secular
The Roman writer Lucretius, who lived circa 55 B.C., wrote a radically secular creation story, in which he describes the universe as made of an infinite number of atoms.
aqueducts
Two vast interconnected hydraulic machines push melted snow from dams in the Sierra mountains to massive pumps that fill the aqueducts traversing the state of California.
ritual
Swiss Catholics have reversed a ritual prayer that for 350 years implored the heavens to push back the glaciers. The Vatican approved the change as the effects of global warming became all too tangible in the Alps.
deliberate
How does one explain the deliberate burial of a wild cat? Zooarchaeologist Angela Perri thinks that the 2000-yr-old bobcat was not sacrificed but deliberately arranged in its grave with a collar and its paws place together.
engulfing
A chunk of ice broke off a hanging glacier, sending an avalanche of ice and snow down into the ice fields and engulfing about 30 men. The toll, at 12 dead, was the worst in a single day in the history of Mt. Everest.
obscure
"Africa is inferred to be the continent of origin for all modern human populations. But the details of human prehistory and evolution in Africa remain largely obscure."
wiped out
Guinea worm and polio are the two diseases now closest to being eliminated. Only smallpox and rinderpest — a disease of cattle and other hoofed animals — have ever been wiped out.
demise
Tasmanian devils went extinct on the Australian mainland 400 years ago. Humans probably contributed to their demise, by introducing the dingo for instance.
authority
The Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency authority to better regulate air emissions in the USA. Recently, the EPA used the law to lower in greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
turn on
The news media usually depicts the police as “wolf dogs” protecting “the sheep.” But, what happens when those police turn on and abuse a public they are supposed to serve and protect?