Our Planet

Deep Science

From the Chesapeake Bay to Panama, scores of Smithsonian divers probe underwater mysteries

Chestnutty

Wielding cutting-edge science and lots of patience. James Hill Craddock hopes to restore the ravaged American chestnut tree to its former glory

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Will Tuvalu Disappear Beneath the Sea?

Global warming threatens to swamp a small island nation

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Fault Lines

Weighing threats on land and from the sea

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Yellowstone Grumbles

Pent-up water and steam threaten to burst through the park's surface. (And we're not talking Old Faithful here)

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Can Great Coffee Save the Jungle?

Persuaded that guilt alone won't get Americans to pay more for environmentally friendly coffee, importers give farmers the tools to grow better beans

Tide pools with sea stars and sea anemone

Discoveries

Finding pharmaceuticals in the sea, unsettling images and nuggets of Americana

Converting the Magazine Mine, above (Bat Conservation International's Sheryl Ducummon, the Forest Service's Ray Smith and UNIMIN's Siebert Crowley in 1996), cost $130,000.

A Mine of Its Own

Where miners used to dig, an endangered bat now flourishes, highlighting a new use for abandoned mineral sites

Oil platforms (above, the Spree tied to a Gulf of Mexico rig) serve as artificial reefs, attracting organisms with intriguing properties.

Medicine from the Sea

From slime to sponges, scientists are plumbing the ocean's depths for new medications to treat cancer, pain and other ailments

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Rescue Missions

Quests to Save a Tree... and a Country

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World View

Panama offers an ideal vantage point for scientists to see the big picture of life on earth

Italian primatologist Andrea Camperio Ciani says macaques are "scapegoats" for other thigns that are damaging the forest: cutting; overgrazing; and charcoal production.

Monkey in the Middle

Blamed for destroying one of North Africa's most important forests, Morocco's Barbary macaques struggle to survive

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Gas Guzzlers

New research shows how microscopic diatoms remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and may help keep the planet from overheating

The Atchafalaya Basin (dark green in this satellite image, with the Atchafalaya River running through its center) is almost a million acres of bottomland woods and swamp.

Saving Atchafalaya

A more than 70-year effort to "control" America's largest river basin swamp is threatening the Cajun culture that thrives on it

Cattle suffocated by carbon dioxide from Lake Nyos

Defusing Africa's Killer Lakes

In a remote region of Cameroon, an international team of scientists takes extraordinary steps to prevent the recurrence of a deadly natural disaster

Legal challenges from environmental groups over a two-year period stymied the efforts of ranger Kate Klein (a mile from her station) to thin a forest tract by commercial logging. A catastrophic fire broke out just days after she prepared a final rebuttal.

Fire Fight

With forests burning, U.S. officials are clashing with environmentalists over how best to reduce the risk of catastrophic blazes

Tidal wetlands of the Chesapeake Bay

Baywatch

Smithsonian scientists' study of the Chesapeake may benefit a wider world

Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park Big Cypress Bend boardwalk

Fakahatchee Ghosts

But no exorcisms, please these rare orchids are the stars of a hit movie and a best-selling book

Naturalist and writer Burroughs (above, left, with conservationist Muir) fretted that he was "the most ignorant man" aboard ship.

North to Alaska

In 1899, railroad magnate Edward Harriman invited preeminent scientists in America to join him on a working cruise to Alaska, then largely unexplored

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Ice Capades

Alaska's husband-and-wife team of avalanche experts work to save lives all winter, then take to their kayaks in summer

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