Climate change is expected to lead to more frequent and intense drought, which in turn causes soil to crack, releasing more carbon dioxide and further warming the planet.
Elise Cutts
Fiber-Optic Networks Could Reveal the Moon’s Inner Structure
Distributed acoustic sensing offers a cost-effective alternative to traditional seismic arrays, and building such a network on the Moon might be possible.
Giant Impacts Might Have Triggered Snowball Earth Events
Running into the right space rock at the right time may have been enough to tip Earth into a runaway cold spell.
Olivine May Have Given Life a Jump Start
A mineral common throughout the solar system nudges a reaction that produces sugar molecules from formaldehyde.
Pooling Data Could Help Anticipate Megafloods in Europe
Locally surprising floods aren’t so surprising in a continent-wide context.
These Four Exoplanets Have Wild, Rocky Weather
On many exoplanets, conditions are so exotic that minerals form clouds and fall as rain. Recent studies revealed the rocky weather on these four exoplanets in more detail than ever before.
Rivers Are Warming Up and Losing Oxygen
Researchers used deep learning to fill in the gaps of “patchy” water quality data, revealing decades-long trends toward warmer and less oxygenated rivers that could have worrisome consequences.
Meteor Impact Site Holds 200-Million-Year-Old Atmospheric Snapshot
Minerals formed in short-lived hydrothermal systems set off by a meteor impact in France preserved information about noble gases in the ancient atmosphere.
Some Chemicals Lingered for Weeks After Ohio Train Derailment
Researchers drove around a van outfitted with a sensitive mass spectrometer to measure airborne chemicals weeks after the disaster.
Erin Macdonald: Putting the Science in Science Fiction
The “Julia Child of science” makes science accessible through pop culture.