Earth

Earth

Bugged forests bad for climate

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

Earth

Climate action could save polar bears

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

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.

Humans

Apartments share tobacco smoke

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

Earth

Clouds warm things up

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

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.

Earth

Icequake swarms portend some avalanches

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

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.

Humans

Food security wanes as world warms

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

Physics

Dissolving a puzzle

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

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.

Life

Mammal size maxed out after dinos’ demise

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