Mine Water Bacteria Are Eating Uranium and Locking It Away
Bacteria pulled uranium out of contaminated mine water and turned it into something so new it has no name. It's been stable for 25 years. Nobody knows why.
Earth Sciences
Thousands of Tonnes of Uranium May Have Left Congo Labeled as Cobalt
The DRC's Copperbelt supplies 70 percent of the world's cobalt. Turns out it may have been shipping something extra. Does anyone know where thousands of tonnes of uranium went?
Antarctica Gained Five Years' Worth of Ice in Less Than Two. The Cause Was Thousands of Miles Away.
A tropical ocean pattern rerouted moisture across the globe, and for nearly two years it reversed decades of loss on one continent. The connection recurs about once a decade and remains only partly understood.
The Ocean Floor Dropped 13 Feet in Six Days
The seafloor moved at half a million times its normal spreading rate while an observatory happened to be sitting on top of it.
The Water Inside Blood Falls Isn't Supposed to Have Ocean Life in It
A red waterfall in one of Earth's driest deserts turns out to be venting something far stranger than iron. Scientists say what's living inside didn't come from anywhere nearby.
Some of the Trees Cities Love to Plant Have an Air-Pollution Problem
They make up a small share of Beijing's chemical emissions. On hot days, their role in ozone chemistry becomes anything but small.
The Grand Canyon Has an 800-Million-Year-Old Backstory
Almost all of the landscape vanished. What it may have exposed is still sitting at the bottom of one of Earth's most famous holes.
Every Thunderstorm Has Been Scanning the Ground. We Learned to Read the Signal.
The earth shakes a little every time it thunders. Scientists figured out those tremors could map what's hiding beneath the surface, including weak spots where it may be giving way.
Venus Is Pulling Itself Apart. Slowly. But Right Now.
Three of Venus's biggest canyons may still be spreading open today. What's causing the stretching?
France Just Got Its First Fire-Breathing Dragon of Clouds
A wildfire built its own thunderstorm on top of itself, then used it to burn hotter and spread faster. Scientists spent years convincing each other the phenomenon was even real.
In 1948, the Air Over a Pennsylvania Town Turned Lethal
A temperature inversion sealed a mill valley shut for five days. The company called it an Act of God. The smokestacks told a different story.
A Cooler Earth Core Could Answer 3.5-Billion-Year-Old Magnetic Question
For most of Earth's history, nothing explained how it powered its own compass before the solid core existed. A lab technique suggests the source was hiding in a bad temperature estimate.
Japan's Underwater Supervolcano Is Reloading
A supervolcano that blew 7,300 years ago is reloading with fresh magma from below. What it's building toward, no one can say yet.
Yellowstone's Supervolcano Has Stranger Plumbing Than We Thought
Decades of textbook explanation, overturned by a 3D model of rock flow miles beneath the American West.
2.64 Billion Years in the Dark, and It Tastes Like Regret
Sealed in rock since before animals existed, it might still have something living inside it. Someone got close enough to get splashed, which is how we know it's unpleasant to the tongue.
The North Sea Crater That Lost the Vote
The proof sat in a cardboard box of oil-well cuttings for decades. Two grains of shocked crystal. The asteroid had always been winning the argument.
Underwater Volcano Coughed Up 4.5-Billion-Year-Old Magma
Mayotte's newborn volcano erupted a chemical echo of Earth's molten infancy.
One Bag of Cheetos Nearly Broke a Cave That Took Millions of Years to Build
A cave that survived millions of years of geological time met its match in a dropped snack bag. What does it take to break an ecosystem this old?