Earth

  1. Climate

    Warming alters mountain plant’s sex ratios

    Global warming has different effects on male and female plants. Tracking sex ratio shifts could be a fast signal of climate change, researchers say.

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  2. Climate

    Despite volcanic setback, Antarctic ozone hole healing

    The September extent of the Antarctic ozone hole has shrunk by about 4.5 million square kilometers since 2000, thanks in large part to the Montreal Protocol.

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  3. Climate

    World will struggle to keep warming to 2 degrees by 2100

    Current plans to curb climate change aren’t ambitious enough to limit global warming below 2 degrees Celsius by 2100, new research shows.

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  4. 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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  5. 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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  6. 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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  7. 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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  8. 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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  9. 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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  10. 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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  11. 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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  12. 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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