in the Gulf of Mexico. The presumption was that anything they found would be plumes of oil spewed by the jet of hydrocarbons emanating from the BP well head. But the chemical fingerprinting of diffuse undersea clouds of oil at one sampling site was “not consistent with BP oil,” he pointed out.
- Earth
Possible snake shortage looms
Declines among species in Europe and Africa raise herpetologists’ worries of widespread population losses.
- Climate
With warming, some commercial fish may boom and bust
Higher temps in Arctic waters might be good for some species but not for others, new research suggests.
- Planetary Science
Before the Mississippi, minerals show ancient rivers flowed west
Michigan zircons uncover the path of an ancient river system across North America.
- Earth
Hazy antidote to a faint young sun
A new theory suggests atmospheric answer to the continuing paradox of why early Earth wasn’t icy.
- Animals
Diversified portfolio yields benefit for salmon stocks
Local diversity keeps sockeye from going bust every few years, a study finds.
- Archaeology
Jamestown settlers’ trash confirms hard times
Analyses of discarded oyster shells confirm a deep drought during the Virginia colony’s earliest years.
- Ecosystems
Honeybee death mystery deepens
Government scientists link colony collapse disorder to mix of fungal and viral infections.
