Earth
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Earth
Pesticides block male hormones
Some common pesticides can block the ability of androgens, male sex hormones, to trigger normal gene activities.
By Janet Raloff -
Earth
Weed killer feminizes fish
The weed killer atrazine can turn normally hermaphroditic fish into females, a new study shows.
By Janet Raloff -
Earth
Wildfire Below: Smoldering peat disgorges huge volumes of carbon
Set alight by wildfires, thick beds of decaying tropical plant matter can pump massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, rivaling those produced globally each year from the combustion of fossil fuels.
By Ben Harder -
Earth
Hunting Prehistoric Hurricanes
Storm-tossed sand offers a record of ancient cyclones.
By John Travis -
Earth
Prescribed fire burns out of control
A fire set by the National Park Service to clear underbrush burned out of control, consuming more than 44,000 acres around Los Alamos, N.M.
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Earth
Once Upon a Lake
As Earth warmed at the end of the last ice age, the immense volumes of fresh water that occasionally and catastrophically spilled from Lake Agassiz—the long-defunct lake that formed as the ice sheet smothering Canada melted—may have caused global climate change and sudden rises in sea level.
By Sid Perkins -
Earth
More Frog Trouble: Herbicides may emasculate wild males
New studies of male frogs in the wild link trace exposures to common weed killers with partial sex reversal.
By Janet Raloff -
Earth
Timely Climate
Science educators at the University of Colorado and the National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder have designed an online tool that lets users study climate change and variability on different time scales–from daily fluctuations to cyclic changes with periods that span 100,000 years. Focusing on climatic processes and specific climate events, each time-scale category has […]
By Science News -
Agriculture
Downtown Fisheries?
Advances may make fish farming a healthy prospect, even for inner cities.
By Janet Raloff -
Earth
U.S. smog limit permits subtle lung damage
Ambient concentrations of smog ozone in many regions can cause lungs to leak, potentially compromising the health of even robust people.
By Janet Raloff -
Earth
Air-Pollution Pileup: Mediterranean endures emissions from afar
Although most Mediterranean countries aren't big polluters, the area is a crossroads for pollution-carrying air currents from Europe, Asia, and North America.