Earth

  1. Agriculture

    Potty-trained cows could help reduce pollution

    About a dozen calves have been trained to pee in a stall. Toilet training cows on a large scale could cut down on pollution, scientists say.

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  2. Earth

    Let’s learn about meteor showers

    Meteor showers happen when Earth’s orbit passes through trails of debris left behind by comets or asteroids.

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  3. Earth

    Scientists Say: Magma and lava

    The word magma refers to molten rock deep inside Earth. That rock is called lava when it reaches Earth’s surface.

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  4. Space

    Explainer: How auroras light up the sky

    The northern and southern lights are considered natural wonders of the world. Here’s how these and related splendid sky glows form.

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  5. Physics

    Research on climate and more brings trio the 2021 physics Nobel Prize

    Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann pioneered work on simulations of Earth’s climate. Giorgio Parisi probed complex materials.

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  6. Earth

    Scientists Say: Anthropocene

    Humans are changing the world in profound ways. Some scientists think those changes have launched a new epoch in Earth’s history: the Anthropocene.

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  7. Oceans

    Moon’s orbital wobble can add to sea-level rise and flooding

    In a dozen years or so, the tide-enhancing effects of a wobble in the moon’s orbit should lead to dramatically higher sea levels in some coastal cities.

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  8. Environment

    Cheatgrass thrives on the well-lit urban night scene

    Middle-grade campers team up with ecologists at Denver University to show that streetlights boost the growth of a reviled invasive species.

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  9. Animals

    Will the woolly mammoth return?

    Scientists are using genetic engineering and cloning to try to bring back extinct species or save endangered ones. Here’s how and why.

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  10. Animals

    Cloning boosts endangered black-footed ferrets

    A cloned ferret named Elizabeth Ann brings genetic diversity to a species that nearly went extinct in the 1980s.

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  11. Materials Science

    Scientists Say: Aerosol

    Aerosols are tiny bits of solids or drops of liquids suspended in gas. Aerosols include mist, fog and soot, as well as pollution from fossil fuels.

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  12. Environment

    Wildfire smoke seeds the air with potentially dangerous microbes

    Studies now show that most wildfires don’t kill microbes. That’s fueling worries about what risks these smoke hitchhikers might pose to people.

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