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The article talks about a study on the impact of smoke from fires in Mexico and Central America on the outbreak of tornadoes in southeastern U.S., particularly in April 2011, and how smoke from distant regions should be included in weather models.

The article examines the presence of fault zones in the Midwestern part of the U.S. Topics covered include the discovery of the faults in 1800s, occurrence of earthquakes in the region and level of the earthquakes. Also mentioned are the recorded aftershock of earthquakes in the area on December 16, 1811.

The article discusses a study by Oner Sufri and colleagues reported at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America in Salt Lake City, Ohio which analyzed data recorded across the continental U.S. between October 18 and November 4, 2012. According to Sufri, seismic data could help fill the gaps created if a weather-gazing satellite fails before its replacement is traveling in the same orbit.

The article focuses on the camera-and-telescope combination used by solar physicists of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to discover that magnetic heating played a role in heating the sun's corona aside from the energy caused by wave heating. It says that the telescope could spot features in the solar atmosphere that were only 150 kilometers across, a six-fold improvement over other instruments orbiting the Earth.

The article discusses data from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Solar Dynamics Observatory about how the sun's shape is more spherical and steadier than previously believed. It is shown that the sun's midsection is slimmer and that the star's overall shape does not change much during the 11-year sunspot cycle. A study led by Jeffrey Kuhn and published online on the web site of "Science" on August 16, 2012 is also referenced.

The article reports on the discovery by scientists of three planets circling a star dubbed Kepler-30 using data gathered by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Kepler spacecraft. One planet orbits the star every 29 days while the other two orbit the star every 60 days and 143 days respectively. Analysis revealed a huge, dark starspot on Kepler-30. The planes of those orbits are found to be closely aligned with the rotational plane of the parent star.

The article reports on a study published online in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" reveals that a substantial number of offshore wind turbines proposed along the areas in the Eastern Seaboard and Gulf Coast of the U.S. could buckle and collapse if subjected to a hurricane-force winds.

The article reveals that agriculture accounts for about 92% of global consumption of fresh water based on a study published in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences," on February 13, 2012. The study is described by Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project, as the most comprehensive and finest-resolution analysis to date. It cites the U.S. as the biggest consumer of fresh water per capita with China and India following.

The article discusses a new study reported in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" on February 6, 2012 that reveals that ancient katydids sang at a single frequency at 6.4 kilohertz or 6,400 cycles per second. The conclusion was based on an analysis of katydid wing fragments from 165-million-year rocks in northern China that include well-preserved versions of the music-making structures.The study suggests that the newly described Jurassic species was also nocturnal.

The article focuses on the possibility that the Eel River was blocked by a massive landslide from the Nefus Peak in California. It mentions that the Eel River has two types of steelhead trout that swim upstream from the ocean to spawn like many rivers in the western U.S. It says that the access to spawning grounds was blocked by the landslide for centuries, forcing many generations of trout from the two groups to interbreed on the downstream side of the natural dam.

The article reports new findings of carbon monoxide gasses emitted from the atmosphere of the planet Pluto as it completed its 248-years orbit around the sun. It cites other gasses previously discovered from telescopic observations including nitrogen and methane. Astrobiologist Janes Greaves also reports that its atmosphere has grown from 135 kilometers to 3,000 kilometers since it was first discovered 80 years ago to May 2010. It states that more can be learned as the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's New Horizon mission nears Pluto.

The article discusses research conducted by geophysicist Anthony Lowry and colleague Marta Pérez-Gussinyé and published in the March 16, 2011 online issue of "Nature," about the link between the quartz content of crustal rocks and large-scale deformations such as mountain ranges in the western U.S. The speed of compressive primary (P)-waves was compared with that of the temblor's secondary (S)-waves. It mentions the impact of a quartz-weakened patch of crust on the weakening of rocks.