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THE CHOICE SEEMS CLEAR: You can floor your home with dazzling glass tile, linoleum in vivid designs, and deeply toned woods that evoke a rich, warm air. Or you can […]

The article focuses on research into the human microbiome, made up of the up to 200 trillion microbes--including bacteria, fungi, and viruses--that live primarily in the human gut and form their own ecology. Pediatrician Patrick Seed and biologist Rob Jackson are collaborating on the Preemie Microbiome Project at Duke University, aiming to understand the role of microbiome species in infant health.

This article discusses a global trend of desertification, in which grasslands disappear, replaced by desert. Dangers stemming from this trend are noted to include an increase in dust production and dust storms and a decrease in plantable land. The role of climate change in causing desertification is examined.

The article discusses the trees that grow in Fray Jorge National Park in Chile. The region is a desert, but the trees are able to draw water from the air around them. Ecosystem scientist Kathleen C. Weathers has found that the fog that drifts through the area from the Pacific Ocean is high in nitrogen, which helps sustain the forests. Leaves that fall from the trees decay, providing rich soil for the ecosystem.

The article discusses archaeological research into soil developed by ancient pre-Columbian civilizations in the Amazon Basin of South America. The soils, called "terra preta" or "dark earth," are formed through burning, and hold potential both for agriculture and for carbon sequestration to protect the environment, if they can be recreated.

From a Spanish-style monastery to an island ranch house--three retreats where you can really get away from it all Though some 30 people waited on the dock of the Ventura [...]

Byline: Tennesen, Michael 5 psych-out secrets to trick your body into working out harder, faster, and longer What surrenders first, the brain or the body? Feels like the body, doesn't [...]

Astronomer kyle cudworth enters the great dome of the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, an hour after sunset. A storm blew through these rolling hills last night and another [...]

Follow Southern California's most fabled highway for roadside kitsch and small-town surprises "It is," David Knudson says, "the most famous road in America, if not the world." Knudson is talking […]

THE DESERT SKY changes from red to black over the Southwestern Research Station in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona. There, Katy Hinman, a graduate student at State University of New [...]

BIOLOGISTS John Calambokidis and Jay Barlow stand on the deck of the Sproul, a 120-foot research vessel from California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, staring out over the Pacific. They are [...]

Killer bees? In my neighborhood? That's what the Los Angeles Times was claiming in an article I came across. In fact, the paper said that in Torrance, California, just 3 [...]

In southeast Arizona, a national monument that's ideal for winter wandering About a mile down the Echo Canyon Trail, the mummies start to surround you. At least that's what it […]

Like the tips of icebergs, the tropical Revillagigedos Islands only hint at what is lurking just beneath the sea. Tiny specks of land 360 miles south of the southern tip [...]

Louise Sourisseau was snorkeling with her friend Martha Morrell on the Hawaiian island of Maui when Sourisseau felt the rough skin of a tiger shark dragging across her calf. Sourisseau [...]

Jake Blehm raises killers for a living. The killers are half-inch-long insects known as green lacewings. In the larval stage, lacewings must be kept in separate cardboard compartments or they'll [...]

Your medical test results may come back normal, but some studies suggest that for optimal health, normal isn't good enough I got back the results from my physical the other [...]

Making sense of the increasing reports of cougar attacks. On April 30, 1998, Andrew Peterson, 24, was hiking down the trail from the summit of Carpenter Peak in Roxborough State [...]

In springtime, this national park blooms with desert flowers and surprises In Joshua Tree National Park in the Southern California desert, epiphanies abound. One day my friend Rufus, his son, […]

Biologists and physicians have been figuring out why the venoms of the rattlesnakes in Western U.S. have seemed more dangerously toxic in recent years. About 1,750 recorded snake bites in the U.S. progressed into permanent damage on the victim. The boosted venom potency may be due to the development of antivenom properties in the preys or the influx of people into snake habitats.

Dry Tortugas N ational Park is home to 50,000 to 70,000 s ooty terns. Research is being performed on how their population dynamics are being affected by environmental factors. During the 1960's the terns arrive in April to breed, but now they nest late in January, a very significant shift in the nesting season for birds.