Earth

  1. Tech

    U.S. network detects Fukushima plume

    Traces of radioactivity attributable to the earthquake-damaged Fukushima reactor complex in Japan have reached the West Coast of the United States.

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  2. Tech

    Chernobyl’s lessons for Japan

    Radioactive iodine released by the Chernobyl nuclear accident has left a legacy of thyroid cancers among downwinders — one that shows no sign of diminishing. The new data also point to what could be in store if conditions at Japan’s troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power complex continue to sour.

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  3. Tech

    Radiation: Japan’s third crisis

    As if the magnitude-9 earthquake on March 11 and killer tsunami weren’t enough, a new round of aftershocks — psychological ones over fear of radiation — are rocking Japan and its neighbors.

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  4. Humans

    Record ozone thinning looms in Arctic

    Depletion could expose the northern midlatitudes to higher-than-normal ultraviolet radiation in coming weeks.

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  5. Earth

    Cave formations record Black Sea deluges

    Stalagmites in a Turkish grotto document 670,000 years of flooding.

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  6. Earth

    Japan quake location a surprise

    Based on regional tectonics, seismologists expected the biggest events in the island's southern half.

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  7. Earth

    How continents do the splits

    East African seismic study reveals how land gives way to ocean crust.

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  8. Earth

    Earth/Environment

    Dangerous levels of cadmium in children's jewelry, plus a lost satellite and 'cloudshine' in this week's news.

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  9. Paleontology

    New dinosaur species is titanic

    Titanoceratops may be the oldest known member of the triceratops group.

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  10. Earth

    Understanding storm spin-offs

    Meteorologists seeking to better predict tornadoes probe the differences between tempests that spawn twisters and those that don't.

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  11. Earth

    Great quake one of the biggest ever in Japan

    BLOG: Magnitude-8.9 tremor will go down in seismology’s record books

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  12. Physics

    Soot hastens snowmelt on Tibetan Plateau

    Black carbon pollution is a more potent driver of melting in the region than increases in carbon dioxide, a new computer simulation suggests.

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