Earth

  1. Earth

    Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano is erupting. Here’s what you need to know

    A geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey answers questions about the recent eruption of the world's largest active volcano.

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  2. Animals

    Dry pet food may be more environmentally friendly than wet food

    The environmental cost of wet pet food is higher than dry food, scientists say. That may be because wet food gets most of its calories from animals.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Pollution mucks up the lungs’ immune defenses over time

    A study of immune tissue in the lungs reports that particulate matter buildup from air pollution may impair respiratory immunity in older adults.

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  4. Animals

    These devices use an electric field to scare sharks from fishing hooks

    SharkGuard gadgets work by harnessing sharks’ ability to detect electric fields. That could save the animals’ lives, a study suggests.

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  5. Ecosystems

    Tiger sharks helped discover the world’s largest seagrass prairie

    Instrument-equipped sharks went where divers couldn’t to survey the Bahama Banks seagrass ecosystem.

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  6. Humans

    The world population has now reached 8 billion

    In a first, the global population surpassed this milestone on November 15, according to a projection from the United Nations.

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  7. Oceans

    Sharks face rising odds of extinction even as other big fish populations recover

    Over the last 70 years, large ocean fishes like tuna and marlin have been recovering from overfishing. But sharks continue to decline toward extinction.

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  8. Climate

    Greenland’s frozen hinterlands are bleeding worse than we thought

    An inland swath of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream is accelerating and thinning. It could contribute much more to sea level rise than estimated.

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  9. Earth

    Catastrophic solar storms may not explain shadows of radiation in trees

    Tree rings record six known Miyake events — spikes in global radiation levels in the past. The sun, as long presumed, might not be the sole culprit.

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  10. Climate

    Wind turbines could help capture carbon dioxide while providing power

    Turbulent wakes from wind turbines can concentrate CO2 from cities and factories, making it easier to remove the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.

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  11. Earth

    Particles from space provide a new look inside cyclones

    Cosmic rays that smash into the atmosphere make muons that are sensitive to changing air pressure inside storms.

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  12. Climate

    Here’s what happened to the Delaware-sized iceberg that broke off Antarctica

    The powerful pull of currents in the Southern Ocean probably pulled apart the largest remnant of a massive iceberg that split off Antarctica in 2017.

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