Earth Science
press releases.

Earth Science23 Mar 2026

Why plants fail in dry soil

Plants need water, light and air to thrive. But when they transport water from the soil up to their leaves, they defy gravity. Scientists describe this astonishing phenomenon as “negative water potential”, a form of negative tension that enables herbs, shrubs and trees to draw water from the soil. Nevertheless, plants do not constantly extract water from the soil. For decades, researchers have sought to understand what limits a plant’s water uptake. Now, a team of researchers led by Andrea Carminati, Professor of Soil Physics at ETH Zurich, and Tim ...

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Earth Science20 Mar 2026

67 places where aquifers stopped shrinking - and what they did right

A study of 67 aquifer recovery cases worldwide reveals that multi-pronged strategies work best for reversing groundwater depletion, with alternative water sources involved in 81% of successes - but gains are fragile and can reverse if monitoring stops.

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Earth Science19 Mar 2026

Plowed soil traps water at the surface while undisturbed ground pulls it deep underground

A study published in Science used fiber-optic sensors to monitor water movement through soil minute by minute, showing that plowed farmland loses its ability to channel rainfall to deep root zones. Undisturbed soil acts as a natural sponge; tilled soil does not.

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Earth Science19 Mar 2026

Ancient rocks in Western Australia show tectonic plates were moving 3.5 billion years ago

Harvard geoscientists have found the oldest direct evidence that Earth's tectonic plates were moving 3.5 billion years ago. Their analysis of rocks from Australia's Pilbara Craton reveals rapid drift, rotation, and the earliest known geomagnetic reversal.

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Earth Science19 Mar 2026

Earth's Tectonic Plates Were Already Drifting 3.5 Billion Years Ago

Harvard geoscientists analyzed over 900 rock samples from Western Australia's Pilbara Craton and found that tectonic plates were shifting latitude by tens of centimeters per year as early as 3.5 billion years ago, ruling out the theory that early Earth had a single, unbroken shell.

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Earth Science19 Mar 2026

Plowed soil traps water at the surface while undisturbed ground drinks it deep — fiber optics show why

Using buried fiber-optic cables to detect vibrations from water flow, researchers found that cultivated soil traps rainwater near the surface where it evaporates, while undisturbed soil channels it deep underground through a natural pore network that tillage destroys.

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Earth Science19 Mar 2026

Sawdust and a mineral from sewage pipes could replace cement in fireproof walls

ETH Zurich researchers used an enzyme from watermelon seeds to bind sawdust with the mineral struvite, creating a lightweight, fully recyclable building panel that delays ignition threefold and may match cement-board fire ratings at a fraction of the carbon cost.

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Earth Science19 Mar 2026

Meet Doolysaurus: Korea's first new dinosaur in 15 years is a fuzzy baby

A turkey-sized baby dinosaur from a Korean island is the peninsula's first new species in 15 years and its first with skull bones. Named after cartoon character Dooly, the thescelosaurid was revealed only after micro-CT scanning exposed bones hidden inside rock.

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Earth Science17 Mar 2026

Pregnant women eat clay, ice, and soil - and most doctors never find out

A University of South Carolina pilot study will investigate pica - the craving and consumption of non-food items like clay, ice, and soil during pregnancy - in South Carolina populations, where prior U.S. research found 38% of rural pregnant women had the condition yet 75% had no documentation in medical records.

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Earth Science17 Mar 2026

A life-sized dinosaur model, resin eggs, and a heat lamp reveal how oviraptors incubated

Researchers in Taiwan built a life-sized oviraptor model with resin eggs and ran heat transfer experiments showing that these bird-like dinosaurs likely relied on solar co-incubation rather than body heat alone, achieving lower hatching efficiency than modern birds but using a strategy adapted to their open-nest, multi-ring egg arrangement.

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Earth Science12 Mar 2026

America's weather research backbone faces dismantlement - and the AMS is pushing back

The AMS has formally responded to NSF's request for feedback on restructuring NCAR, warning that dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research would undermine U.S. leadership in weather and climate science with severe consequences for public safety.

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Earth Science12 Mar 2026

Beneath Utah's vanishing Great Salt Lake, a hidden patchwork of fresh and salty groundwater

As Great Salt Lake has shrunk 70% since 1989, University of Utah scientists used electrical resistivity tomography to map the groundwater beneath 800 square miles of exposed playa, finding a surprisingly complex mosaic of fresh and saline water - and evidence of a rare convective instability.

