Top Stories

NOAA kicks off 2018 with massive supercomputer upgrade

Faster computers with more storage will boost accuracy, efficiency of U.S. weather models

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Babies Stir Up Clouds of Bio-Gunk When They Crawl

When babies crawl, their movement across floors, especially carpeted surfaces, kicks up high levels of dirt, skin cells, bacteria, pollen, and fungal spores, a new study has found. The infants inhale a dose of bio bits in their lungs that is four times (per kilogram of body mass) what an adult would breathe walking across the same floor.  

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New Insight Into Climate Impacts of Deforestation

Deforestation is likely to warm the climate even more than originally thought, scientists warn.

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NASA's Great Observatories Team Up to Find Magnified and Stretched Image of Distant Galaxy

An intensive survey deep into the universe by NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes has yielded the proverbial needle-in-a-haystack: the farthest galaxy yet seen in an image that has been stretched and amplified by a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.

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Blame it on the rain: Study ties phosphorus loading in lakes to extreme precipitation events

While April showers might bring May flowers, they also contribute to toxic algae blooms, dead zones and declining water quality in U.S. lakes, reservoirs and coastal waters, a new study shows.

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Marijuana Farms Expose Spotted Owls to Rat Poison in Northwest California

Wildlife species are being exposed to high levels of rat poison in northwest California, with illegal marijuana farms the most likely source point, according to a study led by the University of California, Davis, with the California Academy of Sciences.

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Artificial Light Matters

Light is an important cue for nearly all life on Earth. Plants use light for photosynthesis, animals use light to set sleep cycles, and marine organisms use light to find food, avoid predators and even hide in plain sight.

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Pacific Northwest Salmon Species Has Lost Two-Thirds of Its Genetic Diversity

Chinook salmon, an iconic species in the Pacific Northwest that supports a major fishery industry and indigenous traditions, have lost up to two-thirds of their genetic diversity over the past 7,000 years, according to a new study. Scientists warn the loss could make it difficult for the species to cope with warming global temperatures and ocean acidification — environmental changes that are already impacting the fish today.

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Machine learning predicts new details of geothermal heat flux beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet

paper appearing in Geophysical Research Letters uses machine learning to craft an improved model for understanding geothermal heat flux — heat emanating from the Earth’s interior — below the Greenland Ice Sheet. It’s a research approach new to glaciology that could lead to more accurate predictions for ice-mass loss and global sea-level rise.

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Stanford mechanical engineers give breast cancer research a boost

One of the most puzzling questions in breast cancer research is why some tumors stay put, while rogue cells from others break free and spread to surrounding tissues, the first step toward creating a more lethal disease. Although researchers have found some signs in mutated genes or telltale proteins on the cell’s surface, those discoveries don’t tell the whole story.

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