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  In the Headlines Archive
Stories that have recently appeared in the popular press, television, and radio.

Mysterious Crater Widens to Antarctica
March 31 — A new report of tiny beads of meteor impact glass strewn high in Antarctica's Transantarctic Mountains may expand a debris field to a tenth of Earth's surface – despite no sign of the crater which spewed out the molten rock 800,000 years ago. (Discovery News)

Western Antarctic Ice Chunk Collapses
March 25 — A chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan suddenly collapsed, putting an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk, scientists said. (Associated Press)

Lake Tahoe Threatened by Warming?
March 25 — A new study predicts water circulation in Lake Tahoe is being dramatically altered by global warming, threatening the lake's delicate ecosystem and famed clear waters. (Associated Press)

Stinking Seas not to Blame for Mass Extinctions
March 24 — British researchers rule out a leading theory that a mass extinction 250 million years ago occurred when the oceans became starved of oxygen and rich with sulphide, causing marine life to die out. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Fish Key to Reef Climate Survival
March 20 — A healthy fish population could be the key to ensuring coral reefs survive the impacts of climate change, pollution, overfishing and other threats, as some fish act as "lawnmowers", keeping coral free of kelp and unwanted algae. (BBC News)

Megaherbs Once Flourished in Antarctica
March 20 — Giant flowers found on Australia and New Zealand's sub-Antarctic islands are probably survivors of lush forests that covered Antarctica before the beginning of the last ice age nearly two million years ago, scientists say. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Some Algae Help Coral Survive Warming Waters
March 20 — Researchers have found that certain types of algae can help corals withstand higher sea temperatures and prevent them from bleaching. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Global Warming Rushes Timing of Spring
March 19 — Spring keeps coming earlier for birds, bees, trees and sneezes, because of global warming. (ABC News)

Rare Explosion Jolts Hawaii Volcano
March 19 — An explosion atop the long-erupting Kilauea volcano rained gravel-size rocks onto a tourist lookout on March 19. Scientists say that though it appears on the surface an eruption took place inside the half-mile-wide crater, it's unlikely because other indicators of an eruption aren't present. (ABC News)

Robots Fly into Antarctic Skies
March 19 — A pair of lightweight, robotic planes have made the first unmanned flights over Antarctica's icy expanses. In some flights, the machines were fitted with miniaturized instruments to collect data for use in predictive climate models. (BBC News)

Ancient Global Dimming Linked to Volcanic Eruption
March 19 — A "dry fog" that muted the sun's rays in A.D. 536 and plunged half the world into a famine-inducing chill was triggered by the eruption of a supervolcano, a new study says. (National Geographic News)

Penguins Helped and Hurt by Changing Climate
March 19 — Exactly 100 years ago, scientists started studying a penguin colony at Cape Royds, Antarctica. What they've learned since then suggests that climate change will reshuffle life on the planet in complicated ways. (National Public Radio)

The Mystery of Global Warming's Missing Heat
March 19 — Diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years, which could mean global warming has taken a breather, or it could mean scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them. (National Public Radio)

Heatwave 'One in 3,000 Years'
March 18 — A climate model indicates that a 15-day heat wave in Adelaide, South Australia, like one that has just ended, is only likely to happen once in 3,000 years. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Antarctica's Sea 'Babies' in Limbo
March 17 — The icy ocean around Antarctica is world-renowned for its penguins, but one team of scientists is more concerned about the animals you can't see – and the fate these microscopic creatures may face in a warming world. (National Public Radio)

Russian Scientists Honored for Exploration of Arctic Seabed
March 17 — The standard view of Arctic life is changing after a team led by Russian scientists plunged through the ice around the North Pole to the ocean bottom in twin submersibles. (The New York Times)

Glaciers Suffer Record Shrinkage
March 16 — The rate at which some of the world's glaciers are melting has more than doubled, data from the United Nations Environment Program has shown. (BBC News)

'Drowning' Dictates How Yellowstone Terraces Grow
March 16 — A computer model has successfully predicted how the bulbous limestone terraces around hot springs develop over time. (New Scientist)

A Bright Spot of Life on the Icy Continent
March 15 — The vast, icy expanse of the South Pole has nurtured its own community. But what kind of people come for months at a time to live at the most difficult place on Earth? (National Public Radio)

Into Antarctica's Action Zone
March 14 — Glaciologist Robert Bindschadler braves the crevasses of Antarctica's Pine Island glacier to discover what is happening in the hot spot where a warming ocean meets ice. (New Scientist)

How to Catch a Wave Before It Kills
March 13 — Just three years after the deadly Indian Ocean tsunami, the final two buoys are up and running in an unprecedented 39-buoy tsunami warning system designed to protect U.S. coastal communities from a similar fate. (Discovery News)

Space Likely Helped Shape Life on Earth
March 13 — Scientists have discovered concentrations of amino acids in two meteorites that are more than 10 times higher than levels previously measured in other similar meteorites, suggesting that the early solar system was far richer in the organic building blocks of life than scientists had thought. (Discovery News)

Gulf Stream's Secret is a Load of Hot Air
March 12 — A soaring expansive corridor of warm air emanating from the Gulf Stream may explain its influence over Europe's weather – a discovery that could improve forecasts. (New Scientist)

Earthquake Activity is Frozen by Ice Sheets
March 11 — A computer model shows that earthquakes happen less often in areas covered by ice caps, but that quakes come back with a vengeance when the ice melts. (New Scientist)

2007 Floods 'No Link to Climate'
March 10 — The United Kingdom's summer floods of 2007 were a freak event unrelated to global climate change, according to a report from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. (BBC News)

Global Warming Hits Tropical Glaciers in the Andes
March 10 — "Tropical glaciers" may sound like an oxymoron, but these unique ice floes – dotted throughout Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia – are being quickly destroyed by global warming, scientists say. (National Public Radio)

Global Warming Not Always to Blame for Extreme Winters
March 7 — Following a winter of weather extremes, weather and climate specialists caution against using a litany of the period's frigid bluster or relative warmth to draw conclusions one way or the other about global warming. (The Christian Science Monitor)

Map Sheds Light on Hothouse World
March 7 — Researchers used data on ocean crust production, ocean sediment build-up and tectonic plate boundaries to create a reconstruction of how the oceans might have looked 80 million years ago. (BBC News)

It Took Eons to Make Grand Canyon Grand
March 6 — The Grand Canyon is far older than generally thought, say scientists who found new evidence that the canyon's western half actually began to open at least 17 million years ago, long before the 6-million-year-old eastern half. (ABC News)

Outlook for Oceans Bleak as Sea 'Deserts' Grow
March 6 — The region of the ocean with little plant life, known as "the desert of the sea," is dramatically expanding, and scientists think warmer oceans may be to blame. (National Public Radio)

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