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SEATTLE — Human bodies make great worm food. That’s the conclusion of pilot experiments with six dead bodies that were allowed to decompose among wood chips and other organic material. The results, presented February 16 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, suggest that composting, also called natural organic […] More
Getting set for a black gold rush, Science News, February 14, 1970 — Nobody has ever done what the engineers designing the Trans-Alaska Pipeline are faced with: the need to carry hot oil through the Arctic. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline, expected to be completed in 1972, will carry 600,000 barrels of oil a day across Alaska. […] More
Nearly a decade after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, computer simulations suggest that the toxic pollution extended much farther than satellite images first indicated. Those images, taken after the spill dumped nearly 800 million liters of oil into Gulf waters, helped to determine which areas would be temporarily closed […] More
The noise of shipping vessels traveling through northern Canadian waters is causing Arctic cod to sacrifice much of their foraging and feeding in order to flee the area until ships move away, researchers report. The findings — the first to gauge how shipping noise could affect Arctic fish — are cause for concern as climate […] More
Winds are picking up worldwide, and that is making the surface waters of the oceans swirl a bit faster, researchers report. A new analysis of the ocean’s kinetic energy, measured by thousands of floats around the world, suggests that surface ocean circulation has been accelerating since the early 1990s. Some of that sped-up circulation may […] More
Despite growing concerns over tiny bits of plastic filling the world’s waterways, the long-term environmental effects of that debris remain murky. Now an experiment on freshwater sediment communities exposed to microplastics for over a year helps clarify how harmful this pollution can be. Researchers embedded trays of sediment littered with different amounts of polystyrene particles […] More
A double whammy of climate change and deforestation could double the area burned by wildfires in the southern Brazilian Amazon forest, simulations suggest. That increase in fires could burn up to 16 percent of the region by 2050 and release enough carbon dioxide to flip parts of the forest from carbon dioxide sponge to source […] More
The tough, toothy skin of sharks may be no match for the acidified oceans of the future. After nine weeks of exposure to seawater doctored to mimic projected acidic levels in 2300, corrosion had frayed the edges of many denticles — the toothlike protrusions that make up sharkskin — on three puffadder shysharks, researchers report […] More
