Islamic militants fighting in Iraq help boost the fortunes of FireChat, a new...
When you are a brand-new tech startup with a cool mobile app, you don't expect early adopters to come from war-torn Iraq. But that's what Micha Benoliel and his colleagues noticed with their app...
View ArticleCalifornia Drought Is Big Business for Drillers
After three consecutive years of insufficient rainfall, California is facing its most severe drought since tracking began in 2000, according to the federal U.S. Drought Monitor.Residents of the state...
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How India's Subsidized Farms Have Created A Water Crisis
The Indo-Gangetic Basin, which lies at the foothills of the Himalayas, is one of the areas in the world facing a huge water crisis. The Basin spans from Pakistan, across Northern India into...
View ArticleOne woman traveled the world for 10 years to find the oldest living things on...
One of the oldest living things on Earth is a giant plant that grows almost completely underground. It’s called the underground forest. It's more than 13,000 year old and is one of the many ancient...
View ArticleHow Groundwater is Saving California Farmers During Drought
Steve Arthur has been in the well-drilling business for decades and says he’s never seen anything quite like what’s happening now in California’s San Joaquin Valley. “People just call and say, ‘Put me...
View ArticleIn Rural Kenya, A Community Organizes for Water
Mna Kameli whistles as he walks the perimeter of the Kasingu Earthen Dam, a small reservoir in rural Kenya surrounded by thorny trees and scrubby yellow grass. Kameli is the Dan’s caretaker. He keeps...
View ArticleWhy a country that ousted two dictators views digital privacy differently
When it comes to spying on its own citizens the former East Germany certainly had a lock on things.The Stasi secret police kept very close tabs on what East Germans were doing. And that dark past...
View ArticleA new tool seeks to put more knowledge about storm surge in the hands of...
Surges from big coastal storms are a bigger and bigger problem as climate change raises sea levels around the world. That’s why a new service from the US National Hurricane Center in Miami could be so...
View ArticleAfter years on the brink, it might be comeback time for monarch butterflies
This past winter, the future of the monarch butterfly looked grim. But now, a comeback might be brewing.For three years in a row, scientists saw record low numbers of hibernating monarchs in Mexico,...
View ArticleFrom space, Hurricane Arthur makes a stunning 4th of July show
For many on the east coast, Hurricane Arthur is an unwelcome visitor on the holiday weekend. But Reid Wiseman has a different view on the storm — literally.Wiseman, an astronaut on the International...
View ArticlePlans to put a human on Mars are a mess, says a new report. Should we even try?
Since the days of Richard Nixon, presidents have pledged to land an American on Mars. But more than 40 years later, we're still doing it wrong.That's according to a new report from the National...
View ArticleCanada approves a new plan for a pipeline to bring oil from Alberta's tar...
The Canadian government has approved a plan to build a new pipeline to carry oil from the Alberta tar sands to the Canadian west coast — and the contentious issue has aroused new passions on both sides...
View ArticleA 'lexicon' of chimp gestures may tell us things about our own language
For more than eight years, Dr. Catherine Hobaiter has spent time with the Sonso chimpanzee community in the Budongo Forest Reserve in Uganda. It's there that she's seen the group of 18 chimps use a...
View ArticleShould we harm captive great apes in order to save wild ones?
Here’s a conundrum. As our understanding of the pain and suffering of animals grows, countries around the world have phased out the use of humans’ close cousins — gorillas and chimpanzees — in medical...
View ArticleHere's another complication for fracking — radioactive waste
At the Chemung County landfill in Elmira, New York, piles of drill cuttings from Pennsylvania shale oil wells are scattered around the yard. The cuttings look like heaps of wet black sand, wrapped in a...
View ArticleISIS is using water as a weapon in Iraq
Natural resources — or the lack of resources — can be a potent force in war or can create social unrest that leads to political unrest. In Pentagon-speak, it's called a "threat multiplier," and water...
View ArticleIs Bigfoot a big myth? A new study testing hair DNA finds no proof
Do you believe in Bigfoot or Yetis or Sasquatches? Well, get ready to be disappointed.A new study by Oxford University suggests that the seemingly mythical creature is just that — a myth.In 2012,...
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The view over Alberta's tar sands shows booming wealth — and environmental...
Photographer Alex MacLean brought an audio recorder with him on his flights over the Alberta Tar Sands. Go along for the ride and hear Alex’s descriptions and observations in this exclusive audio...
View ArticleSurprise! Sunscreen is only effective if you actually use it
Ahhh ... summer. Backyard grilling, trips to the beach, sailing on the lake — and the familiar scent of a nice, finely-aged SPF 30 sunscreen.Almost everybody knows they're supposed to use sunscreen,...
View ArticleFeminist icon Germaine Greer is getting down in the dirt for a new challenge
Germaine Greer's life has been one of challenging the status quo — and even upending it.Her 1970 feminist classic, The Female Eunuch, proclaimed that the "traditional" suburban, consumerist nuclear...
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