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Scientists have discovered the reason why the earth wasn’t covered with a layer of ice four billion years ago, when the Sun’s radiation was much less than it is today.

So what are we to make of the new British coalition Government that made its appearance, in the shape of David Cameron and Nick Clegg, in the 10 Downing Street […]

Brace yourself for some depressing climate change news. Even if we cut rncarbon emissions dramatically, we won’t really see the impact by the rnyear 2050, says Bjørn Lomborg,rn Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. So if the outlook is so rnbleak, what should we do in the meantime? Where should we direct our rnenergies? Lomborg has some ideas.

An iceberg the size of Luxembourg which has broken away from Antarctica was caused by a collision with another iceberg rather than being a result of global warming.

1. Asphalt Maine n n Looking down upon the patched-up surface of an unnamed street, J. David Lovejoy couldn’t help noticing a remarkable example of accidental geography. The patch bears […]

The last of Etna Week here on Eruptions has guest blogger Boris Behncke talking about the volcanic hazards posed by Mt. Etna.

Drinking beer increases human attractiveness to malaria-carrying mosquitoes, according to researchers who say their findings need to be integrated within public health policies.

A palm-sized device inspired by a tiny purple beetle that feeds on palm leaves could one day enable humans to walk up walls in manner similar to comic book hero Spiderman.

On Thursday, at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, I served as one of the panelists at the event “The Public Divide over Climate Change: Science, Skeptics and the […]

Today marks the first installment of Big Think’s new series on business sustainability, sponsored by Logica. For the next thirteen Mondays (through June 8, 2010), we will release in-depth discussions […]

Tut tut Nicolas Chartier, producer of Oscar nominated film ‘Hurt Locker, whose scathing emails about other nominees have landed him in hot water and banned from the awards.

Right now our most advanced robots are not quite as smart as we would want them to be. One of the most popular—Honda’s humanoid robot, Asimo—is quite sophisticated but you won’t […]

Four men have agreed to be locked away in a steel container for 18 months in order to simulate a mission to Mars which will test the physical and mental stress of long spaceflight.

Scientists have found that a particular area of the North Atlantic Ocean attracts plastic debris and other trash, leaving the region comparable to the Pacific’s “great garbage patch”.

South of the Sundarbans mangrove forest, in the Bay of Bengal, lies one of those tiny flecks of land at the center of endless negotiation between two countries—a little patch […]

Falling levels of water vapor in the stratosphere may be slowing the effects of global warming as part of a natural earth cycle.

In TIME, science writer Maia Szalavitz dissects a recent rat study that was reported as if it showed that junk food is “as addictive” as crack. Some rats were assigned […]

“Who is Nick Clegg?” I hear you ask? Well, actually I don’t really hear many of you asking at all. And you may be forgiven. Until a week ago he […]

The second part of Eruptions readers’ recollections of the historic May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.

Three days ago, a Wake Forest professor of biology went to the US Senate, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the President’s Council on Environmental Quality, to give them all the […]

Rainstorms and mudslides have killed at least 38 people on the island of Madeira which is an autonomous region of Portugal though it sits over 500 miles from the mainland.

Back in February, I traveled to Rome, Italy to present at a conference sponsored by Columbia University’s Earth Institute and the Adriano Olivetti Foundation. The focus was on climate change […]

Part 2 of the Q&A with Dr. Boris Behncke of Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Catania.

Sabre rattling in the South Atlantic between Argentina and Britain over the Falkland Islands has a feel of déjà vu to it. As a young student, I took to the […]

THERE is an exhibit more ghastly and gruesome than the tatty stuffed Alsatian dog, awarded the Gustav Husak medal for sinking its teeth into a record number of attempted defectors […]

Toads have “taken over” almost all of the modern world after an ancestral mutation allowed the creatures to thrive under drier conditions that their amphibian peers.

The remnants of a vast sheet of ice lies hidden under Martian rubble, revealed by a new and wonderfully detailed radar map of Mars’ mid-latitudes.

Jennifer Bleyer reports on how the young, trendy and extremely broke are buying fresh organic produce using government-subsidized “food stamps.” Got a problem with that?

More than 20 per cent of America’s water treatment systems have violated provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act in the last five years, according to federal data.

The fundamental contradictions of physics are present in even the most quotidian of objects. As the philosopher of science explains, some of quantum mechanics’ greatest mysteries are embodied in a […]