Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Agriculture
Mad Cow Future: Tests explore next generation of defenses
As Canadian health officials investigate mad cow disease within the country's borders, researchers are already working on the next generation of defenses.
- Earth
Count Down: Chemicals linked to inferior sperm
New data suggest that typical exposures to chemicals called phthalates are associated with reduced fertility in men, but the specific phthalates they finger aren't those that researchers most expected to cause problems.
- Agriculture
Global Food Trends
Last year, for the third year in four, world per-capita grain production fell. Even more disturbing in a world where people still go hungry, at 294 kilograms, last year’s per capita grain yield was the lowest in more than 30 years. Indeed, the global grain harvest has not met demand for 4 years, causing governments […]
- Agriculture
How Olives Might Enhance Potatoes—and Strawberries
Many people savor the flavor of olive oil. Few who have ever encountered the “cake” that remains after the oil is pressed, however, savor the experience. Thats because the pressed olive flesh ends up in unused, smelly heaps. In the European Union alone, olive processors produce some 8 million metric tons of these rank wastes […]
- Earth
A Dam Shame? Project may slam China’s biodiversity
When the Three Gorges Dam begins to impound the waters of the Yangtze River in China later this year, dozens of mountains and other elevated areas upstream will become islands—an outcome that will probably devastate the rich diversity of species now living along the river.
- Earth
When pollutants take the Arctic route
The highest North American concentrations of at least one air pollutant from Asia can be found in Newfoundland, the continent's easternmost region.
- Earth
What’s happening to German eelpout?
Reproductive anomalies in eel-like fish may represent good markers of exposure to hormones or pollutants that mimic them.
- Earth
Flame retardants morph into dioxins
Sunlight can break down common flame retardants, now nearly ubiquitous in the environment, into unusual chemicals in the dioxin family.
- Earth
Reused paper can be polluted
Toxic chemicals can end up in recycled paper, making release of these reused materials into the environment potentially harmful.
- Earth
Going Down? Probe could ride to Earth’s core in a mass of molten iron
A geophysicist suggests that scientists could explore Earth's inner structure by sending a grapefruit-size probe on a week-long mission to the Earth's core inside a crust-busting mass of molten iron.
- Earth
Patterns from Nowhere
Scientists are developing geophysical models that may explain the polygonal patterns that appear in and on the ground in remote regions of the Arctic, Antarctica, and possibly the surface of Mars.
- Earth
Farm Harm: Ag chemicals may cause prostate cancer
On-the-job exposure to certain agricultural chemicals may be responsible for farmers' high rates of prostate cancer.
