Will cheap gas at the pump stall progress on car emissions?
Mar 18, 2016 00:12 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature
Retail gasoline prices are now as low as they were in the roaring 90s. The 1990s, that is, when the energy crisis of the 1970s had faded from American consumers memories, the economy was strong and the market share of...
Deforestation: an alert from the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe
Mar 17, 2016 05:19 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature
When visiting the volcanic islands of São Tomé and Príncipe off the coast of West Africa, one is immediately struck by how unusual these tropical islands are. The steep, volcanic mountains seem to be...
February's global temperature spike is a wake-up call
Mar 16, 2016 04:47 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature
Global temperatures for February showed a disturbing and unprecedented upward spike. It was 1.35℃ warmer than the average February during the usual baseline period of 1951-1980, according to NASA data. This is the...
A new way to detect tsunamis: cargo ships
Mar 15, 2016 12:11 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature
Racing across ocean basins at speeds over 500 miles per hour, tsunamis can wreak devastation along coastlines thousands of miles from their origin. Our modern tsunami detection networks reliably detect these events hours...
Meltdown Earth: the shocking reality of climate change kicks in – but who is listening?
Mar 14, 2016 23:35 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature
And another one bites the dust. The year 2014 was the warmest ever recorded by humans. Then 2015 was warmer still. January 2016 broke the record for the largest monthly temperature anomaly. Then came last...
Tipping point: how we predict when Antarctica's melting ice sheets will flood the seas
Mar 13, 2016 23:39 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature
Antarctica is already feeling the heat of climate change, with rapid melting and retreat of glaciers over recent decades. Ice mass loss from Antarctica and Greenland contributes about 20% to the current rate of global...
Nature's hidden wealth is conservation's missed opportunity
Mar 11, 2016 05:21 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature
Australia has one of the worst extinction records in the modern world. Since European settlement, a third of the countrys native mammals have disappeared. How can we stem the losses? A recent article in Nature...
South Africa’s plan to move away from coal: 8 steps to make it succeed
Germany lowers voting age to 16 for the European elections
IceCube researchers detect a rare type of energetic neutrino sent from powerful astronomical objects