The movement of nitrate through groundwater to streams can take decades to occur and that long lag time means that changes in the use of nitrogen-based fertilizer (the typical source of nitrate) may take decades to be fully observed in streams, according to a recent study.

Water quality experts have been noting in recent years that nitrate trends in streams and rivers do not match their expectations based on reduced regional use of nitrogen-based fertilizer.  The long travel times of groundwater discharge, like those documented in this study, have previously been suggested as the likely factor responsible for these observations.

The large majority of non-coding DNA, which is abundant in many living things, may not actually be needed for complex life in at least one carnivorous plant, Utricularia gibba, according to a paper in Nature.

U. gibba,  the carnivorous bladderwort plant, genome is the smallest ever to be sequenced from a complex, multicellular plant. The researchers who sequenced it say that 97 percent of the genome consists of genes — bits of DNA that code for proteins — and small pieces of DNA that control those genes.

An anti-cocaine vaccine has been successfully tested in primates, bringing it a step closer to human clinical trials.

Do you support unions, a minimum wage, dislike business and hate child labor and then tell all of your friends on your iPhone?

People rationalize moral standards when it comes to their own lives, say economists writing in Science. It's easy to lament child labor and exploitation of the work force but if you are not willing to pay $2,000 for a phone, you are part of the problem and Tweeting about social issues on that phone helps precisely no one but corporate shareholders.

'Pestilence', widespread outbreaks of deadly contagious disease, are known throughout history. In popular translations of the Christian Bible, Pestilence is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Today we call them pandemics but they are nothing like plagues of old, when up to 33% of a population was eradicated, like during the Black Death of the 14th century.

Using advanced underwater imaging techniques, one of the most detailed analysis ever of the archaeological remains of the lost medieval town of Dunwich - 'Britain's Atlantis' - have been revealed.