With the waters rising, the Dutch find eco-friendly ways to keep them at bay
A patch of lowland near the Dutch city of Dordrecht is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Or, as Dutch ecologist and dike designer Mindert de Vries puts it, “between a wet and a wetter place” — the...
View Article'Dr. Fill' vies for crossword solving supremacy, but still comes up short
A computer program called ‘Dr. Fill’ can solve even the most difficult crossword puzzles in just a few seconds. But humans still have the advantage: computers just can’t compete with human invention,...
View ArticleHere's why the US and Europe are so far apart on climate policy
World leaders converged at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday, declaring their intent to step up efforts against climate change. But if the gathering was meant to demonstrate their collective...
View ArticleIndia is over the moon about its mission to Mars
Indians were bursting with pride today as the country's first mission to Mars entered the Red Planet's orbit. Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared from the Bangalore command center of the state-run...
View ArticleA scientist on the cutting edge of Ebola research calls for calm and focus
The furious effort to sequence the genome of the Ebola virus this summer attracted a devoted team of researchers from around the world. A young Harvard geneticist named Pardis Sabeti was at the...
View ArticleChina says no to a shipment of US corn contaminated with GMOs — and...
Since November, China has been rejecting shipments of grain from the US, claiming they contain trace amounts of a type of genetically engineered corn not approved in the People’s Republic — costing US...
View ArticleAre GMOs really behind India's farming success?
No topic seems to inspire more debate than genetically modified organisms. Should genetic modifications be used to makes crops live longer, resist pests and drought and yield more harvest? Or are GMOs...
View ArticleWomen are the face of India's Mars mission, but they're still the exception
Two days ago, India celebrated the success of its first Mars mission. Since then, the country and the world have been celebrating something else: the role of the women behind this mission. It’s not...
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One scientist calls the largest marine sanctuary in the world a volcano of fish
Find Hawaii on your map, then look west and south into the vast blue Pacific. That's where you'll find what's being hailed as the largest marine sanctuary in the world.It was already pretty big when...
View ArticleSome customers are bent out of shape after Apple's big iPhone launch
It's been a rotten month for Apple: First iCloud was hacked, then there were problems with the latest iOS 8 update — and now, some of the people to whom Apple sold 10 million new iPhone 6s complain...
View ArticleFearing pollution, some local governments are demanding back zoning control...
In eight states across the country, communities are trying to decide if new energy sources and possible economic growth from oil and gas are worth losing control of their land — and the huge changes it...
View ArticleAmazon's new show might mark a new era in how you watch TV
On Friday, Amazon launched a new, highly anticipated show called "Transparent," starring Jeffrey Tambor as a transgender parent struggling to come out to her family.The show's debut comes just days...
View ArticleThe water on Earth is even older than the sun
Next time you reach for a “fresh” glass of water, think of this: some of the molecules in that water are billions of years old — older, in fact, than the solar system itself.On the face of it, this...
View ArticleSeven years later, scientists are still looking for answers about Colony...
Seven years ago, scientists became alarmed when whole honey bee colonies would suddenly die off — and it was happening at an alarming rate. At the time, beekeepers began to report that the adult bee...
View ArticleA newly-minted 'genius' hopes to stop pollution from soot and smoke
You probably know black carbon as soot or smoke, the stuff that comes from burning fossil fuels like coal and diesel as well as forest fires and cooking stoves. What you may not know is that scientists...
View ArticleSolving climate change may require transforming capitalism
Solving climate change isn't just a matter of new technologies or laws; it will require that we challenge the entire logic and structure of the deregulated capitalist economy.That's according to author...
View ArticleGlobal wildlife populations have fallen by half — a stat that says it all
Every now and then, a single statistic tells you more about the world we live in than a firehose of news ever could. Here’s one of them: Since 1970, the Earth has lost more than half its...
View ArticleA NASA spacecraft reaches Mars just in time to see an unexpected guest
NASA's latest Mars probe entered the planet's orbit on September 21. By sheer luck, it arrived just in time to get an up close look at Siding Spring, a comet set to pass by Mars on October 19.It's a...
View ArticleForest ecologists are working to make New York's concrete jungle a little...
Rich Hallett, a research ecologist with the US Forest Service, has an unusual job this fall. Using an eight-foot-tall slingshot, he's shooting beanbags at the leaves atop New York City's trees.When...
View ArticleThere was no big agreement, but plenty of progress at the UN Climate Summit
More than 125 heads of state — along with government officials, CEOs and NGOs — gathered at the UN’s Climate Change Summit late last month to reaffirm their commitment to curtailing climate change and...
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