Scientists take fresh approaches to seemingly familiar data in timbers and sediments.
Earth science
Posted inFeatures
Finding Climate History in the Rafters of New York City Buildings
When renovating in the Big Apple, you might acquire a several-hundred-year-old climate database along with your new kitchen and bath.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Small-Scale Convection Shuffles the Oceanic Lithosphere
Seafloor spreading organized lithospheric minerals into a lattice, but small-scale convection jumbled up the innermost layer.
Posted inNews
Ants Aren’t Adapting to Warmer Temperatures
Foraging in hotter-than-desired temperatures could negatively affect ants’ biology and the forest ecosystems that they support.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Scientists Can Now Map Lightning in 3D
A new approach enables meter-scale localization of lightning strikes. And it’s already illuminating the basic physics of the phenomenon.
Posted inNews
Mapping Rwanda’s Trees from Above
Researchers used both aerial and satellite imagery, as well as machine learning, to map the carbon stock of every overstory tree in Rwanda—the first such inventory in the world.
Posted inNews
UV Radiation Contributed to Earth’s Biggest Mass Extinction
To find the first direct evidence of heightened UV radiation during the end-Permian mass extinction, researchers turned to chemical evidence preserved in pollen grains.
Posted inNews
Small Shrubs May Have Played a Large Role in Decarbonizing the Ancient Atmosphere
Vascular plants may have contributed to shaping Earth’s atmosphere long before trees evolved.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
A New Measure of Roughness Could Advance Earthquake Geophysics
Scientists recently developed an alternative way to measure a rock’s roughness. It might help them understand the physics of faults.
Posted inNews
Roughed-Up Hillsides Reveal Tree-Toppling Winds
Researchers are reading pockmarks in the forest floor to study the uprooting of trees in southern Indiana and estimate how fast winds howled through the forest in the past.