Earth
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Animals
The key to breaking down plastic may be in caterpillars’ guts
Caterpillars that feast on plastic have different gut microbes than those that eat a grain-based diet.
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Animals
Honeybees fumble their way to blueberry pollination
Blueberry flowers drive honeybees to grappling, even stomping a leg or two down a bloom throat, to reach pollen.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
EPA OKs first living pest-control mosquito for use in United States
Feds approve non-GM male tiger mosquitoes for sale as fake dads to suppress local pests.
By Susan Milius -
Climate
Humans are driving climate change, federal scientists say
Human influence “extremely likely” to be dominant cause of warming in last 70 years, U.S. climate report finds.
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Earth
Dino-dooming asteroid impact created a chilling sulfur cloud
The Chicxulub impact spewed more sulfur than previously believed.
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Earth
Wind may be driving the melting of East Antarctica’s largest glacier
Winds may be helping warm ocean waters speed up the melting of East Antarctica’s largest glacier.
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Animals
Here’s the real story on jellyfish taking over the world
In 'Spineless,' a former marine scientist reconnects with the seas and science through her obsession with these enigmatic creatures.
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Earth
A deadly 2014 landslide’s power came from soils weakened by past slides
Researchers reconstruct how a hillside failed, producing the deadly 2014 Oso landslide.
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Animals
Climate change may threaten these bamboo-eating lemurs
Longer dry spells and more nutrient-poor bamboo might eventually doom the greater bamboo lemur, a critically endangered species.
By Susan Milius -
Climate
As ice retreats, frozen mosses emerge to tell climate change tale
Plants long entombed beneath Canadian ice are now emerging, telling a story of warming unprecedented in the history of human civilization.
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Life
A new material may one day keep mussels off piers and boat hulls
Mussels don’t stick to a new lubricant-infused silicone material.
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Climate
‘Killer Hurricanes’ reconstructs the past to predict storms of the future
Geologists find clues to the future of deadly hurricanes, written in stone and sand, in the new NOVA documentary “Killer Hurricanes.”