Earth

Earth

Mineral Deposit: Asbestos linked to lupus, arthritis

Already known to cause lung cancer, asbestos has now been associated with three autoimmune diseases.

Earth

Cleaning up pollution, whey down deep

Lab and field tests hint that dairy whey, a lactose-rich by-product of the dairy industry, could be used to clean up underground water supplies tainted by the solvent trichloroethylene.

Earth

Subglacial lakes may not be isolated ecosystems

Large volumes of water may occasionally flow between the lakes that lie deep beneath Antarctica's kilometers-thick ice sheet.

Earth

Gasp! Ozone limits don’t protect babies

In healthy infants, even ozone concentrations well below those allowed by federal law trigger asthmalike symptoms.

Earth

Toxic Tides: Another reason to worry about hurricanes

The hurricanes that struck Florida in the summer of 2004 also may have triggered an intense, widespread, and long-lasting red tide that afflicted the state's west-central coast throughout 2005.

Earth

Deep-sea action

Scientists using remotely operated vehicles have reported the first close-up observations of a deep undersea volcano during its eruption.

Earth

Oil Booms: Whales don’t avoid noise of seismic exploration

Field tests in the Gulf of Mexico suggest that sperm whales there don't swim away from boats conducting seismic surveys of the seafloor, but the noise generated by such activity may be subtly affecting the whales' feeding behavior. With video.

Earth

Lazarus, the amphibian

The painted frog, unseen for more than a decade and feared to be extinct, has resurfaced in a remote desert highland of Colombia.

Earth

Pumped-up Poison Ivy: Carbon dioxide boosts plant’s size, toxicity

Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could make poison ivy grow much faster and become more toxic.

Earth

Three Gorges Dam is affecting ocean life

Oceanographic surveys suggest that China's Three Gorges Dam is already influencing biological productivity in the East China Sea, even though the structure is still under construction.

Agriculture

Biotech cotton: Less spray but same yield

The way farmers grow transgenic cotton in Arizona lets them skip some of their regular spraying but end up with the same yield as traditional farmers, as well as the same impact on ants and beetles.

Earth

Blast Survivors: Fragments of asteroid found in ancient crater

Pieces of an asteroid that blasted a 70-kilometer-wide crater in southern Africa millions of years ago may have been found intact inside the thick layer of once-molten rock that the impact left behind.