Earth
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Earth
Traces of lead cause outsize harm
Minute amounts of lead in blood are worse for children than had been realized.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Earth
Death for the killer seaweed
Biologists have launched a campaign to eradicate the first infestation in open American waters of an invasive mutant algae.
- Earth
Estrogen effects linger in male fish
Male fish can inappropriately make egg yolk protein, even when only intermittently exposed to water tainted with an estrogenic pollutant.
- Earth
Mapping watersheds invites comparisons
Computerized maps of environmental features for 154 of the largest river watersheds will soon be available to the public, free of charge.
