Earth

  1. Earth

    Sensing a vibe

    A sprawling network of seismometers that covers the Los Angeles area could be adapted to provide warning of damaging ground motions from earthquakes in the seconds before those seismic vibes arrive.

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  2. Earth

    Cars’ ammonia may sabotage tailpipe gains

    Though cars' catalytic converters clean up some of the acidic contributors to urban haze and particulates pollution, a subset of these pollution-control devices seems to foster the production of ammonia, another pivotal ingredient in haze and particulates.

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  3. Earth

    Harbor waves yield secrets to analysis

    New findings by ocean scientists may help port officials in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, predict potentially destructive waves in the city's harbor.

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  4. Earth

    Seismic waves resolve continental debate

    New analyses of seismic waves that have traveled deep within Earth may answer a decades-old question about the thickness of the planet's continents.

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  5. Earth

    Feel the Heat: Rain forests may slow their growth in warmer world

    During a long-term research project in a Central American rain forest, mature trees grew more slowly in warm years than they did in cooler ones.

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  6. Earth

    Prenatal nicotine: A role in SIDS?

    New data suggest why exposure to nicotine in the womb can put an infant at greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome.

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  7. Earth

    Traces of lead cause outsize harm

    Minute amounts of lead in blood are worse for children than had been realized.

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  8. Earth

    Eye of the Tiger

    Recent research has upended a 130-year-old, previously unchallenged theory about how the semiprecious stone called tiger's-eye is formed.

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  9. Earth

    Solving one mystery of polar wander

    Long-term fluctuations in pressure at the ocean's bottom may be the driving force for the Chandler wobble, which causes the North Pole to wander about 20 feet every 14 months or so.

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  10. Earth

    Early web-footed bird made impression

    Researchers have discovered the fossil tracks of an otherwise unknown bird in 110-million-year-old sediments, which pushes back evidence of web-footed birds by at least 25 million years.

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  11. Earth

    Where’s Waldo . . . and 6 billion others?

    Scientists have combined satellite imagery and detailed census data to develop a worldwide database that can provide estimates of the number of people located in areas on a grid that has boxes with areas of 1 square kilometer or less.

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  12. Earth

    Wildfires spread across a parched West

    Dozens of lightning-sparked wildfires seared the western United States last week, adding hundreds of thousands of acres of charred terrain to a tally that promises to make this fire season the worst in recent decades.

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