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Bodies Of First Responders Identified From Texas Explosion

Credit Frederic J. Brown / AFP/Getty Images

A view of the devastation from the fertilizer plant blast on Wednesday in West, Texas.

By Scott Neuman

Originally published on Mon April 22, 2013 1:22 pm

Authorities have identified four more sets of remains of first responders who battled last week's fire and explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas. Wednesday's blast killed at least 14 people and injured more than 200, according to officials cited by The Associated Press.

8:45 am

Mon April 22, 2013

This Scientist Aims High To Save The World's Coral Reefs

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Credit Richard Harris / NPR

Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science takes a water sample during his experiment on part of the Great Barrier Reef. The water is slightly pink because his team is using a dye to trace an acid-neutralizing chemical as it flows across the reef.

Credit Richard Harris / NPR

Ken Caldeira, a researcher with the Carnegie Institution for Science, pilots an aluminum skiff filled with equipment for his experiment on the reef. He is trying to figure out whether corals would grow faster if he neutralized human-induced changes in the ocean's acid balance.

Credit Richard Harris / NPR

Caldeira pours fluorescein dye over the coral to determine which direction the current is flowing. This spectacular dye is also used in medical diagnosis and is considered harmless for the reef.

Credit Richard Harris / NPR

Tubes snake back to a floating tank (the yellow object in the background), which is attached to a skiff anchored just off the reef. The tank contains antacid and some red dye.

Credit Courtesy of Lilian Caldeira

The world's oceans are 30 percent more acidic than they were before the industrial revolution because carbon dioxide from cars and power plants dissolves in ocean water and turns into carbonic acid. That threatens the health of the world's coral reefs.

Credit Richard Harris / NPR

The antacid mixture is pumped over the reef during the hourlong experiment. Caldeira hopes it will neutralize the water and help the coral grow.

Credit Richard Harris / NPR

Field assistant Benjamin Cox keeps track of water samples as they are drawn from the edge of the reef. The samples will be analyzed in a chemistry lab back on One Tree Island.

Credit Richard Harris / NPR

The sun sets at One Tree Island. The research Caldeira's team is doing might help save small patches of coral reefs, but it would be impossible to scale up a chemical treatment to protect whole reefs from increasing ocean acidity.

Credit Courtesy of Lilian Caldeira

Researchers from the Carnegie Institution for Science spent a month at a remote research outpost — One Tree Island, at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef — to study how changing ocean acidity is affecting coral reefs.

Credit Richard Harris / NPR

Members of the research team fend for themselves in a communal kitchen (while fending off persistent ants) before heading out for a challenging day on the reef.

By Richard Harris

Originally published on Mon April 22, 2013 9:52 pm

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Most scientists find a topic that interests them and keep digging deeper and deeper into the details. But Ken Caldeira takes the opposite approach in search for solutions to climate change. He goes after the big questions, and leaves the details to others.

8:42 am

Mon April 22, 2013

So Far, So Good: But Midwest's Floods Aren't Over

Credit Bill Greenblatt / UPI /Landov

As the Mississippi River has risen in St. Louis, the city's Lewis and Clark statue has — as often happens in the spring — been partially submerged.

By Mark Memmott

Originally published on Mon April 22, 2013 12:51 pm

The good news is that "the big river didn't get too big," The St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes this morning.

"Sandbags held back the cresting Mississippi River from several towns north of St. Louis on Sunday," it adds, "while the forecast for the immediate vicinity remained high but manageable."

7:17 am

Mon April 22, 2013

Book News: E.L. Konigsburg, 'Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler' Author, Dies

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By editor

Originally published on Mon April 22, 2013 12:04 pm

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

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9:37 am

Mon April 22, 2013