Tornadoes Rip across East Texas, killing at least Four

Tornadoes ripped through an East Texas county on Saturday evening, killing at least four people and injuring dozens of others, and authorities warned the number of casualties could rise.

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Beloved Curve — Using Double Exposures, Sarah Amy Fishlock Reflects on the Cycle of Life

Too often the humankind puts itself at the center of any reflection on the meaning of life, but the truth is our planet—not to speak about the entire universe—has existed since long before we came on to the scene, and will probably outlive us. The beauty of Beloved Curve, a recent conceptual photography series by 31 year-old Scottish photographer Sarah Amy Fishlock, is the simplicity with which it connects the existential theme of the incessant cycle of life to her grieving process for her father's death through the intelligent use of double exposures.

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The NY Times promised to fact check their new climate denier columnist — they lied

Times’ news staff trashes column on Twitter, while top scientist says paper is “willingly abetting climate change denialism.” By Joe Romm.

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How a Professional Climate Change Denier Discovered the Lies and Decided to Fight for Science

The wall of climate change denial in the GOP looks awful frightening from afar, but it is crumbling. And it can change quickly.

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Japan Cherry Blossoms - Drone Lapse Times

A few months ago Jack Johnston was asked to film a series of lapse time shots of the Cherry Blossom trees in Japan for a BBC Springwatch Special. After months of testing and working out the kinks in the process, this is a selection of shots that featured in the final show.

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Europe's Famed Bog Bodies Are Starting to Reveal Their Secrets

High-tech tools divulge new information about the mysterious and violent fates met by these corpses

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Journey Through 100 of Japan’s Finest Gardens

Marc Peter Keane in an American landscape architect who spent almost 20 years in Kyoto practicing landscape design. In fact, he was the first foreigner to receive a working visa as a landscape architect. Now back stateside, Keane maintains an office in upstate New York where he designs Japanese gardens for both public and private spaces. It’s hard to think of a better person to serve as a personal guide through 100 of Japan’s Finest Gardens.

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Antarctica's Blood Falls: not so mysterious, but still freaky as heck

You may have seen headlines proclaiming that the great mystery of Antarctica's "Blood Falls" has finally been solved. That's a little silly, because the big mystery—the question of why blood-like bright red liquid oozes out of the otherwise white surface of Taylor Glacier—hasn't been all that mysterious for some time. Two years ago, a study suggested that the water, a salty brine full of interesting microbial life and colored by a high level of iron, seems to come up from an underground waterway that connects visible lakes on the surface.

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Scientists Should Just Be Political

Only politicizing halfway doesn’t help anyone. By Robinson Meyer.

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Saving America's Broken and Vanishing Prairie Lands

Scientists call the American prairie one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet. Its loss would have consequences the world over.

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The Climate Change Deniers in Congress

How many are representing you? By Sarah Emerson.

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Victorian Marine Biologist Margaret Gatty’s Stunning Drawings of Seaweed

The tenderness of feathers meets the grandeur of trees in the otherworldly life-forms of the seas, which offered an unexpected entry point for women in science.

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This Weird AF Hercules Beetle Pupa Is Our New Favourite Alien Baby

Just when we thought we'd seen it all, the internet dishes up a fat, red alien baby that looks like it's been ripped from the scorching sand dunes of Venus (we wish). In reality, it's just a Hercules beetle in its pupa form, enshrined in a chrysalis as it prepares to take on its adult form. But let's not talk it down too much - this writhing cocoon is about to become one of the largest insects on Earth.

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Oil, tech giants tell Trump to stay in Paris deal

Oil giants BP and Shell and a group of utilities and tech companies are pushing President Trump to stay in the Paris climate deal. In a letter sent to Trump on Wednesday, the firms said the deal benefits U.S. companies by putting them on an even playing field with foreign competitors, creates jobs through clean energy work and minimizes the risks climate change poses to them.

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Huge Arctic report ups estimates of sea-level rise

Report prompts warnings that the polar region is 'unravelling'. By Jeff Tollefson.

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Senators and Movement Leaders Introduce 100 Percent Clean Energy Bill

The legislation comes ahead of the People's Climate March on April 29th. Washington, D.C. -- On Thursday, ahead of the People's Climate March on Saturday, Senator Jeff Merkley, Senator Bernie Sanders, and Senator Ed Markey stood beside movement leaders to introduce legislation that will completely phase out fossil fuel use by 2050. The “100 by ‘50 Act” outlines a bold plan to support workers and to prioritize low-income communities while replacing oil, coal and gas with clean energy sources like wind and solar.

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It’s Time to Let Certain Animals Go Extinct

Conservationists don’t have enough money to save all the endangered species. How do we decide which ones live, and which ones die? A controversial new system for choosing may be coming to America soon.

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Half of All Species Are on the Move—And We're Feeling It

As climate change displaces everything from moose to microbes, it’s affecting human foods, businesses, and diseases.

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North Korea's Nuclear Tests Could Trigger A Deadly Volcanic Eruption

North Korea’s underground nuclear weapon blasts may be accidentally destabilizing a deadly volcano. Mount Paektu has been known to catastrophically

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Broken Bones Could Rewrite Story of the First Americans

A controversial new study places our human ancestors on the North American continent 130,000 years ago—far, far earlier than previously thought.

