Earth

  1. Environment

    Surviving a drought may help forests weather future dry spells

    Climate change is making droughts more intense and frequent, but conifer forests have a trick up their sleeve, airplane and satellite data show.

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  2. Life

    50 years ago, flesh-eating screwworms pushed scientists to mass produce flies

    "Fly factories” dreamed up in the early 1970s have helped North and Central America keep screwworms in check for decades.

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  3. Astronomy

    The Parker Solar Probe may have spotted the origin of high-speed solar winds

    Kinks in the magnetic fields near the surface of the sun appear to be the cause of fast-moving flows in the solar wind.

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  4. Climate

    Why the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season is especially hard to predict

    It’s hard to know how busy this year’s Atlantic hurricane season will be, thanks to a rarely observed combination of ocean and climate conditions.

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  5. Environment

    This house was built partly from recycled diapers

    Disposable diapers can replace nearly a third of the materials used in load-bearing structures, offering a potential path to more affordable housing.

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  6. Plants

    Soil microbes that survived tough climates can help young trees do the same

    Trees grown in soil with microbes that have survived drought and high or low temperatures have a better shot at survival when facing the same conditions.

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  7. Life

    5,000 deep-sea animals new to science turned up in ocean records

    Scientists compiled a list of animals unknown to science that live in a deep-sea Pacific Ocean ecosystem targeted for mining exploration.

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  8. Environment

    More than half of the world’s largest lakes are drying up

    Satellite data from 1992 to 2020 reveal that 53 percent of the world’s largest freshwater bodies shrank during that period while only 24 percent grew.

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  9. Climate

    There’s good and bad news with California’s electric vehicle program

    The electric vehicle program is reducing carbon dioxide emissions but also shifting the pollution burden to the state’s most disadvantaged communities.

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  10. Life

    In one lake deep under Antarctica’s ice, microbes feast on ancient carbon

    Microorganisms living in a lake beneath the ice sheet in West Antarctica feed on ocean carbon that was deposited 6,000 years ago.

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  11. Life

    Ancient giant eruptions may have seeded nitrogen needed for life

    A new study bolsters the idea that on the young Earth volcanic lightning may have provided some materials that made it possible for life to emerge.

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  12. Oceans

    Satellite data reveal nearly 20,000 previously unknown deep-sea mountains

    By looking for tiny bumps in sea level caused by the gravity of subsurface mountains, researchers have roughly doubled the number of known seamounts.

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