Signs suggest the time is right for a climate change breakthrough at the...
In December 2009, world leaders gathered in Copenhagen for the United Nations Summit on climate change.The summit was billed as an historic event, and with the recent election of President Barack...
View ArticleBeing 'endlessly sorry' may not put an end to VW's emissions scam troubles
Volkswagen’s CEO Martin Winterkorn has said he's ‘endlessly sorry’ that his company rigged the pollution control systems of millions of its diesel cars to show bogus emision levels during tests.The...
View ArticleVolkswagen didn't engineer a fix to its dirty diesel fumes: It faked out...
Volkswagen has done for diesel engines what Lance Armstrong did for competitive cycling. And regulators, as with Armstrong's cycling competitors, are asking: Have other automakers cheated as well?The...
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A short story about the long history of the Popemobile
Pope Francis is in America. He arrived at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington Tuesday, on an Alitalia flight from Cuba. Waiting for him on the ramp wasn't an elaborate limosuine or even the trademark...
View ArticleHuman rights advocates hope business leaders used Xi Jinping's visit to lobby...
Before visiting the White House, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with the CEOs of America’s top tech companies.The Seattle visit was an obvious opportunity for the companies — which include Amazon and...
View Article'Dazzling and mystifying' new features detected on the surface of Pluto
Newly released high resolution images of the surface of Pluto have revealed an unexpected "rippled" geography covering large areas of the dwarf planet’s surface.The high-definition images are the...
View ArticleTonight is the moon-viewing event of the year. When to head outside, and what...
“This is going to blow people's minds,” promises Dean Regas, an astronomer at the Cincinnati Observatory and co-host of the PBS program, Star Gazers. This evening, there will be four major moon events...
View ArticleIs biking in the city bad for your health? Researchers want to find out.
There are many things bikers have to worry about while out on the road: construction, potholes, adverse weather, unaware drivers and, of course, as one inner city cyclist pointed out, black snot. “It...
View ArticleScientists are looking at riskier ways to reverse climate change
Our planet is heating up. There’s mostly consensus on what’s causing global warming (we are), as well as how quickly we need to work to slow it down (very quickly).Now many climate scientists are...
View ArticleIs global warming contributing to the current refugee crisis?
President Barack Obama, when he addressed the Coast Guard Academy in May, pointed to climate change when speaking about instability in Africa and the Middle East. “(I) understand climate change did not...
View ArticleThese volunteer weed whackers are fighting invaders in Boston's harbor
There are many groups and efforts dedicated to conserving threatened wildlife and plant species. One group of environmentally-conscious volunteers in Boston, Massachusetts, however, is not afraid of...
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A Finnish landscape architect tries to connect the broken pieces of Boston's...
On a Sunday morning last April, Maria Jaakkola stood on a sidewalk next to a busy road in Boston. She stepped into what looked like a giant neon-green pillowcase, pulled it up over her head and zipped...
View Article$7 billion later, a dry well sends Shell home from the Arctic
After years of planning, billions of dollars invested, pitched battles with environmentalists and a crucial green light from the Obama administration, the news Monday from the energy giant Shell was...
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Why Canada is banning microbeads
We all want clean teeth. And hey, if we could scrub off a few of those laugh lines, who wouldn't?But do you know what's in some of those drugstore products that say they will make your teeth whiter or...
View ArticlePope Francis urges a ‘culture of care’ to repair the global environment
During his visit to the US, Pope Francis told a joint session of Congress that now is the time for "courageous actions and strategies" to protect nature. The question is, will his words make any...
View Article10 questions with Dava Newman, the new deputy NASA administrator
“Oh yeah!” That was Dava Newman’s reaction when asked if she’d be willing to jet off to Mars.The best way to describe the aerospace engineer, who's currently on leave from a professorship at MIT, is as...
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Mars brought them together. Now, they want to be the the first couple to live...
The news this week that NASA has detected flowing water on the surface of Mars hit especially close to home for one couple. After all, they plan to live there some day."I've never doubted that I was...
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The science is in: beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder
It turns out there is no universally beautiful face.There are some factors, such as symmetrical facial features or clear skin, that are encoded into our genes as attractive traits.But a study published...
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In the 'new North,' forest fires are permanently altering the landscape
Scientists are warning that intense wildfires in the northernmost areas of North America are changing the composition of the tundra ecosystem, degrading permafrost and contributing to a northward...
View ArticleActivists to Obama: Stop leasing public land to take out oil, gas, coal
A coalition of 400 groups, including environmental activists, faith leaders and labor organizations, is demanding President Barack Obama end fossil fuel leasing on public lands.“This is the next bold...
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