Stories by David Biello

When gas mileage cost was explicitly revealed on new car window stickers, potential consumers were more likely to choose the most efficient vehicle. David Biello reports.

 

In a first, the fuel released more energy than it absorbed

The feat is a landmark achievement in synthetic biology

In a May 21 speech Pope Francis warned that despoiling the environment would come back to haunt humanity. David Biello reports

 

GOWANUS—The surge of sewer water, toxic sludge and “Brooklyn whitefish” (aka condoms) stopped one short block away from my house back on the long night of October 29, 2012.

Coal kills. When it’s not horrific mining accidents like the one in Soma, Turkey, on May 13 that killed more than 300 miners, it’s the 13,000 Americans who die early each year because of air pollution from burning the dirtiest fossil fuel.

A building-sized poem shows how billboards could help cut pollution from cars. David Biello reports

 

Since the 1970s the locations where tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons) reach their maximum intensities have shifted toward both poles at a rate of about 35 miles per decade. David Biello reports

 

Psychologists find that the agricultural region in China where people grew up predicted whether they have an individualistic or communal outlook

The sunshine that warms Washington, D.C. is once again generating electricity for the White House. After an absence of nearly 30 years, the Obama administration has announced that a 6.3 kilowatt photovoltaic installation of the “typical size for an American house,” is back on the White House roof and generating power.

Many small eruptions over the past decade or so have helped restrain climate change

A meta-analysis of ecosystems finds that species losses in any given place do not yet translate to large changes in the number of different species in that place. David Biello reports

 

Some fish living in waters with currently naturally high levels of CO2 lose their sense of smell, and with it their ability to perceive predators—a possible portent to a global situation in the near future. David Biello reports

 

Carbon storage has to expand rapidly, or coal burning has to cease, if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change

Building on light-cloaking work, physicists took a small step toward the goal of shielding cities from earthquakes by deflecting incoming energy. David Biello reports

 

Smartphones, cheap satellite imaging and crowdfunded enterprises have made citizen oversight possible that was undreamed of by past transparency advocates and environmentalists. David Biello reports

 

Poor people will suffer the most, unless the world exploits vanishing opportunities to adapt

An army of undergraduates built a synthetic chromosome with cheap DNA-making technology

As the cost of solar power drops, more consumers find that they hold the upper hand as utilities fight to maintain paying customers and the relevance of the grid

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory has a working prototype for a space-based solar energy collector and distributor that would beat the cloudy-day problem. David Biello reports

 

Has the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy failed in its mission to create alternative energy breakthroughs? 

A consideration of the role of sootlike particulates and ozone implies that the climate should will not be insensitive to increasing levels of greenhouse gases. David Biello reports

 

Rebuilding plants into bionic superpowered energy photosynthesizers—we have the nanotechnology

The conflict over Crimea may prove a last gas…p for Russian energy warfare