Earth

  1. Earth

    Winning helium hunt lifts hopes element not running out

    A volcanic region of Tanzania contains more than a trillion liters of helium gas, enough to fill 1.2 million medical MRI scanners — or hundreds of billions of balloons, researchers report.

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  2. Oceans

    Coral bleaching event is longest on record

    Widespread coral bleaching continues, in the longest episode, over the largest area to date.

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  3. Oceans

    Deep-sea hydrothermal vents more abundant than thought

    Ecosystem-supporting hydrothermal vents are much more abundant along the ocean floor than previously thought.

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  4. Space

    Readers weigh in on ET and the meaning of life

    Reader feedback from the June 25, 2016, issue of Science News

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  5. Planetary Science

    Long-lost ‘extinct’ meteorite found

    A newly discovered meteorite, nicknamed Öst 65, may have originated from the same collision that formed L chondrites, one of the most abundant groups of meteorites on Earth.

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  6. Earth

    A third of the population can’t see the Milky Way at night

    Light pollution conceals the Milky Way’s star-spangled core from more than a third of Earth’s population, a global atlas of artificial sky luminance reveals.

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  7. Climate

    The ‘super’ El Niño is over, but La Niña looms

    The 2015–2016 El Niño has officially ended while its meteorological sister, La Niña, brews.

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  8. Climate

    Volcanic rocks help turn carbon emissions to stone — and fast

    A pilot program in Iceland that injected carbon dioxide into basaltic lava rocks turned more than 95 percent of the greenhouse gas into stone within two years.

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  9. Ecosystems

    Ocean plankton held hostage by pirate viruses

    The most abundant photosynthesizers on Earth stop storing carbon when they catch a virus.

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  10. Earth

    Spy satellites reveal early start to Antarctic ice shelf collapse

    Declassified spy satellite images reveal that Antarctica’s Larsen B ice shelf began destabilizing decades earlier than previously thought.

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  11. Environment

    Bikini Atoll radiation levels remain alarmingly high

    Lingering radiation levels from nuclear bomb tests on Bikini Atoll are far higher than previously estimated.

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  12. Animals

    Maximum size of giant squid remains a mystery

    A scientist has come up with a new estimate of the maximum size of giant squid. He says the animals could be as long as two public buses.

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