
While the eastern United States and large parts of Europe suffered through a long, cold winter, temperatures were nothing short of balmy over much of the Arctic. The North Pole experienced above-freezing weather in February, temperatures over the Arctic Ocean were as much as 13 degrees Fahrenheit above average from December into early March, and sea ice melted back to its second-lowest annual maximum extent since the satellite record began in 1979.
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As the growing season progresses, you might not notice much about what’s happening to plants under the soil. Most of us pay attention to new shoots, stems, leaves, and eventually the flowers and crop we intend to grow. We might think of roots as necessary, but uninteresting, parts of the crop production process.
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Climate change could speed the natural regrowth of forests on undeveloped or abandoned land in the eastern U.S., according to a new study.
If left to nature’s own devices, a field of weeds and grasses over time will be replaced by saplings, young trees and eventually mature forest. Earlier research has shown that this succession from field to forest can happen decades sooner in the southeastern U.S. than in the Northeast. But it wasn’t obvious why, especially since northern and southern fields are first colonized by many of the same tree species.
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Of the four states of matter, gases are the hardest to pin down. Gas molecules move quickly and wildly and don’t like to be confined. When confined, heat and pressure build in the container, and it doesn’t take long before the gas blows the lid off the place, literally. Luckily, gases are superficial. Provide them with an attractive internal surface area, and they’ll pin themselves down in no time. No, it’s not love at first sight, it’s adsorption.
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