Earth
- Animals
Mud worth more than gold
Reed Scherer and Ross Powell have studied mud from all over the world. It is different in each place. Mud from the Sulu Sea near Borneo is as smooth as cream cheese. Mud from Chesapeake Bay, in the mid-Atlantic United States, clings to your skin like peanut butter.
- Earth
Explainer: Ice sheets and glaciers
Ice sheets and glaciers give scientists clues about climate change.
- Earth
Explainer: Antarctica, land of lakes
There are many, although they tend to be buried under rivers of ice.
- Environment
Unconventional spill
An accidental spill of extra-heavy crude oil points to some unusual challenges in safely getting this petroleum to market.
- Environment
Explainer: All crude oil is not alike
Crude oil comes in conventional and unconventional types.
- Animals
Gorgeous eco-bullies
‘Foreign’ lionfish — aquarium castoffs — have been invading American coastal waters at an alarming rate and gobbling up the natives.
- Climate
Climate change: The long reach
Scientists who study the environment to better gauge Earth’s future climate now argue that current changes may not reverse for a very long time.
- Tech
Explainer: What is fracking?
Energy companies have found new use for hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from shale rock.
- Earth
Quakes cause faraway sloshing
Right after a magnitude-9 quake in Japan, scientists knew that its tremors had set distant waters in northern Europe sloshing. Now they know how.
- Earth
Nature’s coast guards
Barrier islands aren’t just for beach vacations — they protect coasts from storms and flooding.
- Earth
How Earth’s surface morphs
Partly melted rock acts like grease to help huge masses of the planet’s surface slip up, around and down.
- Earth
Fracking waste and quakes
Underground storage of liquid waste from these mining operations can make an area more vulnerable to tremors.
