The fearsome tides that sweep out from the easternmost shores of the United States have for more than 80 years teased engineers and presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt, who have dreamed of harnessing their force to make electricity. Soon, a device that looks a bit like an eggbeater turned sideways will be lowered into the…
After decades of wandering in the scientific wilderness, cold fusion may be returning to the land of the acceptable. It’s been more than 20 years since esteemed researchers Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann electrified the world with news that they’d observed low-energy nuclear reactions at the atomic level that generated excess heat, holding out the…
Recently, the University of Texas provost announced he would reexamine a report by a UT professor that said fracking was safe for groundwater after the revelation that the professor pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Texas natural gas developer. It’s the latest fusillade in the ongoing battle over the basic facts of fracking…
The verdict is in: Global warming is occurring and emissions of greenhouse gases caused by human activity are the main cause. This, according to Richard A. Muller, MacArthur Fellow and co-founder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project. Never mind that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds of other climatologists around the world came…
Microbes that convert electricity into methane gas could become an important source of renewable energy, according to scientists from Stanford and Pennsylvania State universities. Researchers at both campuses are raising colonies of microorganisms, called methanogens, which have the remarkable ability to turn electrical energy into pure methane—the key ingredient in natural gas. The scientists’ goal…
Summer storms may create new holes in our protective ozone layer as Earth heats up—bringing increased solar ultraviolet radiation to densely populated areas, a new study says. What’s more, if more sunlight reaches Earth, skin cancer could become the new marquee risk of global warming. As the planet warms, some studies have suggested summer storms…
Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe – and that make clear who the real enemy is
International talks to address human-caused global warming began 20 years ago in Rio de Janeiro. But despite attempts to curb emissions of the greenhouse gases responsible, they have continued to pour into the atmosphere since then. Last year was no exception. In 2011, the burning of fossil fuels, as well as other activities such as…
After an eight-year analysis, an international team of scientists has announced a breakthrough in the understanding of how algae and iron interact to sequester atmospheric carbon. By adding iron to the ocean, the researchers induced a massive algal bloom. A significant portion died and sank to the ocean floor, carrying its sequestered carbon along with…
Laser physicists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have broken the record for the highest-power laser shot with a collection of beams delivering more than 500 trillion watts of peak power. The National Ignition Facility fired 192 beams at the same time, delivering 1.85 megajoules of ultraviolet laser light to a target a mere two…