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In the latest issue of the journal CBE Life Sciences, National Academies senior staffers Jay Labov and Barbara Kline Pope describe the audience research that informed the writing, design, and […]

Spain's surprisingly advanced renewable energy sector is facing obstacles like government cutbacks, ever-changing regulations and a retracting European economy.

Over the last 20 years, the number of science and technology jobs in America has grown by about 4.2 percent per year—yet the availability of qualified U.S.-born workers in those […]

By mid-century there will likely be 9 billion people on the planet, consuming ever more resources and leading ever more technologically complex lives.

There was brief speculation in the media about using nuclear weapons to seal up the raging oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. I think this is a bad idea, […]

Yesterday, President Obama traveled to Holland, Michigan, a city on the western shore of the state’s Lower Peninsula, to attend the groundbreaking for a factory that will manufacture high-grade lithium-ion […]

In this guest post on Colorado’s Amendment 62, a ballot initiative that, if passed, would grant full legal rights to fertilized human eggs by classifying embryos as ‘persons’ under the […]

"By prompting President Obama to suspend deep-water drilling in US offshore waters, the Gulf oil spill is pushing up the date at which the world's conventional oil production peaks," says the CSM.

"The nature and depth of the financial crisis is forcing us to reconsider some of the basic tenets of financial theory," says Paul Volcker who maps his ideas for reform in The NY Review of Books.

One of the most wonderful things about the emerging global superbrain is that information is overflowing on a scale beyond what we can wrap our heads around.

Psychologists and economists have long wondered whether increased wealth does indeed translate into happiness, and now new research indicates that to the (small) extent we are made happier by our […]

n This remarkable painting was made by the Norwegian artist Rolf Groven as a poster proposal for Norway’s pavilion at the World Exhibition in Seville (Spain) in 1992. The title […]

In an article in the Sunday edition, WPost reporters Steve Mufson and Juliet Eilperin detail how Obama during his presidential campaign took the lead in urging his staffers to re-frame […]

Changing the conversation about climate change: Graduate students from American and George Mason Universities prepare interview tent on the National Mall. WASHINGTON, DC — How do Americans respond when they […]

“In fact, it is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. Some say that the only thing that quantum theory has […]

"When something is free, you tend to use more of it. It's true for buffets and open bars, and it's the same with carbon," says The Atlantic while advocating for a carbon tax to slow global warming.

As a first step, the government needs to put a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. Fossil fuel needs to pay the price for the damage it causes in the atmosphere.

A conversation with the director of the Energy Security Initiative at the Brookings Institution.

Bernhard Zand explains why a "frustrated Ankara is turning away from the West and looking east toward Hamas and Iran."

After the Copenhagen Climate Council was considered a failure, how should we prepare for COP-16 in Mexico? Big Think’s live roundtable on March 26, 2010 in Houston was moderated by […]

Will futuristic energy solutions such as fusion and biofuels ever live up to the hype surrounding them?

Michael Grunwald wrote in Time yesterday that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill might not be as disastrous as we thought. It’s not that it hasn’t had some serious consequences, obviously. […]

Eilert Sundt must have had a busy, happy week. As the president of the Norwegian Cartozoological Society, Mr Sundt probably is the world’s most prominent ambassador of the obscure discipline […]

Not unexpectedly, the Slatearticle last week generated a range of reactions at blogs, on twitter, and in personal emails that I received. This topic is not going away and as […]

The transcript of the interview I did last week at NPR’s On the Media is now available. In the interview, I restate exactly what we argued first at Science and […]

Energy producers who met with skyrocketing food prices and international protests while using food crops to create large quantities of biofuels are now eyeing inedible waste.

Wind is becoming a more viable (if still controversial) energy source, but effective solar power may have to wait until the nanotechnology boom.

Mark Levine of UC Irvine laments Obama's pragmatic path where his empty promises to change America's foreign and energy policies mark the way.

Imagine that the Journal ofHypochondriacal Cardiology reported that the incidence of fatal strokes aboard cruise ships was five times the national average.  Should we conclude that the boat trips were […]

China's investment in the clean energy sector nearly doubles that of the U.S., but its fossil fuel use is rising fast as well.