Earth
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Environment
Flower shape and size impact bees’ chances of catching gut parasites
Bumblebees have higher chances of contracting a gut parasite from short, wide flowers than from blooms with other shapes, experiments show.
- Environment
How to build better ice towers for drinking water and irrigation
“Ice stupas” emerged in 2014 as a way to cope with climate change shrinking glaciers. Automation could help improve the cones’ construction.
- Earth
50 years ago, a new theory of Earth’s core began solidifying
In 1972, scientists proposed that Earth’s core formed as the planet came together. Fifty years later, that theory is generally accepted, though many mysteries about the core remain.
- Paleontology
Megatooth sharks may have been higher on the food chain than any ocean animal ever
Some megalodons and their ancestors were the ultimate apex predators, outeating all known marine animals, researchers report.
- Environment
Earth’s oldest known wildfires raged 430 million years ago
430-million-year-old fossilized charcoal suggests atmospheric oxygen levels of at least 16 percent, the amount needed for fire to take hold and spread.
- Science & Society
Russia’s invasion could cause long-term harm to Ukraine’s prized soil
War will physically and chemically damage Ukraine’s prized, highly fertile chernozem soils. The impacts on agriculture could last for years.
- Health & Medicine
Western wildfires’ health risks extend across the country
As western wildfires become more common, hazardous smoke is sending people — especially children — to emergency rooms on the East Coast.
- Climate
Ancient penguin bones reveal unprecedented shrinkage in key Antarctic glaciers
Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers are losing ice faster than any other time in the last 5,500 years. That history is written in bones and shells.
- Earth
Ancient zircons offer insights into earthquakes of the past
Analyzing zircons’ chemical makeup can help expose intense quakes from the past and improve our understanding of the physics of today’s tremors.
- Science & Society
Growing wildfire threats loom over the birthplace of the atomic bomb
Climate change is expected to make wildfires worse across much of the Southwest United States. A key nuclear weapons lab could be in the hot zone.
- Ecosystems
Just 3 ingredients can quickly destroy widely used PFAS ‘forever chemicals’
Ultraviolet light, sulfite and iodide break down enduring PFAS molecules faster and more thoroughly than other UV-based methods.
- Climate
Scientists hope to mimic the most extreme hurricane conditions
A $12.8 million NSF grant is funding the design of a facility that can generate winds of at least 290 kilometers per hour and towering storm surges.
