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13 articles from Yahoo!

Love avocados? Thank the toxodon

Given avocado’s popularity today, it’s hard to believe that we came close to not having them in our supermarkets at all. In my new book “Avocado: A Global History,” I explain how the avocado survived a series of ecological and cultural close calls that could have easily relegated them to extinction or niche delicacy. Instead, the avocado persevered, prospered – and became one of the most...

NASA to fly a football stadium-sized high-altitude balloon to study light from newborn stars

NASA's latest mission won't actually reach space – but it will come very close, with a massive observation craft made up of a football stadium-sized high-altitude balloon, along with a special stratospheric telescope instrument that can observe wavelengths of light blocked by Earth's atmosphere, cast from newly-formed stars. The mission is called the 'Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for...