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Earth Science11 Mar 2026

Dead Coral in Moorea Stands Hollow and Encrusted, Blocking the Reef's Recovery

After a 2019 bleaching event in Moorea, an encrusting algae species stabilized dead coral branches on the reef while mussels and fungi hollowed them from inside. The dead structures persisted through a 2024 storm, blocking the space juvenile corals need to recolonize. Published in PLOS One.

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Earth Science10 Mar 2026

Watching Minerals Grow in Real Time: How Two Coatings Stack Up at the Nanoscale

Polydopamine-coated titanium dioxide nanoparticles accumulated about 7,780 nanograms of calcium phosphate mineral mass versus 5,641 nanograms for zein-coated particles, a 37% difference traced to polydopamine's polar surface chemistry.

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Earth Science6 Mar 2026

Soil erosion does not just strip farmland -- it rewires the nitrogen cycle

A new review synthesizing research on erosion and nitrogen cycling shows that soil displacement does far more than remove topsoil. It restructures microbial communities, alters nitrogen transformation pathways, and redistributes nutrients across landscapes.

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Earth Science6 Mar 2026

Rice husk biochar cuts water leakage from farm soils by up to 40 percent

A study comparing rice husk and palm silk biochars finds both reduce water leakage from phosphorus-rich vegetable soils by 20 to 40 percent, but through different mechanisms involving organic carbon and pH changes.

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Earth Science5 Mar 2026

Crocodile Bone Rings Do Not Reliably Tell Age, and That Matters for Dinosaur Science

Growth marks in crocodile bones can dramatically overestimate age, a finding that has direct implications for how paleontologists estimate the lifespans and growth rates of dinosaurs and other extinct vertebrates.

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Earth Science4 Mar 2026

Charred Crust on Ancient Pots Reveals That Stone Age Europeans Cooked Elaborate Plant-Based Meals

A multi-technique analysis of food crusts from Neolithic and Mesolithic pottery shows that European hunter-gatherer-fishers combined a wide variety of plants with seafood in their cooking - a level of culinary complexity that standard lipid analysis had systematically missed.

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Earth Science4 Mar 2026

Soil Moisture and Wind Together Reveal Where Thunderstorms Will Strike Hours Earlier

A 21-year satellite study of 2.2 million storms found 68% more explosive storm events where soil moisture patterns aligned with atmospheric wind shear. The principle could improve thunderstorm forecasts hours earlier than current systems allow, especially in storm-prone regions with limited radar coverage.

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Earth Science4 Mar 2026

Laughing Gas Kills Soil Microbes That Help Plants Grow

Nitrous oxide, long studied for its climate impact, may also reshape the microbial communities at plant roots that control nutrient access and disease protection. MIT researchers estimate 30 percent of bacteria with sequenced genomes are vulnerable to N2O toxicity - and agricultural fertilization spikes its concentration for days at a time.

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Earth Science2 Mar 2026

Drinking Water From Young Aquifers Linked to 24% Higher Parkinson's Risk Than Ancient Glacial Sources

A preliminary study of 12,370 Parkinson's patients and 1.2 million controls found that drinking water drawn from carbonate aquifers was associated with a 24% higher Parkinson's risk versus other aquifer types, with groundwater age and contamination exposure as proposed mechanisms.

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Earth Science27 Feb 2026

Leaf Litter from Native Eucalyptus Woodlands Restores Soil Microbiomes at Former Uranium Mine

Spreading native Eucalyptus leaf litter on mine waste rock dramatically shifted microbial communities toward healthy woodland profiles within a single wet season, offering a low-cost restoration tool for degraded landscapes worldwide.

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Earth Science27 Feb 2026

Combining Biochar with Compost or Manure Improves 9 of 16 Soil Properties Compared to Biochar Alone

A synthesis of 28 field studies finds biochar combined with organic amendments such as compost or manure improved 9 of 16 measured soil properties more than biochar alone, including phosphorus availability by up to 76% and cation exchange capacity by over 50% on average, though most studies lasted only a few years.

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Earth Science26 Feb 2026

Nanobiochar Removes Heavy Metals and Supports Soil Microbes at Scales Conventional Biochar Cannot Reach

Nanobiochar, a nanoscale carbon material derived from biomass, outperforms conventional biochar at removing heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, and pesticides from water, and shows early promise for reversing soil degradation in dryland ecosystems covering 40% of Earth's land.

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Earth Science25 Feb 2026

Phosphorus-Modified Biochar Nearly Doubles Cadmium Extraction from Contaminated Soil

A greenhouse study found phosphorus-modified bamboo biochar nearly doubled cadmium uptake in fast-growing willow trees versus untreated soil, by stimulating root development and activating beneficial soil bacteria. Field testing remains needed.

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