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...team were able to detect a litter of new planets, some as small as four times the mass of Earth - tiny by exoplanet standards. One star, just 42 light-years away, is home to a trio of such worlds - which Mayor is now calling "super-Earths." The largest of the three is just 9.5 times as big as Earth, the smallest just 4.2 times. It was not only the modest size of all the new worlds that got astronomers so excited; it was the sheer number of them too. Mayor found his planets by studying a group of just...
...roughly the size of Massachusetts. But that prediction was made before massive floods hit the Midwest: with the flow of the Mississippi at dangerous levels, and with rains sweeping fertilizer off drowned farms, the dead zone could grow even bigger. The Louisiana fishing industry, the second largest in the nation, is already hurting, with shrimp catches falling in the dead zone's wake. The U.S. is not alone in grappling with this aquatic byproduct. As modern, chemically intensive agricultural practices spread around the globe, so does hypoxia; a 2004 U.N. report documents nearly 150 dead zones globally. But none compare...
...French step toward NATO would have be in line with the European Union's efforts to build up its own fledgling security and defense capacity, Heisbourg said. If France - the fifth largest contributor to NATO - becomes a more co-operative transatlantic ally, it is likely to find stronger backing for E.U. defense projects among NATO's European members. "If and when it happens, it would reflect the strides that had been taken in European security and defense policy," he says, adding that further steps on that policy are anticipated during the French presidency of the E.U., from July to December...
Right now, it's all about trying to prevent more flooding that is already devastating many communities, from Iowa's second largest city, Cedar Rapids (pop. 124,000), to one of its smallest, Chelsea (pop. 276). Later, it will be about dealing with the aftermath - the nasty consequences of flood water that Iowans remember all too well from the miserable clean-up of homes, businesses, and farms after the floods...
...increased sixfold since 2001. It is the world's top consumer of cement, grain, meat, coal, copper and steel. Back at home, China has transformed itself into a nation of superlatives, each record burnishing its reborn pride. The country boasts the world's biggest dam (the Three Gorges), the largest corps of engineers (350,000 new graduates every year) and the most urban areas with a population above 1 million (more than 100). The People's Republic is the most wired nation on earth (215 million--plus netizens) and has enjoyed one of the longest sustained economic expansions in history...