Earth
- Earth
El Niños came more often in Middle Ages
Analyses of layered sediments from a South American lake suggest that the worldwide warm spells known as El Niños occurred more frequently about 1,200 years ago, when Europe was entering the Middle Ages, than they do today.
- Earth
Taming Toxic Tides
A growing international cadre of scientists is exploring a simple strategy for controlling toxic algal blooms: flinging dirt to sweep the algae from the water.
- Earth
Outside-In: Clearing up how cloud droplets freeze
A fresh look at old experimental data suggests that water droplets in clouds freeze from the outside inward rather than from their core outward.
- Earth
Rural living may hobble sperm
An epidemiological study provides evidence that sperm concentrations in men residing in rural areas are significantly lower than those of men living in urban centers.
- Earth
The Short and Long of the Food Transport Story
Food is really getting around. One week before Thanksgiving, a new study by the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C., finds that food in the United States now travels 25 percent farther to reach the dinner table than it did just 2 decades ago. In the United Kingdom, food travels 50 percent farther than it did. […]
- Earth
Arsenic Agriculture? Irrigation may worsen Bangladesh’s woes
Researchers investigating an unfolding massive epidemic of arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh say they have evidence that local irrigation practices may be contributing to the problem.
- Earth
Dioxin cuts the chance of fathering a boy
More girls than boys are fathered by men who sustained a relatively high environmental exposure to dioxin from a 1976 factory explosion in Italy.
- Earth
Bursting in Air: Satellites tally small asteroid hits
On average, a small asteroid slams into Earth's atmosphere and explodes with the energy of 1,000 Hiroshima-size blasts once every thousand years or so, a rate that is less than one-third as high as scientists previously supposed.
- Earth
Future Looks Cloudy for Arctic Ozone
Clouds that drive ozone loss in the Antarctic turned up in force during the most recent Arctic winter.
- Earth
Warm band may have girdled snowball Earth
A swath a liquid ocean may have hugged the planet's midriff even during the most frigid global climatic episodes between 800 million and 600 million years ago, allowing life to survive.
- Earth
Finned Pollution Is One Cost of Our Exotic Tastes
Diners in most countries are accustomed to having an international array of foods in their pantries and eateries. It started more than a millennium ago when spice traders plied the caravan routes linking China to Istanbul. From Turkey, traders shipped their condiments throughout Europe and eventually to the New World. Northern or Chinese snakehead (Channa […]
- Earth
Shaked Alaska: A sleepy fault wakes and reveals new links
One of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded on U.S. land shook south-central Alaska on Nov. 3, revealing activity along the Denali fault.
