SCIENCE NEWS - As dust from the Sahara blows thousands of kilometers across the Atlantic Ocean, it becomes progressively more nutritious for marine microbes, a new study suggests. Chemical reactions in the atmosphere chew on iron minerals in the dust, making them more water soluble and creating a crucial nutrient source for the iron-starved seas...
SCIENCE ALERT - Dust swept from the Sahara desert provides life at the bottom of the marine food chain with a critical nutrient. Without the iron carried far and wide in this mineral cloud, oceanic phytoplankton would struggle to bloom. According to a new study led by the University of California, Riverside, the more time...
FRONTIERS - Scientists from the US measured the relative amounts of ‘bioreactive’ iron in four sediment cores from the bottom of the Atlantic. They showed for the first time that the further dust is blown from the Sahara, the more iron in it becomes bioreactive through chemical processes in the atmosphere. These results have important...
LOS ANGELES TIMES - Five years ago, Lisa Clark and her husband left her hometown of El Centro for Niland, a small town of 500, in search for more affordable housing. But now they’re paying a hidden cost for living just two miles southeast of the Salton Sea. “I’ve been having very bad asthma lately,”...
NASA - NASA-supported scientists have examined the long and intricately linked history of microbial life and the Earth's environment. By reviewing the current state of knowledge across fields like microbiology, molecular biology, and geology, the study looks at how microorganisms have both shaped and been shaped by chemical properties of our planet's oceans, land, and...
EARTH.COM - We exist, thrive, and ponder upon life, but when it comes to understanding its beginnings, we’ve always found ourselves at a crossroads. Where did we come from? What did the world look like when life first emerged? A recent paper from UC Riverside is now helping us piece together this complex puzzle using...
EOS - Thallium, one of the most toxic heavy metals on Earth, is more abundant in the Baltic Sea than in waters with otherwise similar chemistry. A new study in Environmental Science and Technology finds that human activity—particularly since the 1940s—is likely behind these elevated levels. The Baltic Sea is euxinic, meaning the water both...
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN - It was a cloudy July afternoon in Alaska's Kobuk Valley National Park, part of the biggest stretch of protected wilderness in the U.S. We were 95 kilometers (60 miles) from the nearest village and 400 kilometers from the road system. Nature doesn't get any more unspoiled. But the stream flowing past our...
INVERSE - Timothy Lyons, a distinguished professor of biogeochemistry, discusses his new research to better understand the history of the atmosphere on Mars. Scientists have developed a new model to better understand whether Mars once hosted water — and maybe even life. The Martian surface is an inhospitable place: It is too cold for humans...