Earth

  1. Earth

    Subglacial lakes flood, glaciers speed up

    Floods that occasionally surge from immense lakes trapped beneath the Antarctic ice sheet can significantly affect the flow rate of overlying glaciers, a new study shows.

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  2. Life

    Supreme Court lifts restriction on Navy sonar testing

    Justices overturn restrictions that require Navy to stop using sonar when marine mammals are within 2,200 yards of vessels.

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  3. Ecosystems

    Costs of Choked-Up Waters

    Scientists tally the economic toll of fertilizing pollutants on water quality.

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  4. Earth

    Minerals evolved along with life

    Turns out, the variety and number of minerals in the solar system and on Earth have increased through time, and some minerals exist because Earth has life.

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  5. Agriculture

    A Mushrooming Advance

    Human skin isn't the only thing that makes vitamin D upon exposure to the ultraviolet radiation.

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  6. Climate

    Fixing Climate: What Past Climate Changes Reveal About the Current Threat— And How to Counter It by Wallace S. Broecker and Robert Kunzig

    Hill and Wang, 2008, 253 p., $25.

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  7. Earth

    Stalagmite is scribe for monsoons, society

    Cave formation has recorded monsoon strength in China since the third century.

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  8. Climate

    Climate change stifling lemmings

    Warmer winter temperatures are altering the snowpack, squelching the rodents’ population booms.

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  9. Chemistry

    Oldest evidence for complex life in doubt

    Chemical biomarkers in ancient Australian rocks, once thought to be the oldest known evidence of complex life on Earth, may have infiltrated long after the sediments were laid down, new analyses suggest.

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  10. Chemistry

    From Aerators to Rust — New Lead Risks

    Rusty water and other unusual sources of toxic risks in home drinking water.

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  11. Chemistry

    Faucets Destined for Brassy Changes

    Although new standards poised to take effect in a few years will reduce the lead-leaching risk from drinking water faucets, showerheads and many other water dispensers around will remain unregulated.

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  12. Tech

    Lead-free? Faucets are anything but

    Featured blog: Users of brand-new buildings on a major university campus were surprised to discover high concentrations of lead in the water. Faucets were the culprit.

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