Oxygen in Black Sea has declined by more than a third since 1955

 Science News, October 2015

The Black Sea’s toxic underside is approaching the surface, new research finds. Comparing measurements collected from 1955 through 2013, researchers discovered that the sea’s oxygen-rich top layer shrank by more than a third from 140 meters to 90 meters deep. That oxygenated layer supports a marine ecosystem and separates the atmosphere from the world’s largest reservoir of poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas.

Neutrinos’ identity shift snares physics Nobel

 Science News, October 2015

Capturing the identity-shifting behavior of neutrinos has won Takaaki Kajita of the University of Tokyo and Arthur McDonald of Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, the 2015 Nobel Prize in physics. The scientists spearheaded giant underground experiments that revealed that the elusive particles morph from one variety into another. Those crucial findings demonstrated that neutrinos have mass, which confirmed many physicists’ suspicions but defies the standard model, the framework that predicts the properties of nature’s particles and forces.

Co-written with Andrew Grant.

Shinsei Ryu: Error-free quantum calculations

 Science News, September 2015

On the boundary between the quantum and everyday realms, things don’t always make a whole lot of sense. The bundles of particles that make up materials behave in ways both unexpected and unexplained. This is the weird world that theoretical physicist Shinsei Ryu hopes to bring into focus.

Shortcut math predicts tsunami height quickly

 Science News, September 2015

The deadly magnitude 8.3 earthquake off the coast of Chile on September 16 sent an enormous pulse of water racing away from the quake’s epicenter, prompting an evacuation of more than 1 million Chileans. This surging seawater provided an unanticipated test for a new, faster way to forecast quake-generated tsunamis.

Earth just had its first storm-free hurricane peak in 38 years

 Science News, September 2015

September 12 marks the peak of the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season, but this year the day passed without any named storms. Odder still, the recently restless Pacific Ocean had a quiet day, too. In fact, across the entire Northern Hemisphere, not a single tropical storm swirled.