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Agriculture

Big footprints

Livestock production carries surprisingly high, and largely hidden, environmental costs.

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Yes, it’s asbestos

Federal mineralogists have corroborated earlier evidence that Sierra-foothills communities around Sacramento, Calif., are built atop soils naturally laced with asbestos.

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Meteorites on Ice

Join a recent expedition to the Antarctic to search for meteorites. Check out reports from the 2006-2007 trek in the daily expedition blog. Go to: http://geology.cwru.edu/~ansmet/ and http://www.humanedgetech.com/expedition/ansmet2/

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Scraping the bottom

A survey of deep waters in western Lake Superior has revealed the tracks left by massive icebergs scraping bottom there during the last ice age.

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Glaciers give major boost to sea level

The ongoing disappearance of glaciers and other small ice masses worldwide makes a larger contribution to sea level rise than the melting of ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica does.

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Dating a massive undersea slide

Pieces of moss buried in debris left along the Norwegian coast by an ancient tsunami have enabled geologists to better determine the date of the immense underwater landslide that triggered the inundation.

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Irony on High: Global warming cools, thins upper atmosphere

Increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the air, which cause temperatures at Earth’s surface to warm, will turn the upper layers of the atmosphere cooler and thinner in coming decades, new research suggests. This counterintuitive phenomenon, first predicted in the late 1980s and recently inferred from satellite data, will probably lead […]

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Rocking the House

A recent test that simulated the effect of a magnitude-6.7 earthquake on a full-size, wood-frame townhouse may help engineers and analysts design more earthquake-resistant homes. With sound and video.

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Spread Out: Organic matter scatters carbon nanotubes in water

Although carbon nanotubes usually clump in water, they readily disperse when the water contains natural organic matter.

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Pesticides mimic estrogen in shellfish

Two common water pollutants can function in shellfish as estrogen does, but they have different behavioral effects on two species.

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Sustainable Table

Created by the GrassRoots Action Center for the Environment (GRACE), this Web site aims to help consumers understand problems with the nation’s food supply and offer viable solutions and alternatives. It provides an introduction to the burgeoning sustainable food movement and information about organizations, people, and programs that are trying to change the way people […]

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Dim Harvest: Asian air pollution has limited rice yields

Thick clouds of air pollution over southern Asia and increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere worldwide have reduced rice harvests in India for the past 2 decades.