Earth

  1. Earth

    Underground Soil Economy: Microbes hidden in the dirt react to UV boost

    The community of soil microbes may live hidden in the ground, but it still changes when there's more ultraviolet radiation above.

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  2. Earth

    When the Mercury Falls: Autumn leaves taint river with poison

    Fall foliage that collects in stagnant waterways could release significant doses of a highly toxic form of mercury, which has the potential to accumulate in fish living far downstream.

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  3. Earth

    Space Rocks’ Demo Job: Asteroids, not comets, pummeled early Earth

    An analysis of trace elements found in a variety of meteorites suggests that most of the heavenly objects that rained hell on the inner solar system about 3.9 billion years ago were asteroids, not comets.

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  4. Earth

    Avalanche!

    Laboratory studies of how snow crystals change shape under fluctuating environmental conditions and computer analyses that match the patterns of past avalanches with detailed meteorological data are helping scientists uncover the secrets of avalanches.

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  5. Earth

    El Niño’s coming! Is that so bad?

    Although El Niño is often blamed for ill effects that total billions of dollars, a broader analysis suggests that the United States garners substantial benefits during this weather pattern.

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  6. Earth

    Shuttle yields detailed, 3-D atlas

    NASA scientists and Defense Department mapmakers are assembling billions of radar measurements made from the space shuttle Endeavour to produce what they say will be the world’s best topographic map.

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  7. Earth

    Hard rock jellies: Throng of rare fossils found in Midwest quarry

    A Wisconsin sandstone quarry recently served up a rare scientific find nearly a half billion years in the making: fossils of an armada of jellyfish that stud the site’s stone slabs.

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  8. Earth

    Old pesticide still makes it to Arctic

    Molecules of the pesticides known as chlordanes, which belong to a class of long-lasting organochlorine pollutants, circulate in Arctic air years after they were applied in temperate latitudes.

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  9. Earth

    New way of gauging reservoir evaporation

    Scientists have developed a new way to estimate the evaporation of water from large reservoirs that, if adopted, would replace a labor-intensive procedure based on decades-old technology.

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  10. Earth

    Biotech-crop laws were big in 2001

    Twenty-two state legislatures passed bills in 2001 addressing agricultural biotechnology, which concerns the development of genetically modified crops.

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  11. Earth

    It’s a Rough World

    Scientists are using fractals, mathematical forms that can describe objects with fractional dimensions, to model phenomena such as wildfire propagation and the spread of toxic fluids through rocks and soil.

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  12. Earth

    Algae do battle with bioweaponry

    Beneath the frozen surface of Sweden's lakes, algae wage wars over nutrients, and one combatant apparently prevails by releasing chemicals toxic to its adversaries.

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