Earth
- Ecosystems
Eight-legged bags of poison
Birds eating arachnids get high dose of toxic metal as mercury climbs up the food chain.
- Ecosystems
Beetle attack overturns forest carbon regime
Ravaged Canadian region switches from carbon sink to net carbon source.
- Agriculture
Study decodes papaya genome
Scientists have added another plant to the genome-sequencing roster: the tropical fruit tree papaya.
- Earth
Melt pond falls through ice in Greenland
A lake of meltwater atop Greenland's ice sheet wedged open a crack in the underlying ice that drained the lake dry.
- Environment
Down with Carbon
Scientists are exploring strategies for capturing carbon dioxide and storing it safely away in order to limit the levels of that greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.
- Earth
BOOK LIST | A Grain of Sand: Nature’s Secret Wonder
Beautiful photos of sand grains up close reveal surprising diversity. Text describes a sand grain’s journey from mountain to beach. A GRAIN OF SAND Voyageur Press, 2008, 112 p. $20.
- Climate
Researchers rethink fate of celebrity plankton
A poster-species for the hazards of greenhouse gas accumulation thrives in carbon dioxide-rich waters.
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- Earth
Here’s a Title We’ll Gladly Relinquish
China appears to be the world leader in carbon-dioxide emissions, but we may be partly to blame.
- Earth
Britain’s biggest meteorite strike
An unusual layer of rock found along Britain's northwestern coast formed from the debris thrown out of a crater when a meteorite struck nearby more than 1 billion years ago.
- Earth
Refuge for the resilient
Some conservationists recommend creating marine parks in areas most likely to survive climate change.
- Earth
Naming Your Tax Write-Off
You can name this newly discovered sea slug — or nudibranch — housed in the Scripps Oceanographic Collections. The catch: It’ll cost you. But that “donation” will be tax deductible.
