Arctic ice melt poses a risk of uncontrollable climate change, scientists say
A new report warns that current levels of Arctic ice melting could trigger key "tipping points" leading to catastrophic and uncontrollable climate change. If these tipping points are reached, the...
View ArticleThe hair trade is a billion-dollar global industry
You've probably heard of a hair shirt — it's rough, woven out of goats' hair and worn as penance. Now imagine a wedding garment fashioned from human hair.Kishore Kumar donned one to make his nuptial...
View ArticleForget pizza. In Jakarta, this delivery app will send a stranger to style...
Sure, Jakarta has a traffic problem. But that statement doesn’t quite capture it. The city’s gridlocked streets are a graveyard, bathed in exhaust fumes, where your afternoons go to die.Each day,...
View ArticleConservationists want you to eat more lionfish. Wait, what?
With its arsenal of spiny, venom-tipped fin rays, the lionfish is not a typical (or easy) ingredient in your fish tacos. But at Norman’s Cay, a restaurant in downtown Manhattan, lionfish comes grilled...
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A start-up is imagining how mushrooms may be turned into leather
As it stands, the mushroom is already a multi-purpose organism: Aside from its ecological functions, it can be eaten as nourishment, brewed as tea, taken as a naturopathic remedy and used in dyes. But...
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America's missileers stand ready to launch nuclear weapons — and pray they...
Fifty-three years ago, the United States came closer to nuclear war than ever before, or since.For 13 days in October 1962 — during the Cuban Missile Crisis — America's nuclear arsenal was kept on high...
View ArticleThe violent collision that formed our moon may have tilted Earth, too
The moon just had its Hollywood close-up. In mid-November, its slightly elliptical orbit brought the full moon closer to Earth than it’s been since 1948, and it dazzled in the part. Photos from...
View ArticleA paralyzed monkey can walk again, thanks to a wireless 'brain-computer'...
A new report in Nature gives hopeful news about how we could recover from paralyzing spinal cord injuries in the future.Researchers describe a rhesus monkey regaining the use of its leg just six days...
View ArticleThe world's nations vow to move forward with the Paris Agreement, with or...
US President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to “rip up” the Paris climate agreement. But at the first official meeting of the parties to the agreement, other nations expressed their...
View ArticleUkraine moves giant new safety dome over Chernobyl
Ukraine on Tuesday unveiled the world's largest moveable metal structure over the Chernobyl nuclear power plant's doomed fourth reactor to ensure the safety of Europeans for future generations.The...
View ArticleWhy do we do medical research on mice? It all started with fur coats.
Did you hear that we cured cancer? Or that Type 2 diabetes has been eradicated? Or that we know what gene causes autism, and can turn it off and on?All of these things are true — for mice.Today, almost...
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The Svalbard Global Seed Vault preserves the world's agricultural heritage
Deep in an icy mountain not far from the north pole are rows upon rows of boxes filled with seeds — nearly a million samples gathered from the seed collections of nations around the globe.This is the...
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A North Dakota blizzard hits the Standing Rock protest camp hard
Protesters at the Standing Rock Camp in North Dakota spent Sunday evening celebrating: The Army Corps of Engineers said it wouldn't give permission for the Dakota Access Pipeline to run under the...
View ArticleChina has climate change deniers, too. But they’re mostly shunned.
It’s official. The next White House, according to Donald Trump’s chief of staff, is likely to treat climate change as a “bunch of bunk.”This would, of course, require a radical rejection of scientific...
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NASA's Earth and climate research might be in jeopardy under Trump
"A sincere search for areas of common ground.” That’s what Al Gore called his surprise meeting this week with President-elect Donald Trump. Gore, of course, is one of the leading voices for aggressive...
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Care not where giraffes wear neckties. Care that they might go extinct.
The question caused a storm on social media last week: Would a giraffe wear a tie at the top or the bottom of its neck?When giraffes go to work do you think they put the tie at the top or bottom of...
View ArticleWith Trump's EPA pick, the prospects for stopping dangerous global warming...
Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you’re a believer in real science, and accept the overwhelming evidence that pollution from our power plants and vehicles and other sources is leading to a...
View ArticleWhat's the role of social media in the news media?
In the days immediately following the US presidential election, a quick Google News search of the phrase “final election results” netted a slimy top result. It was an article claiming, incorrectly,...
View ArticleThis farmer’s answer to climate change? Plant crops that trap carbon.
While discussions about climate change usually center on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Eric Toensmeier is focused on the other side of the equation: how to capture the carbon dioxide that's...
View ArticleNon-OPEC oil states agree to cuts in crude production in a 'historic' deal
Eleven countries agreed on Saturday to cut their oil output, teaming up with the OPEC cartel in an exceptional bid to end the world's glut of crude and reverse a dramatic fall in income.Russia and 10...
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