Earth

  1. Earth

    Gassy volcanoes tied to mass extinction

    Chemicals from a massive Siberian eruption 250 million years ago may have polluted the atmosphere and killed off most life on the planet.

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  2. Humans

    Apartments share tobacco smoke

    Children in nonsmoking families have higher levels of secondhand exposure if they live in multifamily dwellings.

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  3. Earth

    Clouds warm things up

    Satellite data from the last decade put hard numbers on a key and little-understood climate player.

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  4. Tech

    Dirty money 2: Expect traces of BPA

    BPA showed up on 21 of the 22 greenbacks surveyed in a new study. And the clean dollar? It appeared quite new, suggesting that dollars only become contaminated as they circulate.

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  5. Earth

    Icequake swarms portend some avalanches

    By keeping an ear to the ice, scientists can predict impending glacial crack-ups two weeks in advance.

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  6. Tech

    Heavier crudes, heavier footprints

    BLOG: Refining heavy oils and tar sands could greatly exaggerate the greenhouse gases associated with fossil-fuel use, a new study finds.

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  7. Humans

    Food security wanes as world warms

    Global warming may have begun outpacing the ability of farmers to adapt, new studies report.

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  8. Physics

    Dissolving a puzzle

    A mathematical analysis shows what it takes to remove rock fast enough to create a cavern.

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  9. Humans

    World could heat up 4 degrees C in 50 years

    Immediate and substantial action to reduce emissions would be needed to meet climate negotiators' goal of holding warming to a 2 degree Celsius increase, a new package of scientific papers concludes.

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  10. Life

    Mammal size maxed out after dinos’ demise

    Opening new ecological niches led to a worldwide boom in size, up to a point.

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  11. Earth

    Shuttle images reveal Egypt’s lost great lake

    Radar studies of desert drainage patterns point to ancient oases in the Sahara.

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  12. Earth

    Lakes are warming across the globe

    Throughout the past quarter-century, inland lakes have been experiencing a small, steadily rising nighttime fever. Globally, the average increase has hovered around 0.045 degrees Celsius per year, but in some regions the increase has been more than twice that — or about 1 °C per decade.

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