Sustainability
Is Spent Nuclear Fuel a Waste or a Resource?
A new report argues that the world has plenty of uranium but needs to make wise choices about what to do with it once its been depleted in a nuclear reactor
Stories by David Biello
Sustainability
It's a Gas: Light Hydrocarbons Drove Microbial Blooms Cleaning Up the Gulf Oil Spill
In the hydrocarbon buffet provided by the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, microbes chose to rapidly eat light gases first
Evolution
Man-Made: A Baby Boy's Development May Predict a Young Man's Success
Early childhood nutrition may play a role in determining the stature and masculinity of young men, suggests a study that began in 1983
Sustainability
Jimmy Carter's solar panel makes it back to Washington, but not back onto the White House
In 1979, President Jimmy Carter had 32 panels installed atop the White House to capture the sun's heat. Thirty-odd years later, at least one of the panels still works, warming up in the Northeastern sunlight of Boston and sending steam heat out of a spigot on September 8, en route down the east coast from its temporary home at Unity College in Maine...
Sustainability
How Much Global Warming Is Guaranteed Even If We Stopped Building Coal-Fired Power Plants Today?
All the world's power plants, vehicles and factories that presently exist may not emit enough carbon dioxide to cause catastrophic climate change
Sustainability
In the Market for Pollution: Carbon Trade or Carbon Con?
In the carbon market, a good deal for the environment needs to also be a good deal for the bottom line. Vouching for the environmental credibility isn't easy: Who verifies the verifiers?...
Mind
Psilocybin found to ease end-of-life anxiety in small study of patients with fatal cancer
Can the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms" help those with terminal cancer cope with their fate? That was the question asked by researchers, who published the results of their investigation September 6 in Archives of General Psychiatry ...
Sustainability
In the Market for Pollution: Selling the Blue Sky
In the carbon market a good deal for the environment needs to also be a good deal for the bottom line. Vouching for the environmental credibility isn't easy: Who verifies the verifiers?...
Sustainability
Making a Market for Pollution
What does it take to trade in a commodity that cannot be seen or touched--and isn't even a commodity in the U.S.? The first in a three-part series
Sustainability
If the world is going to hell, why are humans doing so well?
For decades, apocalyptic environmentalists (and others) have warned of humanity's imminent doom, largely as a result of our unsustainable use of and impact upon the natural systems of the planet...
Sustainability
Shades of "Gray Literature": How Much IPCC Reform Is Needed?
A better way to compile and review climate science starts with making sure the organization charged with it has an adequate and accountable full-time staff
Health
Wheat and apple DNA sequenced, providing clues that may help eliminate famine
An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but can knowing its genetic secrets help feed the nine billion people expected on this planet by 2050? Scientists hope so, especially considering they have added wheat this week to the list of crops that have had their genetic instruction set read...
The Sciences
Harness lightning for energy, thanks to high humidity?
Why do the roiling, black clouds of a thunderstorm produce lightning? Ben Franklin and others helped prove that such lightning was discharged electricity, but what generates that electricity in such prodigious quantities?...
The Sciences
How Fast Can Microbes Clean Up the Gulf Oil Spill?
New research suggests bacteria in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico may be eating oil plumes quickly
Sustainability
All-out geoengineering still would not stop sea level rise
p>Mimicking volcanoes by throwing particles high into the sky. Maintaining a floating armada of mirrors in space. Burning plant and other organic waste to make charcoal and burying it—or burning it as fuel and burying the CO2 emissions...
Sustainability
Massive Oil Plume Confirmed in Gulf of Mexico
Contrary to expectations, a plume of oil formed in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon blowout
Mind
Psychedelic Drugs Show Promise as Antidepressants
Scientists suggest that some psychedelics are remarkably good at treating disorders like depression—and may now have a clue as to why
Evolution
Meet the Microbes Eating the Gulf Oil Spill [Slide Show]
These microscopic life forms are blooming as a result of the oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from the Macondo 252 deep-sea well
Sustainability
"Plug and Play" Solar Panel Kits Offer Homeowners Affordable Alternative Energy Source
A new company aims to make it possible to install a home solar array yourself
The Sciences
Tools for Life: What's Next for Cells Powered by Synthetic Genomes?
The ability to make cells with artificial genomes bodes well for basic biology
