Earth

  1. Agriculture

    Web Special: You fertilized with what?

    A study shows that farmers can substitute human urine for conventional fertilizer.

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  2. Earth

    Clearly Concerning

    The toxicity of a chemical that leaches from a widely used plastic receives conflicting evaluations in two new reviews.

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  3. Earth

    Toxipedia

    Ever wonder whether some chemical in a bathroom cleanser, herbicidal spray, or paint is toxic? Just how poisonous is that chemical described in last week’s Science News? Toxicologists are developing one-stop shopping for such information at Toxipedia. Like Wikipedia, it allows the public—experts, advocates, or policymakers—to post information. Unlike Wikipedia, there is a rating system […]

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  4. Earth

    Meteor dust layers taint Antarctic ice

    Two layers of deep Antarctic ice, each hundreds of thousands of years old, are rich in meteoritic dust.

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  5. Earth

    Grazing on the Periodic Table: Some ancient microorganisms lived on a diet of pure sulfur

    Microorganisms that lived 3.5 billion years ago obtained energy by metabolizing pure sulfur.

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  6. Earth

    How Green Are Your Travels?

    This website offers a rough gauge of the carbon-dioxide emissions associated with flying around the country. Just plug in a starting point and destination and it gives you a round-trip estimate of the greenhouse-gas “footprint” of your travel. The goal is to encourage visitors to buy carbon-offsets to cover the greenhouse-gas cost of their treks. […]

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  7. Earth

    Laser printers can dirty the air

    Some laser printers emit substantial amounts of potentially hazardous nanoscale particles.

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  8. Earth

    Lack of oxygen stunts fish reproduction

    Seasonal oxygen shortages in coastal waters, increasing in severity because of pollution, may impair fish reproduction.

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  9. Earth

    What Goes Up

    A massive scientific field study in Mexico City, along with lab experiments and computer simulations, show that pollution from the world's megacities has a global impact.

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  10. Earth

    Sonic Sands: Uncovering the secret of the booming dunes

    The age-old mystery of sand dunes that produce loud, thrumming noises is explained by a new theory that involves a resonant layer of dry sand.

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  11. Earth

    Oxygen Rocks: Volcanoes spurred early atmospheric change

    Earth owes its oxygen-rich atmosphere to a change in volcanic activity about 2.5 billion years ago.

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  12. Earth

    Tiny tubes, big pollution

    Making carbon nanotubes also produces a lot of airborne carcinogens.

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