Earth

Earth

Prions’ dirty little secret

The malformed proteins responsible for mad cow disease bind tightly to clay, a finding that points to farm soil as a potential long-term reservoir for these infective agents.

Earth

Cold and Deep: Antarctica’s Lake Vostok has two big neighbors

Trapped beneath Antarctica's kilometers-thick ice sheet are two immense bodies of water that may harbor ecosystems that have been isolated for millions of years.

Earth

2005 was warmest year on record

Last year's global average temperature was the warmest since scientists began compiling records in the late 1800s.

Earth

Manganese can make water toxic

Drinking water contaminated with manganese can subtly limit a child's intellectual development.

Earth

Warming climate will slow ocean circulation

Later this century, rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere could slow the ocean currents that bring warm waters to the North Atlantic.

Earth

A Little Less Green?

Emerging data indicate that use of pyrethroid pesticides, even by home owners, poses significant environmental risks.

Earth

Seamount Expedition

Join scientists as they explore the cold waters of the Davidson Seamount off the central California coastline. This huge undersea mountain harbors a variety of spectacular marine life, including large, ancient, and fragile coral gardens. Students and the general public can share the expedition’s discoveries through NOAA’s Ocean Explorer Web site, which features daily logs, […]

Earth

Charting the Past: Surveys map two lost harbors of Phoenicia

By analyzing long tubes of sediment drilled from locations in and around the Mediterranean ports of Tyre and Sidon, scientists have rediscovered the harbors from which legions of ancient Phoenician mariners set sail.

Earth

Sinking Mercury: Light-based reactions destroy toxic chemical in Arctic lakes

Sunlight triggers the entry of poisonous mercury into polar lakes, but it also removes most of the toxic compound before fish can consume it.

Earth

Diabetes from a Plastic? Estrogen mimic provokes insulin resistance

Exposure to trace amounts of an estrogenlike ingredient of polycarbonate plastic may increase the risk of diabetes, experiments in mice show.

Earth

Greenhouse Plants? Vegetation may produce methane

Lab tests suggest that a wide variety of plants may routinely do something that scientists previously thought impossible; produce methane in significant quantities in an oxygenated environment.

Earth

Mass movement

Two satellites designed to note small changes in Earth's gravitational field detected effects of the magnitude 9.3 earthquake that occurred west of Sumatra on Dec. 26, 2004.