Nature World News: This year's dead zone located off the coast of the Southeastern United States in the Gulf of Mexico, though big, is not a large as feared, NOAA announced Monday.
Dead -- or hypoxic -- zones result when runoff derived from agricultural and other human activities reach the watershed, causing an overgrowth of algae that sinks, decomposes and consumes much of the oxygen needed to support life.
With this in mind, many researchers braced for the worst based on flood conditions in the Midwest that...