Researchers predict that the recurring oxygen-depleted "dead zone" off the Louisiana coast will grow this summer to 8,543 square miles _ its largest in at least 22 years.The forecast, released Monday by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, is based on a federal estimate of nitrogen...

Researchers predict that the recurring oxygen-depleted "dead zone" off the Louisiana coast will grow this summer to 8,543 square miles _ its largest in at least 22 years.The forecast, released Monday by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, is based on a federal estimate of nitrogen...

Because of rising demand for ethanol, American farmers are growing more corn than at any time since the Depression. And sea life in the Gulf of Mexico is paying the price.The nation's corn crop is fertilized with millions of pounds of nitrogen-based fertilizer. And when...

Because of rising demand for ethanol, American farmers are growing more corn than at any time since World War II. And sea life in the Gulf of Mexico is paying the price.The nation's corn crop is fertilized with millions of pounds of nitrogen-based fertilizer. And...

I defend [Stephen King as a SF writer] now because I have a good excuse: The Dead Zone. (p. 164) Technology doesn't enter into this tale. The occult does, however, for Johnny's talent is occult. It is of the light, though, not the dark; and he uses it to fight for the good. And here is the key to King's choice of themes. He writes of good versus evil, putting a usually shaded white up against the blackest black. He uses the occult, I suspect, solely because it lends itself to tales of h...