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Ukraine's farmlands are affected by the toxic remnants of war
NPR — By now, the world knows that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has devastated parts of the country, killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions more, and destroyed huge swaths of critical infrastructure. And many people also know that the invasion has affected food supplies around the world since Ukraine was the breadbasket of Europe. But what many people might not know or have focused on yet is that these effects may last for years. As a result of the weaponry used, the toxic remnants of the war can indefinitely change the agricultural landscape of the country. NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Joseph Hupy, a professor at Purdue University, about soil toxicity in Ukraine farmlands as a result of the war.
Rare isotopes help unlock mysteries in the Argentine Andes
EUREKALERT — Scientists studying the variations in concentrations of cosmogenic nuclides can estimate how long rocks have been exposed at the Earth’s surface. This allows researchers to gain a better understanding of planetary processes, such as rates of erosion—from nothing more than a kilogram of river sand. The work of Dr. Nat Lifton, of Purdue EAPS, PRIME Lab, and Purdue Physics and Astronomy is discussed in this EurekAlert article.
The 8 best hidden impact craters on Earth
BIG THINK — Many impact craters on Earth have been erased thanks to wind, water, and plate tectonics. But scientists have clever ways to find them. Dr. Brandon Johnson, of Purdue EAPS, is cited in this Big Think article about how to classify craters and where they can be found on Earth.
Soils of war: The toxic legacy for Ukraine's breadbasket
REUTERS — When Ukraine recaptured Kherson in November, Andrii Povod returned to find his grain farm in ruins. Two tractors were missing, most of the wheat was gone and all 11 buildings used to store crops and machinery had been bombed and burned. The farm bears the scars of Russian shelling and unexploded ordnance riddles the fields but it's the less visible damage to Ukraine's famously fertile soil after a year of war that could be the hardest to repair. U.S. academics Joseph Hupy (Purdue EAPS Courtesy) and Randall Schaetzl, coined the term "bombturbation" in 2006 to describe war's impact on soil. Among the unseen damage, bomb breaches in bedrock or soil layers can change the water table's depth, depriving vegetation of a shallow water source, they wrote.
Chasing the storm
PURDUE EXPONENT — Sandwiched between Indianapolis, Chicago and Fort Wayne is a gap. Not a physical one, but important nonetheless. Until recently, the Greater Lafayette area was in a radar gap, hurting the ability of local meteorologists to accurately predict and observe the weather. The three nearest radars in Indianapolis, Chicago and Fort Wayne don’t quite reach this far, said Dan Cziczo, the Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Department head.
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