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    In a seafloor surprise, metal-rich chunks may generate deep-sea oxygen

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    In an unexpected twist, metal-rich nodules found on the seafloor are generating oxygen, new research suggests. This meager but steady supply of the vital gas may help support seafloor ecosystems in areas currently targeted for deep-sea mining, scientists say.

    Scientists have long presumed that much of the dissolved oxygen in the deep sea was transported there from surface waters. It can be generated at the surface by plant life via photosynthesis or diffuse from the atmosphere as a result of wave action, says Andrew Sweetman, a deep-sea ecologist at the Scottish Association for Marine Science in Oban. More

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      Can bioluminescent ‘milky seas’ be predicted?

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      BURLINGTON, Vt. — For the first time, a researcher has found a “milky sea” without relying on happenstance.

      For centuries, sailors have been amazed and mystified by a rare phenomenon: the water around their ship glowing as far as the eye can see. Scientists have struggled to study such milky seas because they had no way of knowing when and where one would occur.

      But now, using weather and ocean temperature data, atmospheric scientist Justin Hudson of Colorado State University in Fort Collins has successfully predicted — or rather, postdicted — an occurrence of the phenomenon. More

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      Plants might not hold on to carbon as long as we thought

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      Earth’s plants aren’t holding onto carbon as long as we thought.

      A new analysis of pulses of radioactive carbon-14 from 20th-century bomb tests reveals that plants stock more carbon in short-lived tissues such as leaves than previously estimated, scientists report in the June 21 Science. That means that this carbon is probably more vulnerable to re-release to the atmosphere — potentially altering estimates of how much anthropogenic carbon the biosphere can hold, the team says. More

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      Landfills belch toxic ‘forever chemicals’ into the air

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      What’s dumped into a landfill is supposed to stay there, but a new study finds that toxic “forever chemicals” are wafting from the waste into the air.

      Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, have been detected in the gas exuded by some Florida landfills in quantities comparable to or even greater than in the liquids that seep from the waste, researchers report June 26 in Environmental Science & Technology Letters. These chemicals have been linked to cancer, weakened immune systems, developmental problems in children and a tide of other harmful health effects (SN: 6/15/21). More

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      The world has water problems. This book has solutions

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      The Last DropTim SmedleyPicador, $29.99

      A journalist and a farmer visit three fields with different styles of cultivation — conventional, organic and no-till — to bury cotton underwear in each. Though this sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, it’s actually a test of soil health. Healthy soil that produces robust crops holds plenty of water and teems with life that will feast on the undies. This scene is just one of many in U.K.-based journalist Tim Smedley’s book The Last Drop. More

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      Federally unprotected streams contribute most of the water to U.S. rivers

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      The dry-looking stream in your backyard may play a major role in feeding U.S. rivers.

      Channels that flow only in direct response to weather conditions like heavy rain, called ephemeral streams, on average contribute 55 percent of the water in regional river systems in the United States, researchers report in the June 28 Science.

      But last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that some waterways — including these streams — are not federally protected from pollution under the Clean Water Act. The decision could have a substantial ripple effect on the environment. More

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      Why this year’s climate conditions helped Hurricane Beryl smash records

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      Hurricane Beryl, the Atlantic Ocean’s first hurricane in 2024, began roaring across the Caribbean in late June, wreaking devastation on Grenada and other Windward Islands as it grew in power. It’s now swirling on like a buzzsaw toward Jamaica and Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula.

      Beryl is a record-breaking storm, commanding attention in a year already filled with record-breaking climate events (SN: 6/21/24; SN: 4/30/24).

      On June 30, the storm became the earliest Atlantic hurricane on record to achieve Category 4 status. Just a day later, it had intensified further, becoming the earliest Atlantic storm on record to achieve Category 5 status, with sustained winds of about 270 kilometers per hour, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. (As of late July 2, the storm has weakened slightly but remains a powerful Category 4 ahead of making landfall in Jamaica.) More

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      How powdered rock could help slow climate change

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      On a banana plantation in rural Australia, a second-generation farming family spreads crushed volcanic rock between rows of ripening fruit. Eight thousand kilometers away, two young men in central India dust the same type of rock powder onto their dry-season rice paddy, while across the ocean, a farmer in Kenya sprinkles the powder by hand onto his potato plants. Far to the north in foggy Scotland, a plot of potatoes gets the same treatment, as do cattle pastures on sunny slopes in southern Brazil.

      And from Michigan to Mississippi, farmers are scattering volcanic rock dust on their wheat, soy and corn fields with ag spreaders typically reserved for dispersing crushed limestone to adjust soil acidity. More