Earth
- Earth
E-Waste Hazards: Chinese gear recyclers absorb toxic chemicals
People who live in an area of China where electronic devices are dismantled and recycled, as well as villagers 50 kilometers away, have high concentrations of flame retardants in their blood.
By Sarah Webb - Earth
As the last ice age waned, a great lake was born
Lake Agassiz, a huge and now vanished freshwater lake, formed almost 14,000 years ago, toward the end of the last ice age.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Polymer Breakdown: Reaction offers possible way to recycle nylon
A new chemical process offers hope that the thousands of tons of nylon thrown away every year could one day be recycled.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Icebergs can be biological hot spots
Icebergs carry nutrients from the land and shed them into the sea, nourishing life in the frigid waters near Antarctica.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Double-acting bacteria immobilize toxic nanoparticles
Bacteria lurking in the bowels of an abandoned Wisconsin mine might help remove toxic metals from polluted water.
By Sarah Webb - Earth
A Gemstone’s Wild Ride
Diamonds may be carried to the surface in explosions of gas and rock fizzing up from deep within Earth's mantle.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Tree rings tell tale of megadroughts
Tree rings in ancient timber show that the Colorado Plateau experienced a 60-year drought in the 12th century.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Storm Center
Scientists aboard planes that flew into the cores of Katrina and other hurricanes in 2005 collected unprecedented data on the structure and development of the massive storms.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Trouble for forests of the northern U.S. Rockies?
Climate change over the coming decades may cause forests in northern portions of the U.S. Rockies to stop absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and instead become net emitters of the gas.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Darker days during Arctic summer
Satellite observations indicate that Arctic regions reflected less sunlight into space in the summer of 2006 than in other recent years, a change that may exacerbate the warming of Earth's climate.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Dust Bowl affected midwestern climate
During the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, immense clouds of airborne soil blocked so much sunlight that much of the Great Plains region was significantly cooler than normal during summer months.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Age and gender affect soot’s toxic impact
Except in young females, small blood vessels in rodents lost the ability to precisely regulate blood flow after exposure to an oily constituent of diesel soot.
By Janet Raloff