Earth
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Earth
Leaden calcium supplements
Consuming calcium along with lead limits, and may prevent, the body's absorption of the toxicant.
By Janet Raloff -
Earth
Thick ice scraped rock bottom in Arctic
Scuffs, scrapes, and gouges found atop undersea plateaus and ridges in the Arctic Ocean suggest that kilometer-thick ice shelves covered much of the ocean there during some previous ice ages.
By Sid Perkins -
Earth
A quick recovery after dinosaur deaths
Evidence from 65-million-year-old sediments suggests that a single impact from space wiped out the dinosaurs and that ecosystems recovered from the trauma in only a few thousand years.
By Sid Perkins -
Earth
New analysis rejuvenates Himalayas
The Asian mountain range that includes some of the tallest peaks in the world turns out to be about 15 million years younger than geologists previously thought.
By Sid Perkins -
Earth
Diesels: NO rises with altitude
The combustion chemistry of heavy-duty diesel trucks changes with altitude.
By Janet Raloff -
Earth
Passive smoking’s carcinogenic traces
Researchers isolated markers of a cigarette-generated carcinogen in urine of nonsmoking women married to smokers.
By Janet Raloff -
Earth
Satellites verify greenhouse-gas effects
Comparisons of data obtained from instruments that orbited Earth more than 25 years apart provide direct evidence that the planet's greenhouse effect increased significantly between 1970 and 1997.
By Sid Perkins -
Earth
Is there a vent in the global greenhouse?
Satellite observations of ocean temperatures in tropical regions of the western Pacific suggest that when ocean temperatures there warm up, the amount of heat-trapping cirrus clouds decreases, possibly providing a heat-venting effect that could help reduce global warming.
By Sid Perkins -
Earth
A Nation Aflame
In the wake of one of the worst fire seasons in the past 50 years, scientists are assessing risk as more people move into fire-prone areas and developing ways to better predict the behavior of--and the potential for--wildfires.
By Sid Perkins -
Earth
Siberian snow has long-range effects
The strength of the winter weather feature called the Siberian high is linked to the amount of early-season snow cover in its namesake region.
By Sid Perkins -
Earth
Lack of oxygen locks up peat’s carbon
The inactivity of a single enzyme in peat due to the lack of oxygen may be the only thing preventing massive releases of carbon dioxide from the peatlands.
By Sid Perkins -
Earth
Antarctic glacier thins and speeds up
One of the largest glaciers in Antarctica is growing thinner and retreating inland, spurring concerns that changes occurring along the coastline may be causing the ice stream to drain more material from the interior of the continent and send it out to sea, thus aggravating rising sea levels.
By Sid Perkins