Early administrative decisions in China’s Ming Dynasty eventually caused a drastic fall in tax revenues, a reduction in military preparedness, the collapse of the currency system, and failed to make sufficient investment in vital transportation infrastructure.

The North American moose's long legs enable it to move quickly through the woods, stepping easily over downed trees, but predators pursuing it must leap or go around them.

Carbon dioxide, which traps heat in the atmosphere and helps regulate the planet’s surface temperature, is constantly being exchanged between the atmosphere on the one hand and the oceans and terrestrial plants on the other.

By using a process called echolocation to analyze the echoes of the high-pitched sounds they produce, bats can determine not only the distance to an object, but they also can determine its shape and size and the direction in which it is moving.

The growth projected for these storms in different computerized weather models varies widely.

Industry analysts said that the recent rise in fuel prices may be an early signal of the possibility of gasoline and heating oil prices staying higher than usually through the end of the year.

In many of the world’s regions, increasing pressure on water resources has resulted both from expanding development, changes in climate, and from pollution, so that the future supply in some of the more arid areas is a concern going forward.

Unable to build nests or care for their young, a female cowbird lays up to 40 eggs a year in the nests of other birds, including warblers, vireos, flycatchers, and thrushes.

Kudzu, an Asian vine that has grown rampantly in the southern United States since introducing it in the 1920s to thwart soil erosion, has overrun many houses and countless acres of roadside.

In early Mesopotamian civilization, castor oil served not only as a laxative, but also a skin-softening lotion and it was a construction lubricant for sliding giant stone blocks over wooden rollers.