Chemistry
A new map of Africa sheds light on the origins of enslaved people
Mapping the element strontium across the continent is helping track down the birthplaces of enslaved Africans brought to the Americas.
Earth
More Stories in Earth
- Earth
Let’s learn about the carbon cycle
The total amount of carbon on Earth doesn’t change. But what form those carbon atoms take is constantly changing.
- Environment
More and more, microplastics are collecting in our brains
Over eight years, the mass of microplastics in human brains increased by some 50 percent. There are growing hints that internal microplastics may harm us.
- Tech
Scientists Say: Agrivoltaics
This win-win technology means future farmers may produce both food and electricity.
- Animals
Narwhals may use their enormous lance-like tusks to play
Video shows narwhals using their tusks to prod — even flip — fish they don’t target as prey. It’s the first reported evidence of these whales playing.
- Environment
New water treatment process removes pollutants most now don’t
The two-step water treatment process could cut not only excreted drugs flowing into waterways but also some nutrients that feed harmful algal blooms.
- Earth
Can engineering save Antarctica’s most vulnerable glacier?
Bold engineering projects might stabilize Thwaites Glacier and slow sea level rise. But no one knows if they will work — or have serious side effects.
- Earth
Earth farts may explain some spooky floating lights
The gases released by earthquakes might occasionally ignite, triggering ghostly lights sometimes witnessed in South Carolina.
- Plants
Could trees ever get up and walk away?
In fantasy, trees can walk, climb and even fight. Real trees move, too. It just happens in extreme slow mo.
- Earth
Analyze This: Smartphone data may help improve GPS
Data from millions of phones helped fill in maps of the ionosphere, an atmospheric layer that can muddle radio signals key for navigation systems.
