Earth
- Agriculture
Soil (and its inhabitants) by the numbers
Teeming with life, soils have more going on than most of us realize.
- Environment
What you can do to improve soils
Soils are the life-sustaining structures under our feet. Here are some tips for keeping soils healthy. First rule of thumb: Give more than you take.
- Chemistry
Extreme pressure? Diamonds can take it
Diamond retains its structure even at extreme pressures, which could reveal how carbon behaves in the cores of some exoplanets.
- Earth
Explainer: What are aerosols?
We may not see them, but tiny particles and droplets cloud the air, affecting its properties. Some may be pollutants, others all-natural products.
- Climate
Can wildfires cool the climate?
Severe wildfires are becoming more common. Science is showing that the tiny particles they release into the air can alter Earth’s temperature — sometimes cooling it.
- Climate
2020 was warmest year on record for Earth’s oceans
2020 continued the trend of record-breaking heat for the world’s oceans. The three previous warmest years on record were 2019, 2017 and 2018.
- Earth
Let’s learn about snow
Snow is more than just frozen water vapor. Scientists are studying everything from its shape to other planets where snowflakes fall.
- Animals
Choked by bacteria, some starfish are turning to goo
For years, researchers thought gooey, dying starfish were infected. Instead, these sea stars are suffocating. And bacteria may be behind it all.
- Climate
Analyze This: 2020 ties with 2016 for hottest year on record
Last year capped the warmest decade on record. It coincided with a growing increase of warming greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere.
- Earth
Space station sensors saw how weird ‘blue jet’ lightning forms
A mysterious type of lightning in the upper atmosphere has been traced to a brief, bright flash of light at the top of a storm cloud.
- Environment
Unmasking the pandemic’s pollution problem
Discarding all the materials people use to protect themselves from COVID-19 has created a growing environmental problem.
- Chemistry
A new catalyst turns greenhouse gas into jet fuel
The catalyst is an improvement over its predecessors. Made of cheap materials like iron, it produces jet fuel in a single step.
