Earth
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Animals
Compared with rodents, bat species carry more viruses
Viruses that can jump from animals to people may find the flying mammals a fine place to lurk.
By Susan Milius -
Earth
Salvage Job
With fertilizer prices skyrocketing, scientists scramble to recover phosphorus from waste.
By Roberta Kwok -
Earth
Magnitude 8.0 earthquake strikes Solomon Islands
Temblor is the largest in a month of seismic activity on Australian-Pacific plate boundary.
By Erin Wayman -
Chemistry
Gold-digging microbe
By spitting out a molecule, a bacterium draws solid gold out of solution.
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Earth
Indonesian mud eruption will soon die out, scientists predict
Spewing muck since 2006, volcano will calm to a sputter by 2017.
By Erin Wayman -
Oceans
Life found deep below Antarctic ice
Lake buried under 800 meters of ice hosts cells, researchers find.
By Janet Raloff -
Earth
Warmer is not always wetter
Compared to global warming caused by solar radiation, global warming caused by greenhouse gases results in less rainfall, simulations suggest.
By Erin Wayman -
Life
Caribbean’s coral reefs approach tipping point
A survey of 19 colonies suggests many may soon begin to shrink.
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Humans
U.S. team breaks through subglacial lake
Testing should continue for a day or more, probing for life in the Antarctic depths.
By Janet Raloff -
Earth
Human-made waste heat warms climate
Energy dissipated as heat in cities can cause regional temperature changes, simulations suggest.
By Erin Wayman -
Earth
Watering fields in California boosts rainfall in Southwest
Irrigation has downstream effects on climate and runoff to Colorado River.
By Erin Wayman