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LULING, LOUISIANA -- From its headwaters in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi is lined with massive earthen levees designed to prevent the mighty river from flooding. But [...]

The plan was nothing if not ambitious: assess the state of ecosystems across the entire planet, from peat bogs to coral reefs. Rather than solely chart pristine habitats and count [...]

With high-domed skulls built like battering rams, dinosaurs called pachycephalosaurs look for all the world as if they must have butted heads. Paleontologists imagined the males sparring for mates as [...]

After the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 11 September 2001, the world was gripped by the search for survivors. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) [...]

The perpetually frozen soils of the Arctic and boreal regions are thawing at unprecedented rates. It's unclear what this bodes for global warming, When Phil Camill goes looking for frozen soil in the spruce forests of northern Manitoba each summer, he finds less and less each year. Instead of rock-hard permafrost, he discovers [...]

SEATTLE--Over 5000 people turned out for the Annual Meeting and Science Innovation Exposition of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, which publishes Science), held 13 to 18 [...]

At Grand Staircase--Escalante National Monument, patience and muscle power pay off in paleontological riches GRAND STAIRCASE-ESCALANTE NATIONAL MONUMENT, UTAH--Alan Titus parks his four-wheel-drive field vehicle on a dirt road that [...]

Rugged as they look, fossilized dinosaur skulls are frustratingly hard to find. Exposure, scavengers, and flash floods ensured that few of the information-laden artifacts survived their day. Miraculously, though, the [...]

Like specialized shock troops, insects have frequently been drafted to fight invasive weeds and pests. But these so-called biological control agents also have the potential to run amok, attacking innocent [...]

When a snarling Tyrannosaurus rex fills the screen at your local multiplex this summer, here's a tip for remembering that the beast's not real: The nostrils are all wrong. You [...]

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA--This quadrennial meeting regularly runs the gamut of life history, but this year's convention, from 26 June to 1 July, featured an emphasis on research with relevance to problems of today, such as invasive species and the decline of coral reefs., Big Clams Make Good Invaders When exotic species invade new territory, trouble may ensue--or it may not. In the sea, some creatures that humans intentionally or unwittingly moved to new [...]

When Allied bombers descended on Munich in the spring of 1944, they destroyed much of the city--including the Bayerische Staatssammlung museum. Among the treasures reduced to rubble were Cretaceous bones [...]

For all the fame of Tyrannosaurus rex and its relatives, their origins have been difficult to pin down. Now paleontologists have unveiled a skeleton of a primitive tyrannosauroid that backs [...]

Some 425 million years ago, a heavily armored, wormlike mollusk died on the deep sea floor and was buried in volcanic ash. Now, using a novel technique, a team of [...]

A comprehensive survey of the world's forests, released last week by the United Nations (U.N.), suggests that global rates of forest loss decreased in the 1990s. But the ink was [...]

A sophisticated engineering tool is providing insights into how fossil skulls and other bones worked in real life In their dreams, some paleontologists wire strain gauges to the skulls of [...]

To paleontologists who study mammals, you are what you eat with. Teeth are often the only remains of tiny, extinct mammals, but they can reveal an animal's diet as well [...]

Next to volcanoes or earthquakes, mudstones are hardly a glamorous subject for geologists. But these widespread strata are an important source of hydrocarbons that migrate into petroleum deposits, and they [...]

MANCHESTER, U.K.--Some 110 scientists from a range of disciplines gathered in the overcast British midlands for the 5th International Ancient DNA Conference, held here from 12 to 14 July. Among [...]

A controversial paper aims to turn avian origins on its head. But. mainstream paleontologists say 'put up or shut up' Longisquama insignis never asked for all this fuss. Some 220 [...]

Technology borrowed from medicine and industry helps paleontologists peer into specimens with x-ray eyes Chris Brochu's mission was to get inside the head of the most expensive dinosaur on Earth. [...]

The new head of alternative medicine at NIH faces what may be a superhuman task: evaluating unconventional treatments--and pleasing both believers and skeptics, Why in the world would a respected researcher like Stephen Straus leave a topflight lab at the National Institutes of Health to run NIH's new National Center for Complementary and [...]

One of the fiercest battles in paleoanthropology concerns the peopling of the Americas: Were the first Americans so-called Clovis hunters who crossed from Asia about 12,000 years ago, or did [...]

As countless cartoons of hunched brutes suggest, the evolution of an uptight posture is one of the crucial features that makes hominids distinct from other primates. But exactly how our [...]

Sophisticated physical models of how sediment flows through rivers into the sea are offering high-tech views into the genesis of complex stratigraphy, Housed in a cavernous laboratory on the banks of the Mississippi is one of the most expensive sandboxes in the world. The rectangular tank is half the size of a [...]

Emeralds have turned many an eye green with envy. The ancient Egyptians forced slaves to dig for the precious stones, prized as a symbol of immortality. Centuries later, Romans dominated [...]

For decades, more and more researchers have been using fewer laboratory animals for compassion's sake. Thanks to new experimental techniques, many are getting cleaner results, too BOLOGNA, ITALY--A decade ago, [...]

A hurricane is perhaps Earth's most devastating vortex. But even the deadliest hurricanes die out as they move away from warm waters that power them. Not so in the frictionless [...]

Hydrologists warn that the world's network of rainfall and stream gages--often a low priority in science budgets--is slowly eroding BIRMINGHAM, U.K.--On 1 March 1997, northern Kentucky was drenched with up [...]

Long before Earth or any other planet had formed around the sun, a vast cloud of dust began to coalesce into asteroids. Most of the drifting chunks were the kind [...]

How Michael Milken helped transform the research and funding of prostate cancer by applying the lessons of Wall Street to the support of science Paul Lange and Leroy Hood ran [...]

MESA, ARIZONA -- With its powerful jaws and serrated teeth, Tyrannosaurus rex had fearsome tools for catching and eating prey. The lumbering carnivore also had some top-of-the-line sensory equipment, paleontologists [...]

Land plants and animals are already responding to global warming. Cherry trees in Japan are blossoming ever earlier in the spring, for example, and some birds in northern Europe lay [...]

Tyrannosaurus rex was a creature of superlatives. As big as a hull elephant, T. rex weighed 15 times as much as the largest carnivores living on land today. Now, paleontologists [...]