Environment

Range hoods are designed to capture the pollutants from your stove, but many models are not effective and it's hard for consumers to know how good a hood is. But researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab are developing a new standardized test that manufacturers can use to rate their range hoods.

BP is fighting the settlement it agreed to last summer that let the oil company avoid thousands of potential lawsuits over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. BP now says the claim process is corrupt and wants to stop all the money flowing from its claims fund.

Scientists report in the journal Nature Geoscience that they've uncovered the largest volcano on Earth in the Northwest Pacific Ocean, about 1,000 miles east of Japan. In fact it's one of the largest in the solar system, second only to Olympus Mons on Mars. Scientists have been studying the massive structure for decades, but now are confirming it's a single volcano about the size of New Mexico. It rises about four miles off the sea floor, but doesn't break through the ocean surface. Called Tamu Massif, it hasn't erupted in more than 130 million years, helping to keep its true nature secret.

Risking and embracing failure is part of the job for explorers and adventurers like aeronaut Salomon August Andrée. His fatal attempt at reaching the North Pole motivated others to push their own limits. The September issue of National Geographic investigates "famous failures" and why they mattered.

About 160 years ago, before Europe began warming up, glaciers in the Alps started rapidly retreating. Now NASA scientists offer a possible explanation for this apparent paradox: Soot from the Industrial Revolution could have heated up the ice.

A decade ago, cranes that had never before migrated followed the lead of an ultralight plane to learn the route south. Several generations later, old cranes are teaching young birds to navigate that same route. It's a clue that migration is a combination of nature and nurture, researchers say.

The Earth's average annual temperature has been rising for decades, but not in the last 15 years — colder winters and hotter summers notwithstanding. Now scientists offer evidence that this "pause" in average warming is because a cooler Pacific is temporarily taking up more heat than usual.

If Kansas farmers keep pumping water out of the High Plains aquifer as they have in the past, the amount of water they can extract will start to fall in just 10 years or so, scientists predict. That will cause big changes in the agricultural economy. But reducing water use now could help delay and ease that disruption.

Known for its sparkling turquoise waters and white sand, Spain's Mediterranean beaches are developing a new reputation — for a growing number of jellyfish. Scientists blame overfishing and, possibly, climate change for the spike in stinging invertebrates.

Climate skeptics point to 15 years of no warming trend as a reason to doubt global warming. But Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research can explain a good bit of that temperature plateau — and he argues the Earth has continued to warm appreciably, even though our thin blanket of atmosphere hasn't.