Earth

  1. Earth

    Oldest feathered dino shows its colors

    Analysis of a fossil suggests plumage first evolved for display, not flight.

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  2. Earth

    Florida’s big chill may have hammered corals near shore

    January cold snap caused rare wintertime coral bleaching and die-offs for Florida’s coral reefs.

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  3. Earth

    The FY 2011 budget: So much for transparency

    Cabinet officials and other administration leaders met with reporters yesterday to outline the President’s Fiscal Year 2011 federal budget. That spending blueprint includes $147-billion-and-change for research and development programs. But in contrast to past years, details tended to be skimpy today — and any chance for followup or verification of apparent trends has proven more difficult than usual.

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  4. Life

    Keeping black bears wild

    Wildlife managers compare ways to keep bears away from food and people.

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  5. Climate

    Water vapor slowed recent global warming trend

    A decline in stratospheric water vapor has slowed Earth’s surface warming slightly in recent years.

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  6. Earth

    Dinosaurs, in living color

    Researchers find microscopic structures in some fossils that may have held pigments.

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  7. Climate

    Indian climatologist disputes charges over Himalayan projection

    London’s Sunday Mail reported that it had reached the author of a chapter in a purportedly authoritative 2007 climate-change assessment and learned that this scientist – Murari Lal – deliberately used unsubstantiated sources for conclusions about the rate of glacier melting in the Himalayas. Lal doesn’t dispute that mistakes were made – ones that likely exaggerated projections of glacier melting. But he does challenge the newspaper’s charge that those mistakes were politically motivated.

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  8. Humans

    Algae as biofuel still rough around the edges

    Sources of nutrients, carbon dioxide can make or break this potential renewable fuel heavyweight

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  9. Climate

    IPCC’s Himalayan glacier ‘mistake’ not an accident

    A London newspaper reports today that the unsubstantiated Himalayan-glacier melt figures contained in a supposedly authoritative 2007 report on climate warming were used intentionally, despite the report’s lead author knowing there were no data to back them up.

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  10. Earth

    Tsunamis could telegraph their imminent arrival

    Telecommunication cables could give early warnings of giant waves.

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  11. Earth

    Feds propose banning giant snakes

    Today, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced plans to ban the importation and interstate transport of nine species of giant snakes. It’s a good idea, but a little like closing the barn door after the horse — or in this case, the pythons and anacondas — got loose.

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  12. Humans

    Minor air traffic delays add up to big costs

    On average, the economic impact of late flights exceeds that of hurricanes

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