Earth

Environment

News Brief: Smokin’ plants

A new study points out how some herb teas and spices could have accidentally picked up nicotine from the smokers working around them.

Environment

Deep-sea fish show signs of exposure to pollution

A new study suggests deep-water fish may have health problems linked to human pollution. Eating these fish may expose diners to the same pollution.

Agriculture

Ditching farm pollution — literally

An Indiana project shows how fighting fertilizer runoff can save farmers money, protect wild habitats and prevent harmful algae blooms.

Environment

Scientists Say: Microplastic

Bits of plastic smaller than five millimeters are called microplastics. They can end up in the ocean, where corals might mistake them for food.

Earth

What sent Hawaii’s mountain chain east?

A single shaft of spewing hot rock created an enormously long chain of mostly undersea mountains in the western Pacific. That chain takes an unexpected eastern curve. The reason, scientists now think, may be a gobbled-up tectonic plate.

Environment

Tiny plastic, big problem

Unsightly plastic bottles, bags and other trash give just a hint of the largely unseen problem of plastic pollution. Scientists have found tiny bits of it throughout the ocean. The bad news: Sea life can’t tell the difference between plastic and food.

Earth

Mornings become electric

Lightning packs a wallop in the morning. The most powerful lightning strikes in the continental United States usually peak before noon.

Health & Medicine

Fracking wastes may be toxic, tests show

Fracking operations have been polluting the environment. Some wastes have hormonal effects. Studies in mice now show that prenatal exposures to these wastes can trigger subtle but disturbing organ impacts.

Chemistry

Cooking up life for the first time

The basic components for life could have emerged together nearly 4 billion years ago on the surface of Earth, chemists report.

Microbes

Life’s ultra-slow lane is deep beneath the sea

Biologists had suspected the deep seafloor would be little more than barren sediment. But they found a surprising amount of oxygen — and life.

Earth

Explainer: Understanding plate tectonics

Plate tectonics is the process whereby Earth continually rebuilds itself — and causes destructive events like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Environment

Arctic warming bolsters summer heat

Rapid warming in the Arctic is sapping summer storms of their power to cool. That worsens heat waves across the Northern Hemisphere.