Mercury

Gold Mining Is Poisoning Amazon Forests with Mercury

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Small-scale gold mining has been going on in the Amazon for decades, with huge expansion of this activity since the early 2000s. It is often done via river dredging, in which miners excavate sediments in search of small pieces of gold. To separate the gold, miners mix liquid mercury into the sediment, which forms a … Read more

Illegal gold mines flood Amazon forests with toxic mercury | Science

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At first glance, the Amazon rainforest of Peru’s Los Amigos Conservation Concession might seem like a pristine wilderness. Brightly colored birds flit through the jungle. A dense canopy of trees echoes with the cries of howler monkeys. Jaguars pad quietly through the shadows. Giant otters swim in Cocha Lobo Lake. But the forest is hiding … Read more

Look up to spot the tricky planet Mercury at its ‘greatest elongation’ from the sun tonight

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This sky map shows the view from New York City just after sunset on Jan. 7, 2022. (Image credit: SkySafari app) The flighty planet Mercury, typically a tricky observing challenge from planet Earth, will be at its greatest distance from the sun in our sky Friday (Jan. 7). While Mercury will be shining quite brightly … Read more

Research in experimental lake shows fish populations can recover quickly from mercury contamination | Science

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Mercury pollution is a global problem. Emissions from gold mining, coal burning, and other industrial processes travel through the atmosphere, eventually falling to Earth as rain or snow. The poison can make its way to fish and the humans who eat them, where it can damage the developing nervous system, causing problems with memory and … Read more

Mercury pollution: Fish recover quickly when water is no longer contaminated

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Mercury pollution is a major global environmental problem, with small-scale gold mining and coal burning the two biggest sources, but fish can recover quickly when the pollution stops Environment 15 December 2021 By Adam Vaughan Northern pike recover quickly when mercury pollution stops Imagebroker / Alamy Fish populations appear to recover rapidly from mercury pollution … Read more

Is our solar system a cosmic oddity? Evidence from exoplanets says yes

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When we started finding planetary systems around other stars we thought many of them would be like ours. We’ve now found hundreds – and it’s so far, so wrong Space 1 December 2021 By Stuart Clark Duc LOng Once upon a time, there was a solar system. In it lived four small rocky planets called … Read more

Exoplanets: Extremely dense world with an enormous iron core has an 8-hour year

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By Leah Crane The exoplanet GJ 367b orbits its star in an extremely short time SPP 1992 (Patricia Klein) An extraordinarily dense exoplanet seemingly made mostly of iron has joined a group called the ultrashort-period planets that orbit so close to their stars that their years are less than one Earth day long. Kristine Lam, … Read more