As far as building materials go, they don’t come much cheaper than dirt, which is literally everywhere and mostly free. But, as anyone who has ever made a sand castle knows, soil isn’t terribly strong and has a habit of forming a shallow pile rather than more structurally-beneficial shapes. We’re…
As the Paris climate summit draws to a close and world leaders scramble to find more ways to make a dent in humanity’s carbon problem, a commonsense but oft-ignored strategy has made its way onto the table: sticking carbon back in the soil.
Stuck to the bottom of your shoe is humble dirt that gives away where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to. It’s up to science to figure out it out. Nature has a fascinating profile of forensic geologist Lorna Dawson, who has used soil to solve decades-old cold cases.