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Women's Health - Contraceptives
5:04 pm
Thu October 4, 2012

Study: Giving Women Free Birth Control Reduces Abortion Rates

Credit (Via Wikimedia Commons/Victor byckttor)
IUDs and implants are 20 times more effective at preventing pregnancy than short-term birth control options like the pill, patch, or vaginal ring (pictured).
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Giving women free access to contraception can dramatically reduce abortion rates.

That's the finding of a new study out today from Washington University School of Medicine.

Researchers gave more than 9,000 St. Louis-area women free birth control for three years.

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Joplin tornado
1:17 pm
Thu October 4, 2012

Joplin Gets Additional Federal Funds To Clean Up Lead

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An aerial view of Joplin, Mo. on June 1, 2011, 10 days after an EF-5 tornado swept through the area. The EPA announced today that the city will receive an additional $2.4 million to clean up contaminated soil disturbed by the twister.
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The city of Joplin, Mo. is getting an additional boost in an effort to clean up soil contaminated by lead and cadmium that was blown around by the fatal EF-5 tornado in May 2011.

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Environmental Clean-up
6:30 am
Fri September 28, 2012

EPA Receives Funding For Lead Clean-Up In Madison County

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Several counties in Missouri were included in lead mining, including Madison.
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today clean-up methods it will take on a former mining site in Madison County.

The Madison County Mines Superfund site is part of the Old Lead Belt, where the mining of heavy metals began in the 1700s. The nearly 500-square-mile area is contaminated by lead, a highly-toxic metal that can wreak havoc on organs and tissues in the human body.

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The Two-Way
4:44 pm
Thu September 27, 2012

Streams Of Water Once Flowed On Mars; NASA Says Photos Prove It

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Credit NASA
NASA says it has found proof that water shaped the rocks on the left, in a photograph taken by the Mars rover Curiosity (left). For comparison, the agency released an image of rocks from the Earth (right).
Credit NASA
Pathfinder, 1997: The first mission to land a rover on Mars, Pathfinder touched down in Ares Vallis, an ancient flood plain in the planet's northern hemisphere. Among the 2.3 billion bits of data sent back by the lander and its rover, Sojourner, were 15 chemical analyses of rocks and soil, which suggested Mars had once had liquid water and a thicker atmosphere.
Credit NASA
Spirit, 2010: When NASA's Spirit rover got stuck in Martian sand, it proved to be a lucky break: The spinning wheel churned up soil that provided evidence of rocks formed in the presence of water.
Credit NASA
Opportunity, 2004: Opportunity discovered tiny mineral spheres — nicknamed blueberries — poking out of rocks that were likely formed by water. Researchers using Opportunity's science instruments identified them as concretions rich in the mineral hematite, deposited by water saturating the bedrock.
Credit NASA
Curiosity 2012: A wider view of the outcrop of a former streambed shows bedrock that scientists believe was likely exposed by meteorites striking the surface of Mars.
Credit NASA
Curiosity, 2012: NASA says that water shaped the rocks on the left, in a photograph taken by the Mars rover Curiosity. For comparison, the agency released an image of rocks from the Earth (right).
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Originally published on Thu September 27, 2012 8:31 pm

NASA's Curiosity rover has found definitive proof that water once ran across the surface of Mars, the agency announced today. NASA scientists say new photos from the rover show rocks that were smoothed and rounded by water. The rocks are in a large canyon and nearby channels that were cut by flowing water, making up an alluvial fan.

"You had water transporting these gravels to the downslope of the fan," NASA researchers say. The gravel then formed into a conglomerate rock, which was in turn likely covered before being exposed again.

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