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Before major surgeries and operations, doctors often detect diseases in humans using minimally invasive methods like a blood or urine test, before symptoms become severe. Now, researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) are applying a similar concept to coral reefs.

Millions of tiny oysters are being returned to the Chesapeake Bay in an ambitious conservation effort that scientists hope will transform one of the United States' most important estuaries. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), in partnership with the Severn River Association, recently planted three million juvenile oysters in a protected sanctuary reef in Maryland's Severn River, bringing the total planted under the project to 19 million.

The cosmic events that created the sun also created ancient meteors. But until recently, scientists were puzzled why the sun had far less silver than them.

Tasmanian devils, dogs and shellfish are some of the only animals that are known to carry naturally occurring cancers that can pass between individuals. But scientists in Vermont have discovered a new animal species that can do the same, catfish.

A team of scientists has uncovered a naturally occurring microbial process that could change how uranium-contaminated water is cleaned up. Studying bacteria living in the flooded Konigstein uranium mine in Germany, the researchers discovered that certain microorganisms can transform highly soluble uranium into a rare, stable mineral that remains locked in place instead of spreading through groundwater.

After World War II, a small number of brown tree snakes somehow made it to Guam, likely hidden in cargo, and the island has been dealing with the consequences ever since. Today, the snakes are so widespread that in some parts of the U.S.

In 2005, scientists began reshaping a semi-arid grassland in Inner Mongolia by changing its mix of plants. Years later, when researchers checked how the local food chain held together, plant-eating insects emerged as its strongest biological buffer.

A nonvenomous snake that regularly hunts and eats some of the world's most dangerous venomous snakes has given scientists a new mystery to solve. Researchers have now mapped the genome of the king ratsnake to understand how it survives the venom of cobras, kraits and vipers.

Two centuries ago, a British geologist gave the world its first named dinosaur. Megalosaurus, described from a handful of fossilised bones, marked the birth of an entire scientific field.

Around 1200 BCE, several of the eastern Mediterranean's most powerful civilisations, including the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire, Canaanite city-states and parts of New Kingdom Egypt, began experiencing a period of dramatic decline. Historians have long debated whether warfare, invasions, earthquakes, internal unrest or climate change played the biggest role in this Bronze Age collapse.