Water Always WinsErica Gies Univ. of Chicago, $26 Humans have long tried to wrangle water. We’ve straightened once-meandering rivers for shipping purposes. We’ve constructed levees along rivers and lakes to…
Category: Earth
How to build better ice towers for drinking water and irrigation
There’s a better way to build a glacier. During winter in India’s mountainous Ladakh region, some farmers use pipes and sprinklers to construct building-sized cones of ice. These towering, humanmade…
Flower shape and size impact bees’ chances of catching gut parasites
Bees that land on short, wide flowers can fly away with an upset stomach. Common eastern bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) are more likely to catch a diarrhea-inducing gut parasite from…
How to build better ice towers for drinking water and irrigation
There’s a better way to build a glacier. During winter in India’s mountainous Ladakh region, some farmers use pipes and sprinklers to construct building-sized cones of ice. These towering, humanmade…
How to build better ice towers for drinking water and irrigation
There’s a better way to build a glacier. During winter in India’s mountainous Ladakh region, some farmers use pipes and sprinklers to construct building-sized cones of ice. These towering, humanmade…
Megatooth sharks may have been higher on the food chain than any ocean animal ever
Whenever paleontologist Dana Ehret gives talks about the 15-meter-long prehistoric sharks known as megalodons, he likes to make a joke: “What did megalodon eat?” asks Ehret, Assistant Curator of Natural…
Earth’s oldest known wildfires raged 430 million years ago
Bits of charcoal entombed in ancient rocks unearthed in Wales and Poland push back the earliest evidence for wildfires to around 430 million years ago. Besides breaking the previous record…
Russia’s invasion could cause long-term harm to Ukraine’s prized soil
By now, wheat planted late last year waves in fields across Ukraine. Spring crops of sunflowers and barley are turning swaths of dark earth into a fuzz of bright green.…
Just 3 ingredients can quickly destroy widely used PFAS ‘forever chemicals’
The undoing of toxic “forever chemicals” may be found in products in your pantry. Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, can persist in the environment for centuries. While…
Biocrusts reduce global dust emissions by 60 percent
In the unceasing battle against dust, humans possess a deep arsenal of weaponry, from microfiber cloths to feather dusters to vacuum cleaners. But new research suggests that none of that…
