The world's largest diamonds reveal secrets of the inner Earth and other top stories.

• The world's largest diamonds reveal secrets of the inner Earth

  

  Some people see a giant diamond and think: I want that. Geologist Evan Smith sees a giant diamond and thinks: I’d like to study that.“Some of the diamonds I’ve looked at are probably worth multiple millions of dollars, but I’m not wowed by the price tag as much as by the fact that they come from so deep in the Earth,” he said. Smith is a research fellow at the Gemological Institute of America in New York City, where he has been studying a rare type of diamond known for being exceptionally larg..

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• Mysterious ghost shark captured on camera for the first time

  

  Like its Greek mythological namesake, the chimaera - or "ghost shark" - is a mysterious, rarely seen creature with a patchwork of bizarre features.Dwelling in the depths of the ocean, its eyes are pale and seemingly dead. Where teeth should be, the ghost shark uses tooth plates instead to grind food. Their heads are lined with cryptic dots, like the remnant scars of ancient stitches. Male chimaeras have retractable sex organs - on their foreheads.Its other nicknames - ratfish, rabbitfish, spoo..

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• Sidon bird count returns

  

  SIDON, Miss. (AP) — Bird enthusiasts are spending Saturday counting every species they see as part of the 27th annual Sidon Audubon Christmas Bird Count. Wildlife biologist Philip Barbour has been counting birds every Christmas season since 1975. Since then, he's expanded his skills as a birdwatcher and in 1989 launched a bird count from his home west of Sidon. The Greenwood Commonwealth (http://bit.ly/2hK2IYK ) reports the count ends at sunset Saturday. The results will become part of a large ..

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• Santa in Trouble? Reindeer Shrink in Arctic as Climate Changes - Sci

  

  Dear Visitor, Our system has found that you are using an ad-blocking browser add-on. We just wanted to let you know that our site content is, of course, available to you absolutely free of charge. Our ads are the only way we have to be able to bring you the latest high-quality content, which is written by professional journalists, with the help of editors, graphic designers, and our site production and I.T. staff, as well as many other talented people who work a..

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• Up close with alien planets

  

  Photos: Up close with alien planetsArtists such as Tim Pyle and Robert Hurt create renderings of exoplanets and other things in the universe we may never be able to otherwise see. Both are science fiction fans. Sometimes, the reality of the data they're working with aligns with scenes from the "Star Wars" films, such as Pyle's rendering of the Kepler-16 binary star system that creates a double sunset like the one on Luke Skywalker's home world, Tatooine. Click through to see more of their work...

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• Surprise 'Dinosaur Killer' Asteroid Could End The World: NASA Scientist Warns Of Unpreparedness

  

  A NASA research scientist has warned that an asteroid or comet strike of sufficient size could spell the end of the world, its impact touching off an extinction level series of events, simply because the Earth is unprepared to defend itself against such an occurrence. In fact, given what we do have and the time it would take to respond, “there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about it at the moment.” The Guardian reported this week that NASA scientist Dr. Joseph Nuth, who does research for the G..

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• How will Trump administration treat climate change? Why it's so hard to know.

  

  December 17, 2016 —Donald Trump’s three latest cabinet nominees are part of the president-elect’s campaign promise to “drain the swamp in Washington.”Scott Pruitt has been tapped to lead the Environmental Protection Agency – the same agency he repeatedly sued as Oklahoma attorney general. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry was named secretary of the energy department – which he advocated to eliminate in his 2012 presidential bid. Rex Tillerson, named to the nation’s top diplomatic post, fostered his ..

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