Zanzibar's 'Solar Mamas' flip the switch on rural homes, gender roles
Take a step back from Zanzibar’s white sand beaches and big hotels and you’re in a very different world. One where the island’s dusty, inland villages largely go dark once the sun sets. This is when...
View ArticleAlbert Einstein: The slacker years
If you ever come up empty when looking for a job, you still probably don’t have it as rough as Albert Einstein.Einstein, who debuted The Theory of General Relativity a century ago, spent years...
View ArticleIMF: 'True cost' of fossil fuels is $5.3 trillion a year
A new report from the International Monetary Fund says global use of fossil fuels costs taxpayers and consumers $5.3 trillion year. That’s trillion — with a T. The report comes amid a rising call for...
View ArticleThe next time your GPS gets you somewhere on time, thank Albert Einstein
Imagine this: You and a bunch of friends are hiking through hilly, lake-dotted terrain. And you suddenly realize that no one in your group has any idea how to get back to the state park entrance, where...
View ArticleThe road to Arctic oil drilling runs through Seattle. People there are trying...
It’s the latest front in the growing global movement to stop fossil fuel extraction. The Port of Seattle, a longtime staging point for expeditions to cash in on Alaska’s natural resources, has been...
View ArticleEight simple tasks the US military has asked a new generation of robots to...
Twenty-three international robotics teams competed over the weekend near Los Angeles. The event was sponsored by DARPA — the Pentagon's Defence Advanced Research Project Agency, the agency that helped...
View ArticleWhy your beefsteak tomatoes are getting beefier
If you’ve noticed your beefsteak tomatoes have been a little beefier, it’s not a figment of your imagination.Produce is getting plumper these days. Farmers have been cross-breeding plants for hundreds...
View ArticleA new study might make you look at your morning toast a little differently
If someone told you that you and a slice of bread have a common genetic heritage, you probably wouldn't believe it. Yet it's true.As it turns out, yeast and human genes go way, way back: About a...
View ArticleShe's Italy's rock star astronaut. And she has landed safely back home
The space capsule that parachuted on to the steppes of Kazakhstan today returned to Italy its pride and joy, astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. Sure, two space dudes were on board — a Russian and an...
View ArticleDid you get stuck in traffic this morning? They're trying to find out why
Americans spend an average of 40 hours stuck in traffic each year. Which, according to one study, translates into 120 billion dollars of wasted time and fuel.That creates a huge amount of pollution —...
View ArticleHow a new fossil discovery changes the perceived evolutionary path for humans
Lucy, otherwise known as Australopithecus afarensis, long considered to be the lone ancestor of modern humans, may have had a sibling. Or perhaps we should say a cousin.Upper and lower jaw fossils...
View ArticleNASA is using twin brothers to observe the effects of zero gravity on the...
Astronaut twin brothers Scott and Mark Kelly have each been in space four times — but never for as long as a year and never as the subjects of their own human study.Now, NASA has sent Scott Kelly up to...
View ArticleNew documentary explores how social media delayed the search for and...
Social media has the power to do great good, and to cause unimaginable harm. In the span of just a few weeks, one family experienced both.In the spring of 2013, a Brown University undergraduate named...
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In war-torn Syria, a priceless seed vault continues to hang on
During the past few years of civil war in Syria, rebel fighters have destroyed Shiite mosques and Christian graves, and burned and looted Christian churches while the Islamic State group has demolished...
View ArticleThe 'slimy, smelly, creepy world' of Gross Science
For most people, the word “gross” is an insult. For Anna Rothschild, it’s a gateway to some of the planet’s most interesting phenomena.Rothschild is the host of NOVA’s web series Gross Science,...
View ArticleTo clean up its harbor, Boston paid a toll in human life
A nearly 10-mile-long, deep, rock tunnel channels cleaned water from the Deer Island Treatment Plant into Massachusetts Bay. It was a miraculous feat of engineering except for one thing: there was no...
View Article'Hello Earth!' Philae calls out from space and ESA scientists spring into action
It was like a person emerging from a coma. And the first words when it awoke:"Hello Earth! Can you hear me?"Hello Earth! Can you hear me? #WakeUpPhilae— Philae Lander (@Philae2014) June 14,...
View ArticleProposed changes to US fishing rules could undo protections against overfishing
Environmental leaders are warning that proposed changes to the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Act, which protects US fisheries, will weaken standards and lead to renewed overfishing of US marine...
View ArticleFracking in the Bakken comes with a high human cost
Over the last decade, the United States has undergone an economic transformation in energy production. As President Barack Obama told Congress in his 2014 State of the Union address, "Today America is...
View ArticlePope Francis sounds the alarm on the environment and he wants everyone to listen
Pope Francis wants to save the planet. And he would like your help.The head of the Roman Catholic Church released an official document in Rome on Thursday that has been creating buzz for months. It’s...
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