On Thursday, Republicans blocked an attempt to lift the liability cap for oil companies for the fourth time. Although BP has agreed to establish a $20 billion fund to pay […]
Search Results
You searched for: energy
Different species have their different tricks for getting by. Human beings are smart, quick-moving and numerous. We’re also pretty large, as mammals go. Sloths, on the other hand, take a […]
The FBI has opened a criminal probe of Massey Energy in connection with the explosion at the Upper Big Branch coal mine that killed 29 miners in West Virginia last […]
"Arctic amplification" refers to the fact that the region is warming twice as quickly as the rest of the planet—and as ice warms, exposing more ocean water, the process naturally speeds up.
We don’t need an energy or resources tax; we need an instrument for letting resource prices rise in parallel with resource productivity.
▸
11 min
—
with
We could be much more pro-active in lessening our impact on the environment. Energy-efficient cars and “passive houses” can make a real difference.
▸
5 min
—
with
Each of us consumes energy at a rate roughly equivalent to a 100-watt bulb. But, given the amount of energy that goes into maintaining domestic farm animals, and the inanimate […]
▸
3 min
—
with
This past week, Thomas Kinkade, famed “Painter of Light,” found himself behind bars after an arrest based on suspicion of drunken driving (mugshot shown). That sad episode came on the […]
Imagine how different your life would be if next Earth Day a year from now, you supplied the power to this computer—by pedaling, churning or dancing. The way these students […]
Americans under the age of 35 have grown up during an era of ever more certain climate science, increasing news attention, alarming entertainment portrayals, and growing environmental activism, yet on […]
Fronting the NY Times today is a preview of a bold new strategy for engaging hard to reach audiences on science. As the NY Times describes, today’s media event that […]
Curiosity didn't kill the cat; it saved the marriage. Curiosity is the single most important trait in finding a good date or life-partner, writes psychologist Paul Dobransky.
Readers have asked for more original photography at Focal Point. I’m happy to oblige. Here’s a fun photo for the weekend, taken during my recent trip to St. John’s, Newfoundland. […]
Iran has announced its development of faster centrifuges for enriching uranium but the advance, while scientifically significant, may not alter the political landscape.
Researchers have found that bees see the world nearly five times as quickly as humans do, helping them to navigate through bushes and find food.
Synthetic biologists have discovered new chemical reactions that could "rewire" plants to more efficiently process carbon dioxide—allowing crops to grow to enormous size.
Silicon Valley startup Bloom Energy has unveiled new technology which can “harnesses chemical reactions to create energy” in the hope of revolutionizing the world’s fuel sources.
Vinod Khosla, founding CEO of Sun Microsystems and founder of Khosla Ventures, is on record as having said that he can’t imagine oil being more than $30 a barrel by […]
Washington's plans for a forward-thinking energy policy have been gutted due to the recession and name games that turned cap-and-trade into cap-and-tax.
Reemergence of nuclear power in America's energy future has renewed interest in fast-neutron reactors which can use nuclear waste in the process of energy production.
Today we take a computer’s speed for granted, but it wasn’t so long ago when it was normal to sit and wait for several minutes every time we booted up […]
Today we release the second installment from our interview with Bjørn Lomborg, Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. In this clip he talks about the issue of sustainability in a world […]
The reason we haven’t innovated enough in energy technology is because energy used to be cheap.
▸
5 min
—
with
The defining image of the BP oil spill is a suspiciously low resolution video feed from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. The much maligned Huffington Post seems to […]
In energy technology, it’s clear if your invention works or not. Either the device saves energy and people buy it and find out, or it doesn’t.
▸
2 min
—
with
Clicking "Like" on a Facebook page won't meet the challenges that face our times, quips an editorial in The Christian Science Monitor.
Research suggests that a gigantic network of offshore wind power stations along the Eastern seaboard could potentially provide energy to a large swath of the U.S. without much threat of outages.
Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham came by Big Think a few weeks ago to discuss cooking and all of its evolutionary implications. Did you know that cooking is a huge influence […]
It is an event with which I am slightly ashamed—and even the excuse that it happened over twenty years ago and that I was only a bit player does not […]
New protostars that will eventually be 10 times as large as the sun have been discovered in the massive Rosette molecular cloud, 5,000 light years away.