If you decide to go for a real Christmas tree, instead of a fake, you’ll be faced with the problem of falling needles, as the tree dries out. A seven foot evergreen will bear 350,000 needles and drop most of them on the floor before Christmas is over.

Plant pathologist Gary Chastagner is running a $1.3-million RNA-sequencing trial that is sampling trees for needle retention. His goal is to discover the genes associated with shedding, in order to breed more needle-retentive trees, in order to create a tree that will last from Thanksgiving until after New Year’s.
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Permafrost is thawing all over the planet, and this releases the powerful greenhouse gas methane. Permafrost covers nearly a quarter of the northern hemisphere and may contain as much as 1,700 gigatons of carbon, which is twice the amount that is currently in the atmosphere. As it thaws, it could push global warming past one of the key "tipping points" that scientists believe could lead to runaway climate change.
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There has been a surprising outburst of booming sounds in many US communities lately.

In Columbia County, Georgia, some people said they were so loud that they woke them up at night. On ABC News, Michael Miller quotes Pam Tucker, director of the Columbia County Emergency Management Agency as saying it’s been loud booms and rumbling, and "now we’re hearing about pictures being moved on walls.
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Global warming affects different water ways differently. Glacier melt has opened up the Northwest Passage again, but the mighty Mississippi’s water level is reaching a historic low due to the Midwestern drought, and America’s busiest waterway could become impassable to barge traffic between Cairo, Illinois and St. Louis within two weeks.

The country’s biggest inland waterway is already too shallow for barge traffic shipping coal and steel. The Mississippi is now about two feet below its normal level for this time of year, and is expected to soon reach an all-time low of just over 6 feet soon.
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