Alva Review-Courier -

WASHINGTON (AP) — Some dirty old birds are helping scientists better understand one of the more baffling climate change mysteries.

University of Chicago researchers Shane DuBay and Carl Fuldner examined 1,347 dead birds in museums in Chicago, Detroit and Pittsburgh, comparing birds from the 1900s and 1910s to birds from decades later.

The difference was black and white.

Feathers of birds in the 1900s were blacker than birds just 20 or 30 years later, suggesting that there was more soot in the atmosphere than scientists originally thought, according to a study published Monday in the Proceeding...