"Scientists have used plant samples collected in the mid-19th Century to identify the pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine."

"The Forest Service would be allowed to forgo environmental reviews for forest thinning projects smaller than 10,000 acres under a provision in the House farm bill."

"For the public officials who safeguard Milwaukee's water, Cryptosporidium changed everything."

"With smoke and tar from faulty light fixtures leaking into New York City public school classrooms at alarming rates, the Bloomberg administration said on Tuesday that it would cut in half the time it needed to replace them."

"For the fourth time since 1956, Portlanders on Tuesday night rejected a plan to fluoridate city water, 60 percent to 40 percent."

"A growing body of mortality research on immigrants has shown that the longer they live in this country, the worse their rates of heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. And while their American-born children may have more money, they tend to live shorter lives than the parents."

"Residents of Manhattan will not just sweat harder from rising temperatures in the future, says a new study; many may die."

"I can tell you the exact date that I began to think of myself in the first-person plural — as a superorganism, that is, rather than a plain old individual human being."

"Experts say Wisconsin lakes’ chemical cocktail likely similar to Minnesota's"

"JACKSONVILLE, N.C. -- As she flipped through the cemetery register, Mary Blakely's eyes filled with tears. On line after line, the entry read simply 'Baby Boy' or 'Baby Girl,' followed by a surname and a burial date."