Scientists have had a literal breakthrough off the coast of Mexico.After weeks of drilling from an offshore platform in the Gulf of Mexico, they have reached rocks left over from the day the Earth was hit by a killer asteroid.The cataclysm is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs. "This was probably the most important event…

Scientists studying data from the top of the Greenland ice sheet have discovered that during winter in the center of the world's largest island, temperature inversions and other low-level atmospheric phenomena effectively isolate the ice surface from the atmosphere — recycling water vapor and halting the loss or gain of ice.A team of climate scientists…

Coastal wading birds shape their lives around the tides, and new research in The Auk: Ornithological Advances shows that different species respond differently to shifting patterns of high and low water according to their size and daily schedules, even following prey cycles tied to the phases of the moon.Many birds rely on the shallow water of the…

Most of us think of that sweet smell after a storm as the aftereffect of rain that has rinsed the air of pollutants and dust. But it turns out that rain also triggers the release of a mist of particles from wet soils into the air, a finding with consequences of its own for how…