Earth

  1. Paleontology

    Microbes indicted in ancient mass extinction

    About 252 million years ago an estimated 96 percent of all species were wiped from Earth, and now scientists have a new suspect in the killing — methane-belching microbes.

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  2. Animals

    As their homes warm, salamanders shrink

    Many species of salamanders respond to climate change by getting smaller.

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  3. Environment

    Artists’ sunsets may reveal past pollution

    The colors artists used in the sunsets of their paintings may provide clues to what was circulating in the air hundreds of years ago.

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  4. Climate

    Natural climate shifts affect sea level rise

    A recent dip in the rate of sea level rise may be due to natural climate variability.

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  5. Climate

    Kangaroo gut microbes make eco-friendly farts

    Understanding kangaroos’ low-methane flatulence could help researchers lower greenhouse gas emissions from livestock.

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  6. Planetary Science

    How Earth’s radiation belt gets its ‘stripes’

    The rotation of the Earth may give the planet's inner radiation belt its zebralike stripes.

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  7. Climate

    Climate change may spread Lyme disease

    The territory of the ticks that transmit Lyme disease is growing as the climate warms.

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  8. Earth

    How the Chicxulub impact made acid rain

    Using lasers to accelerate materials to asteroid-like impact velocities, scientists have shown how the Chicxulub asteroid impact, which happened roughly 65 million years ago, could have created a mass extinction in the oceans.

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  9. Climate

    Warm, wet weather may have helped Genghis Khan rule

    Mild, wet weather — not drought — may have helped Genghis Khan expand the Mongolian empire to the largest in human history.

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  10. Physics

    Shifting grains may explain earthquake lightning

    Mysterious lightning before or during earthquakes could get its spark from underground shifting.

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  11. Animals

    Spotted seals hear well in and out of water

    Spotted seals, native to the northern parts of the Pacific, hear frequencies that may mean they are susceptible to the effects of anthropogenic noise.

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  12. Climate

    Cloudy forecast

    Over decades climatologists have grown more confident in their projections of the future impact of greenhouse gas emissions. But whether shifts in cloudiness will amplify global warming continues to vex researchers.

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