If there was a tougher moment over the last 40 years to be a leader in the American environmental movement, it would be hard to put your finger on it.
Planet or not, Pluto and its newest moons may tell us a lot about how other worlds orbit distant stars. A new computer simulation based on the motions of Pluto’s satellites not only zeroes in on the masses of two of the moons but predicts that planets orbiting double stars are more widely spaced from…
It seems obvious that how different living things in a community or ecological system bump up against one another would affect how they evolve. That would include everything from the mix of fish in a lake to the bacteria, fungi and insects that coexist in rainwater that pools in the roots at the base of…
The United States and Britain are two countries “divided by a common language”, George Bernard Shaw allegedly quipped. This statement, amusingly paradoxical on the face of it, might be more accurate than it seems. On “War of words: The language paradox explained”, evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel argues that languages proliferate to differentiate competing groups. If…
Geomagnetic storms generated by the interaction between the electrically charged solar particles and the earth’s own magnetic field could have serious consequences. They are able to overload electricity supply networks and cause breakdowns, cause communications and navigation satellites to fail, and endanger astronauts. Author Metanexus Editors
Antarctic researchers found as much as 400 billion metric tons of carbon hidden under the ice sheets, with the potential to seep out as methane and accelerate global warming. The carbon stored under Antarctic ice is on par with the amount held in the northern hemisphere’s frozen permafrost soils and the lower end of estimates…
The supply of children in U.S. foster care far exceeds the demand for their adoption. Indeed, only one in five children is adopted from foster care in the United States. Not only do the circumstances leading to the surrender of children to the state continue unabated (negligence, abuse, poverty, drug addiction of the parents), but…