This frothy flume is what 300,000 gallons of water per second looks like. A 60-hour surge of almost 75 billion gallons, it’s part of an effort to revitalize the ecosystem of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. Teams from the U.S. Geological Survey, the Grand Canyon Trust and 25 other agencies have been working together since 1995 to develop a plan that will mimic natural flooding to redistribute sediment that would normally wash downriver.

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You may find this hard to believe if you’re standing near a swarm of chain smokers, but most scientists think the trace amounts of carbon dioxide and other pollutants in cigarette smoke have, at most, a negligible effect on the climate. “In fact,” theorizes John M. Wallace, a professor at the University of Washington’s climate-research department, “it might even counteract global warming by an equally minuscule amount, because the white particulate matter in smoke would reflect some of the sun’s energy, thereby minimizing heat.”

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