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Zion National Park in southwestern Utah is the poster child for the crowding of America’s most hallowed natural places. With its soaring and magisterial red, dun, and white rock cliffs with grand names such as the Court of the Patriarchs and the Temple of Sinawava, Zion is at the top of the list of the nation’s most dramatic scenery.

Compared to its dazzling deep-sea coral neighbors, the green Latrunculia austini sponge is pretty drab. Dotted with craters and pitted by deep holes the golf-ball sized sponge is curious-looking rather than beautiful. But green Latrunculia’s unique chemical composition holds a promise much greater than mere beauty.

Researchers have identified new biological markers of cystic fibrosis (CF), a genetic disease which affects children and young adults, leaving them with lifelong health complications including digestive problems and persistent lung infections.

Even though he grew up in an urban area surrounded by buildings, it wasn't until Omar Yossofzai took part in a study on migratory birds that he realized how many birds die daily after crashing into buildings.

The fourth-year undergrad led a group of U of T Scarborough students to track fallen migratory birds colliding into campus buildings over a 21-day period last fall.

The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), also known as the doldrums, is one of the dramatic features of Earth’s climate system. Prominent enough to be seen from space, the ITCZ appears in satellite images as a band of bright clouds around the tropics. Here, moist warm air accumulates in this atmospheric region near the equator, where the ocean and atmosphere heavily interact. Intense solar radiation and calm, warm ocean waters produce an area of high humidity, ascending air, and rainfall, which is fed by converging trade winds from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The convected air forms clusters of thunderstorms characteristic of the ITCZ, releasing heat before moving away from the ITCZ — toward the poles — cooling and descending in the subtropics. This circulation completes the Hadley cells of the ITCZ, which play an important role in balancing Earth’s energy budget — transporting energy between the hemispheres and away from the equator.