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environment

rhino rarity captured on film

Washington - Wildlife experts say they have taken the first known photographs of the Javan rhinoceros, an animal that is so rare some people doubted it still existed. Scientists had feared that the creature, once plentiful throughout Asia, had become extinct, in part because its habitat had been heavily damaged by defoliants such as Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. The World Wildlife Fund captured the photo using cameras automatically triggered by infrared sensors. Scientists believe fewer than 60 Javan rhinos exist in the world.

SCIENCE

Cosmic grand slam

Tucson, ariz. - Most of the asteroids that blasted Meteor Crater out of the Colorado Plateau near Winslow, Ariz., melted, according to new evidence released by an international team of scientists. This finding contradicts a previously held theory that the Canyon Diablo meteor vaporized and gives a glimpse of what happens when similar-size meteors slam into Earth every 6,000 years or so.

In research published this month in Science magazine, scientists conclude that more than four-fifths of Earth-crossing asteroid completely melted and spread over the Four Corners region where Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah meet.

African dusting

MIAMI - There's more evidence of what a small world it really can be: Dust from Africa routinely ends up in the air that people breathe in Miami.

Joseph Prospero of the University of Miami reviewed 23 years of measurements of airborne particles collected at the university's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, located on an island off the coast near Miami. After a chemical analysis of the samples, Mr. Prospero concluded that up to one-half of the dust in the air over Miami comes from Africa.

(c) Copyright 1999. The Christian Science Publishing Society

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