All Stories
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- Climate
Climate change: The long reach
Scientists who study the environment to better gauge Earth’s future climate now argue that current changes may not reverse for a very long time.
- Physics
Baseball: From pitch to hits
Radar or cameras track the path of virtually every baseball in major league stadiums.
- Tech
Explainer: What is fracking?
Energy companies have found new use for hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from shale rock.
- Brain
Sleepyheads prefer junk food
A night without sleep changes the brain and how appetizing people find high-calorie foods.
- Earth
Quakes cause faraway sloshing
Right after a magnitude-9 quake in Japan, scientists knew that its tremors had set distant waters in northern Europe sloshing. Now they know how.
- Earth
Nature’s coast guards
Barrier islands aren’t just for beach vacations — they protect coasts from storms and flooding.
- Health & Medicine
Camels linked to mystery disease
A mysterious and deadly virus has sickened 94 people — killing 46 — in parts of the Middle East, Europe and northern Africa. A new study finds that camels (the one-humped type) may have introduced the new disease to people. The germ responsible is a virus that lives in people’s lungs, throats and noses. Scientists recently named the disease it causes Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS.
- Animals
Explainer: Animals’ role in human disease
Wildlife, livestock and pets are the source of most germs that can sicken people
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- Space
Feasting black hole
A huge gas cloud is being stretched, shredded and destroyed by the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
- Earth
How Earth’s surface morphs
Partly melted rock acts like grease to help huge masses of the planet’s surface slip up, around and down.
