Earth
- Earth
Pacific Northwest stirred, not shaken
Residents of the Pacific Northwest escaped the wrath of a magnitude 6.7 earthquake in the summer of 1999 because the ground movement of 20 centimeters along a deep fault occurred over a period of 6 to 15 days, not all at once.
- Earth
Big Bergs Ahoy!
Although the break-up of Antarctica's northernmost ice shelves has been linked to warmer temperatures in the area, the cause of the unusual number of large icebergs calving from the continent's southern ice shelves last year was likely not global warming.
- Earth
A dietary cost of our appetite for gold
This Mothers Day, many moms will find their brood and mates proffering glittering booty: sparkling necklaces, earrings, bracelets, brooches, and rings fashioned in whole or in part of gold. There may also be gilded plates, glasses, and grandmas favorite–fragile, matched sets of hand-painted tea cups and saucers. As women admire these tokens of their loved […]
- Earth
Even low lead in kids has a high IQ cost
Lead can damage a young child's ability to learn and reason at exposures far lower than the limit deemed acceptable by the U.S. government.
- Earth
Beware bathtub wines
Heres a healthy tip for home vintners: Save the bathtub for cleaning your body–not for storing crushed grapes. Bob Savidge A 66-year-old Australian man paid a high price for his habit of periodically tapping a pair of bathtubs for winemaking: periodic bouts of intense abdominal pain, constipation, and mood swings for more than 2 years. […]
- Earth
Sky Cycles
Created at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, this Web site features middle-school classroom activities with an atmospheric cycles theme. Topics include climate, greenhouse effect, global climate change, and ozone. Go to: http://www.ucar.edu/learn/
- Earth
Big dam in China may warm Japan
Construction of the Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze River in China may lead to warmer temperatures in Japan, because any diversion of water for Chinese agriculture could initiate convection in the Japan Sea that brings warmer water to the surface.
- Earth
Toxic runoff from plastic mulch
By laying sheets of plastic across their fields, farmers can bring crops to market faster while reducing their vulnerability to many blights (SN: 12/13/97, p. 376). On the negative side, however, this polymer mulch creates impermeable surfaces over more than half of a planted field. That significantly increases the amount of rain and pesticides that […]
- Earth
Lasers show atmosphere differs from models
New observations of the middle and upper atmosphere over Earth's polar regions may require scientists to revamp their mathematical models of temperature and other environmental conditions at high altitudes.
- Earth
Oops! Tougher arsenic rule retracted
The new EPA administrator has delayed by 60 days the implementation of a final rule issued by the Clinton administration lowering the amount of arsenic allowed in drinking water.
- Earth
How polluted we are
Most people carry traces of toxic pollutiants, including metals, pesticides, and phthalates.
- Earth
Microbes put ancient carbon on the menu
Scientists have found microorganisms within Kentucky shale that are eating the ancient carbon locked within the rock, a previously unrecognized dietary habit that could have a prevalent role in the weathering and erosion of similar sedimentary rock at many other locations.
