Wives in dual-career academic relationships — in which both partners work in academia — are more likely than husbands to downplay the importance of their careers, new research finds. A survey of 30,000 professors and researchers at 13 major research universities finds that in academic couples, 50% of husbands say their career comes first compared…
NASA and university scientists have made the first measurement-based estimate of the amount and composition of tiny airborne particles that arrive in the air over North America each year. With a 3-D view of the atmosphere now possible from satellites, the scientists calculated that dust, not pollution, is the main ingredient of these imports. According…
Deforestation of protected areas and illegal hunting of endangered species that live there has a greater impact on biodiversity than climate change, overfishing and the degradation of coral reefs, according to a researcher. The “rapid disruption” of protected tropical forests is the greatest threat to wildlife, Bill Laurance, a professor at James Cook University in…
From the editors at SciAm: Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, died on July 23 of pancreatic cancer. She was 61. Outside her trail-blazing career as an astronaut, Ride was also a major champion of STEM education. In 2010, she helped found an initiative called Change the Equation [a CEO-driven initiative to increase…
The arguments against an electric car are growing fewer. A vehicle in development by ECOmove – a consortium of Danish car builders – has unveiled a car that can travel 500 miles without refueling. Once a sticking point for electric vehicles, distance could be ticked off the list of grievances the driving populace has with…
The hormone-disrupting chemical makes it hard for some fish to recognize their own species, a problem that could ripple throughout ecosystems.
The misconduct of the financial industry no longer surprises most Americans. Only about one in five has much trust in banks, according to Gallup polls, about half the level in 2007. And it’s not just banks that are frowned upon. Trust in big business overall is declining as well – 62% of Americans believe corruption…
Two safeguards for communities’ rights to resources can help implement the Nagoya Protocol, argues biodiversity specialist Krystyna Swiderska. As the recent UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) showed, intergovernmental negotiations on the environment and development can be slow processes that lack ambition. But that is nothing new. One of the outcomes of the original Rio…
Green technology is proving lucrative in India, clean energy investments here were worth $10.3 billion, a growth of 52% on 2011, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. This means that India had the highest rate of growth in green technologies of any other major world economy, with wind and solar areas being where most money…
Andrew Revkin reflects on the end of the “Rio+20” United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in his Dot Earth blog from the New York Times. Ilan Safit, a colleague of mine at Pace University who teaches philosophy and religious studies with a focus on the environment, sees the focus of Rio and related discussions as…