Earth

  1. Climate

    ‘Ice Rivers’ invites you to get to know our world’s melting glaciers

    In her new book, Jemma Wadham brings readers along on her scientific expeditions to the world’s iciest places.

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  2. Climate

    Rice feeds half the world. Climate change’s droughts and floods put it at risk

    Rice provides sustenance for billions who have no alternative, and climate change threatens to slash production. Growers will need to innovate to provide an important crop as climate whiplash brings drought and floods to fields worldwide.

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  3. Climate

    Australian fires in 2019–2020 had even more global reach than previously thought

    Recent devastating wildfires in Australia added vast amounts of carbon dioxide to the air and triggered blooms of marine algae in the Southern Ocean.

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  4. Agriculture

    Potty-trained cattle could help reduce pollution

    About a dozen calves have been trained to pee in a stall. Toilet training cows on a large scale could cut down on pollution, researchers say.

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  5. Earth

    How AI can help forecast how much Arctic sea ice will shrink

    Trained on sea ice observations and climate simulations, IceNet is 95 percent accurate in forecasting sea ice extent two months in advance.

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  6. Environment

    50 years ago, chemical pollutants were linked to odd animal behavior

    Fifty years after studies hinted that pollution interferes with how aquatic creatures communicate, scientists are still unraveling its myriad effects.

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  7. Earth

    Clouds affected by wildfire smoke may produce less rain

    As wildfires become more frequent in the western United States, these low-rain clouds could exacerbate drought, fueling more fires.

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  8. Agriculture

    Cold plasma could transform the sustainable farms of the future

    Physicists have been working on ways to use the power of plasma to boost plant growth and kill pathogens.

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  9. Earth

    This pictogram is one of the oldest known accounts of earthquakes in the Americas

    The Telleriano-Remensis, a famous codex written by a pre-Hispanic civilization, describes 12 quakes that rocked the Americas from 1460 to 1542.

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  10. Climate

    Climate change made Europe’s flash floods in July more likely

    The deadly July floods in Belgium and Germany bear the fingerprints of human-caused climate change, scientists say.

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  11. Earth

    Haiti’s citizen seismologists helped track its devastating quake in real time

    Two scientists explain how citizen scientists and their work could help provide a better understanding of Haiti’s seismic hazards.

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  12. Science & Society

    How extreme heat from climate change distorts human behavior

    As temperatures rise, violence and aggression go up while focus and productivity decline. The well off can escape to cool spaces; the poor cannot.

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