Another year, another set of climate records. Here are the top ten signs you are living in a warming world, 2012 edition:
Researchers announced they have found that a starvation hormone markedly extends life span in mice without the need for calorie restriction. “Restricting food intake has been shown to extend lifespan in several different kinds of animals. In our study, we found transgenic mice that produced more of the hormone fibroblast growth factor-21 (FGF21) got the…
Scientists in a cluttered Berkeley laboratory are working a bit of biochemical wizardry to transform ordinary seaweed into biofuels that promise a new source of energy for this oil-dependent nation. The lab’s research has already fueled a start-up company whose workers at a coastal site in southern Chile are farming nearly 200 acres of kelp…
Humans have created some pretty ingenious myths to explain the world around us: the sun and the moon chase each other across the sky because of an ancient disagreement or lustful encounter; a strangely shaped Hawaiian mountain called Nounou is a sleeping giant; the ostrich’s long neck is the result of straining to keep an…
None of us would be here today if, billions of years ago, a tiny, single-celled organism hadn’t started using oxygen to make a living. Researchers don’t know exactly when this happened, or why, but a team of scientists has come closer than ever before to finding out. They’ve identified the earliest known example of aerobic…
Bill Gates, the world’s leading 13 pharmaceutical companies, governments and global organizations have announced unprecedented funding and support to eliminate and control 10 neglected tropical diseases (NTD) by 2020. More than $785 million will be donated to control or eliminate these infections that affect around 1.4 billion people in 149 endemic countries. These infections kill…
From our friends at NASA comes an amazing 13-second animation that depicts how temperatures around the globe have warmed since 1950. You’ll note an acceleration of the temperature trend in the late 1970s as greenhouse gas emissions from energy production increased worldwide and clean air laws reduced emissions of pollutants that had a cooling effect…