Earth
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Plants
Landscaper’s darling hybridizes into an environmental nuisance
Variation underlies the Callery pear tree’s transformation .
By Susan Milius -
Earth
A little air pollution boosts vegetation’s carbon uptake
Aerosols bumped up world’s plant productivity by 25 percent in the 1960s and 1970s, new research suggests.
By Sid Perkins -
Earth
Fossil of a walking seal found
A fossil skeleton discovered in the Canadian Arctic could represent a missing link in pinniped evolution.
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Agriculture
News from Experimental Biology
Senior editor Janet Raloff blogs from the 2009 meeting gathering dozens of societies together in New Orleans
By Janet Raloff -
Climate
EPA says greenhouse gases ‘endanger’ health
Featured blog: New ruling is a likely first step toward federal moves to cut tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide and more.
By Janet Raloff -
Earth
An earlier appearance for the first land plants
Fossilized pollen could show that modern land plants evolved earlier than thought.
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Planetary Science
Antarctic ecosystem holds unusual microbes
Long isolated deep under a glacier, life thrives in dark, salty water by breathing iron and eating sulfates.
By Sid Perkins -
Earth
Nickel down, oxygen up
Researchers point to the early ocean's concentration of nickel as the possible start for events that allowed Earth's atmosphere to accumulate oxygen.
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Animals
Sonar causes rock-concert effect in dolphins
Test of recorded sonar causes temporary hearing impairment in dolphins.
By Susan Milius -
Chemistry
Another type of traffic stress
Scientists find signs of DNA damage from air pollutants spewed by cars and trucks.
By Janet Raloff -
Physics
Radioactive cigarettes
Polonium remains an underappreciated factor in the lung-cancer risk posed by cigarettes.
By Janet Raloff