Don’t Plant Pines

July 26, 2006
To combat global warming, some Kyoto participants have agreed to plant more trees. But the KIND of trees you plant makes a big difference: Landowners in the South are turning stands of hardwood and natural pine trees into pine plantations... continued

More Space Tourism

July 26, 2006
Taking a vacation in space is an idea that just won't go away. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, has branched out into selling a great many things other than books. Now he has plans to develop commercial spacecraft that... continued

Sex in Space

July 25, 2006
If it takes generations to travel to other galaxies, this is something we'll have to deal with in the future, since one generation will leave the earth and another generation will arrive at the destination. One problem is?weightlessness. NASA space... continued

Cancer Preventing Sunscreen Finally Available Here

July 25, 2006
A little over two years ago, we wrote a story about an extraordinary sunscreen that was available abroad but not yet approved by the FDA. It was so much more effective than we what we had that US sunbathers were... continued

Gas Shortage Savior?Oil from Plankton?

July 25, 2006
Some researchers have already suggested that we burn grass in our cars instead of fossil fuel. But while grass seems to be everywhere, plankton is actually one of the most common types of vegetation on earth?although it's actually in the... continued

Whitley’s Journal: We May Lose the Rain Forest

July 25, 2006
In his dynamite new journal, Whitley writes, "As the summer of 2006 rages on, with heatwaves stretching from the American Pacific coast all the way across the North Atlantic to Europe and virtually around the world, we now discover that... continued

Animation: A Hairy Problem

July 24, 2006
Science is changing the world of animation. Filmmakers are reviving old techniques, like rotoscoping, and making it new. And a group of university mathematicians has created an algorithm that makes animated hair look more realistic. "A Scanner Darkly" uses rotoscoping,... continued

We Became Human to Get Away From Snakes

July 24, 2006
In evolutionary terms, humans may have gotten so smart because we needed to get away from poisonous snakes. This lends new credence to the Adam and Eve legend. In LiveScience.com, Ker Than reports that anthropologist Lynne Isbell thinks that snakes... continued

More About That Mysterious Necklace

July 24, 2006
We're still trying to solve the mystery of the mysterious nuclear necklace of King Tut. Prehistoric humans roamed the Sahara, which is now the world's largest desert, for thousands of years before it became a desert. There are isolated ruins... continued

Quantum Bee Dance

July 21, 2006
For 70 years, scientists have known that honeybees tell the other bees in their hive where the good nectar is by doing an elaborate bee dance. The dance of the honeybee is one of the most intricate communications in nature.... continued