Earth

  1. Science & Society

    Methane from BP spill goes missing

    Latest sampling suggests either that microbes have already devoured the most abundant hydrocarbon produced by the leak — or that researchers have simply lost track of it.

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  2. Paleontology

    An ammonite’s last supper

    A detailed X-ray image of a fossil reveals an ancient marine creature’s diet.

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  3. Paleontology

    Oceans may have poisoned early animals

    High sulfur and low oxygen produced a deadly brew nearly 500 million years ago that apparently stalled a burst of evolutionary change.

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  4. Life

    Flower sharing may be unsafe for bees

    Wild pollinators are catching domesticated honeybee viruses, possibly by touching the same pollen.

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  5. Earth

    Bugged forests bad for climate

    Trees savaged by pine beetles are slow to recover their ecological function as greenhouse gas sponges.

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  6. Earth

    Climate action could save polar bears

    Cutting fossil fuel emissions soon would retain enough sea ice habitat for threatened species, scientists say.

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  7. 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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  8. 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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  9. 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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  10. 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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  11. 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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  12. 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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