Our Planet

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Mysterious Pearls

Did they once belong to Vietnam's royal family? Perhaps. But for Ben Zucker, a "sleuth" of the gems trade, seeking the answer matters more than finding it

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The Object at Hand

From a forest that flourished 207 million years ago, the Sherman Logs bear stony witness to a general's curiosity--and life in an age gone by

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Phenomena, Comment and Notes

Life not only thrives in the heat and violence of Earth's submarine volcanoes, it may have started there

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Mining the Scrap Heap for Treasure

Across America, a network of scrap-metal firms is supplying much of the raw materials, iron to aluminum, that fuel the growing global economy

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Smithsonian Perspectives

The Smithsonian's gardens and greenery are things of beauty and delight as well as utility

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Mapping the Margins

It's a violent world at the edges of our continental shelves, which could serve as a geology textbook

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Golf Gets Back to Nature, Inviting Everyone to Play

Using natural landforms and native grasses and plants, golf course designers are creating links that are environmentally up to par

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If Rocks Were Worth Money, a Hilltop Farmer Could Get Rich Quick

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Around the Mall & Beyond

An all-day Saturday seminar on spices - one of the many programs on the Mall, around the world, even in cyberspace, offered by the Smithsonian Associates

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Not Your Average Backyard Gardener

Ganna Walska pursued life with a passion, from husbands to opera to plants. Her legacy is Lotusland, an exotic California garden

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Unearthing Secrets Locked Deep Inside Each Fistful of Soil

To scientists at the National Soil Tilth Lab in Ames, Iowa, it's not just dirt they are probing — it's the planet's sustaining surface

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Phenomena, Comment and Notes

Experiments at sea show we can cause phytoplankton to bloom in areas where it otherwise would not

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The Berry and the Poison

Methyl bromide makes our fields fruitful; it will soon be banned, not because it's toxic and it's very toxic but because it attacks the ozone layer

Kauai Wildlife Refuge

A Onetime Rancher Wages Lonely War to Save Rare Plants

Working alone, by hand, one man is turning 100 acres of alien trees into a refuge for Hawaii's endangered botanical treasures

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To Be a Champion, a Tree Must Measure Up to High Standards

If it is tall, wide and thick enough, it might qualify for listing on the National Register of Big Trees--but first someone has to find it

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Geologists Worry About Dangers of Living 'Under the Volcano'

The experts believe Mount Rainier will give plenty of notice before it erupts again--the problem is that it can kill in other ways

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Houses Built to Move the Spirit—and Save Trees

The innovative dwellings designed by Seattle architect James Cutler are rooted in the wooded contours of the land they complement

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Phenomena, Comment and Notes

When a drop of rain carries a particle of dirt off the land and into the sea, there are repercussions from deep within Earth to the nearer reaches of space

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The Deep-Sea Floor Rivals Rain Forests in Diversity of Life

Blue luminescence and marine snow define a world where millions of species of worms and other invertebrates live out their lives

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A Giant Shrugs Off Vandalism, Poaching, Tales of Its Demise

The Sonoran Desert's mighty saguaro cactus is the living embodiment of the Southwest, a 'charismatic megaplant' that people care about

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