Earth

Paleontology

Bacteria may play big role in forming fossils

Bacteria can build a biofilm that preserves a tissue's structure.

Humans

Is Your Fish Oil Polluted?

Clues to gauging the likely purity of fish-oil capsules.

Humans

When Not to Flush

Toilets are not where we should be disposing of unwanted medicines.

Earth

Antidepressants Aren’t for Fish

Antidepressants can play potentially dangerous mind games with fish.

Humans

What an Acid Bath!

One fallout of space shuttle launches can be a transient change in water pH.

Earth

It’s Night: Why’s It So Light?

We're wasting scads of energy while much of the world sleeps.

Earth

Subglacial lakes flood, glaciers speed up

Floods that occasionally surge from immense lakes trapped beneath the Antarctic ice sheet can significantly affect the flow rate of overlying glaciers, a new study shows.

Life

Supreme Court lifts restriction on Navy sonar testing

Justices overturn restrictions that require Navy to stop using sonar when marine mammals are within 2,200 yards of vessels.

Ecosystems

Costs of Choked-Up Waters

Scientists tally the economic toll of fertilizing pollutants on water quality.

Earth

Minerals evolved along with life

Turns out, the variety and number of minerals in the solar system and on Earth have increased through time, and some minerals exist because Earth has life.

Agriculture

A Mushrooming Advance

Human skin isn't the only thing that makes vitamin D upon exposure to the ultraviolet radiation.

Climate

Fixing Climate: What Past Climate Changes Reveal About the Current Threat— And How to Counter It by Wallace S. Broecker and Robert Kunzig

Hill and Wang, 2008, 253 p., $25.