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Science / Our Planet

After decades of uncertainty, a new study confirms that both polar ice sheets are melting.

Confirmed: Both Antarctica and Greenland Are Losing Ice

After decades of uncertainty, a new study confirms that both polar ice sheets are melting

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Are We Headed for Another Dust Bowl?

The devastating drought of the 1930s forever changed American agriculture. Could those conditions return?

Going Knots, by Huguette Roe

A Photographer Turns Her Eye to the Recycling Process

Huguette Roe makes compressed cans, pipes and paper look like abstract art

When completed in late 2013, the $2.2 billion Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System will power 140,000 California homes.

Take a Look at the World’s Largest Solar Thermal Farm

When completed in 2013, this series of 170,000 mirrors will power 140,000 California homes

Microscopic bacteria were found to conduct electricity between red surface sediments and deeper, anaerobic black seabed layers.

Live Wires: Newly Discovered Seafloor Bacteria Conduct Electricity

Scientists have found ultrathin multicellular bacteria that create electrical circuits several centimeters long

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The Transformation of Freshkills Park From Landfill to Landscape

Freshkills was once the biggest landfill in the world. Today, it’s the biggest park in New York City

An MIT study reveals that carbon dioxide directly reduces the strength of ice, regardless of temperature.

Bad News Chemistry: Carbon Dioxide Makes Ice Weaker

An MIT study reveals that carbon dioxide directly reduces the strength of ice, which has troubling implications for climate change

Tungsten carbide drill bits will grind through miles of ultra-hard igneous seafloor rock in hopes of reaching the mantle.

New Project Aims to Drill to the Earth’s Mantle, 3.7 Miles Down

Scientists aim to reach the mantle and bring back rock samples for the first time in human history

Plastic debris and particles are now turning up in the ocean waters surrounding Antarctica.

High Levels of Plastic and Debris Found in Waters off of Antarctica

In the world’s most remote ocean waters, researchers discovered unexpectedly high levels of plastic pollution

As part of the Pacific Centennial Oscillation pattern, ocean waters in certain areas become warmer and cooler as part of a century-long cycle. Red indicates warmer water; blue shows cooler.

New Climate-Shifting Pattern: Is PCO the Next El Niño?

Computer simulations indicate that ocean temperatures and weather patterns might vary on a 100-year-long cycle called PCO

Dating and mapping fossil finds is one way anthropologists track early human migrations. The bones from Qafzeh, Israel, (a drawing of one of the skulls, above) indicate Homo sapiens first left Africa more than 100,000 years ago.

How to Retrace Early Human Migrations

Anthropologists rely on a variety of fossil, archaeological, genetic and linguistic clues to reconstruct how people populated the world

A new study finds a correlation between levels of BPA, a chemical used to line the inside of aluminum cans, and obesity in children and teens.

Is the Can Worse Than the Soda? Study Finds Correlation Between BPA and Obesity

BPA, a chemical used in aluminum soda cans and other food packaging, was found to be associated with childhood obesity in a new study

Eugene Dubois discovered the first hominid fossils in Indonesia when he unearthed Homo erectus bones at Trinil in 1891 and 1892.

Indonesia’s Top Five Hominid Fossil Sites

Indonesia is one of the first places where scientists discovered hominid fossils and is home to some of the oldest hominid bones outside of Africa

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How Do You Make a Building Invisible to an Earthquake?

Engineer William Parnell may have found a way to save at-risk cities from destruction

Geoengineering could replicate the cooling effects of a massive volcanic eruption as a tool to reduce climate change.

Is Geoengineering the Answer to Climate Change?

A new study looks directly at the immediate expenses of intentionally cooling our climate, but what are the long-term costs?

A new technology harnesses the energy in wastewater to produce electricity.

Could Sewage Be Our Fuel of the Future?

A new way of treating wastewater uses bacteria to produce electricity, potentially solving a pair of environmental problems

The 1972 Homo rudolfensis skull is combined in this composite image with one of the lower jaws found at Koobi Fora, Kenya.

Multiple Species of Early Homo Lived in Africa

New fossils unearthed in Kenya confirm that at least two species of Homo co-existed in Africa two million years ago

Osprey Reef, one of five reefs that will have have full national park-level protection in Australia.

Australia Creates World’s Largest Marine Reserve Network

The plan will protect the Coral Sea as well as pygmy blue whale habitat off the southern coast of Western Australia

Computer models indicate that wildfires will become more frequent in temperate regions as the climate changes over the coming decades

Climate Change Means More Wildfires in the West

A new study indicates that temperate regions will experience more fires, while equatorial areas will see fewer

Alfred Wegener, in Greenland, c. 1930, was ridiculed as having “wandering pole plague.”

When Continental Drift Was Considered Pseudoscience

More than 100 years ago, a German scientist was ridiculed for advancing the shocking idea that the continents were adrift

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