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Why we need to start listening to insects

You may not think of the buzz and whine of insects as musical, but the distinctive pitch of mosquito wingbeats could tell us how to fight malaria.

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The Arctic as it is known today is almost certainly gone

On current trends, the Arctic will be ice-free in summer by 2040.

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The Scientists Fighting to Save Us From a World Without Coffee

Climate change is threatening your morning caffeine fix.

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Sundar Pichai just hinted at how Google will make money from maps, and it sounds like lots of ads

Google Maps is one of the company's most popular services, but when it comes to bringing in revenue, Maps is not pulling its weight. That's by design — Google admits it has been slow to monetize the app. "We take a long term view," Google CEO Sundar Pichai told a Wall Street analyst who inquired about potential plans to turn Maps into a more significant moneymaker during the company's Q1 earnings call on Thursday.

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Female dragonflies fake sudden death to avoid male advances

Female dragonflies use an extreme tactic to get rid of unwanted suitors: they drop out the sky and then pretend to be dead. Rassim Khelifa from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, witnessed the behaviour for the first time in the moorland hawker dragonfly (Aeshna juncea). While collecting their larvae in the Swiss Alps, he watched a female crash-dive to the ground while being pursued by a male. The female then lay motionless on her back. Her suitor soon flew away, and the female took off once the coast was clear.

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Fire still blazes in Lukoil’s Komi oil field

The fire in Lukoil’s oil field in Shchelyabozh, near the Komi town of Usinsk, started 10th April and has since created a column of black smoke visible for tens of kilometers away. A representative of the company now says to 7x7-journal that new efforts are taken to extinguish the fire and the local population has been informed about. There are two wells burning, the both belong to the Alabushina field. On site are personnel and equipment from Lukoil and the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations.

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Fecal Transplants At Southeastern Guide Dogs In Palmetto

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Japan environment ministry drafts emergency declaration over rising deaths of coral

Japan's environment ministry has drafted an emergency declaration over rising coral deaths in waters surrounding the country. Following a meeting of dozens of top environmentalists, the ministry expressed concerns that the corals could be extinct by 2070. To reduce the decay of coral reefs, the ministry has proposed a series of initiatives, including the development of new technologies to cultivate and transplant corals in various locations.

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U.K. startup uses recycled plastic to build stronger roads

The innovative process replaces much of the crude oil-based asphalt in pavement with tiny pellets of plastic created from recyclable bottles.

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California bill would force utilities to give rebates for energy-storage systems

A bill recently approved by the state’s Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee, would create a rebate incentive program to encourage solar customers to add energy storage.

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Dog family tree reveals hidden history of canine diversity

Genetic map showing how dog breeds are related provides a wealth of information about their origins.

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Welcome To The Poison Garden: Medicine's Medieval Roots

One corner of the garden of Alnwick Castle in northern England grows a hundred plants behind lock and key. Many of the toxic species there were used by medieval doctors — nasty plants adapted to heal.

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The world is facing the first mass extinction since the dinosaurs

The world is hurtling towards the first mass extinction of animal life since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago, according to the most comprehensive survey of wildlife ever carried out. By 2020, the populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and other vertebrate species are on course to have fallen by more than two-thirds over a period of just 50 years, the Living Planet report found.

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The NYT's new columnist defends his views on Arabs, Black Lives Matter, campus rape

A Q&A with Bret Stephens, formerly of the Wall Street Journal. By Jeff Stein.

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This spinach leaf is actually a tiny, beating human heart

Spinach makes the heart grow fonder.

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Let’s Remember Exxon’s Extremely Fucked Up Response to Its Catastrophic Oil Spill

After the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Exxon launched a ruthless crusade to intimidate and discredit government scientists. By Sarah Emerson.

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Lazy fit animals: How some beasts get the gain without the pain

Wish you could get fit without the effort? Make like a goose and just sit around and eat, says Richard Lovett.

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[U.S.] Lead Hazards Afflict Thousands as Trump eyes funding cuts

Reuters uncovers hundreds more U.S. areas with child lead-poisoning rates double that found in Flint. Yet cities worry as President Trump plans funding cuts. By M.B. Pell, Joshua Schneyer and Andy Sullivan.

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Michael Bloomberg to world leaders: ignore Trump on climate change

The former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has urged world leaders not to follow Donald Trump’s lead on climate change, and declared his own intention to stave off the “tragedy” that would be the collapse of the Paris climate deal. The billionaire said in an interview there was no political motive tied to the release of his new book, Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet, which is co-authored with the Sierra Club executive director, Carl Pope.

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The New York Public Library Has a “Digital Time-Travel Service” For Its Historical Maps

The New York Public Library's NYC Space/Time Directory is a "digital time-travel service" for their collections of maps and geospatial data.

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Naked mole-rats ‘turn into plants’ to survive without oxygen, scientists find

It may have missed out on good looks, but the naked mole rat is once again amazing scientists with its fascinating super-powers. By Sarah Knapton.

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Our Climate Future Is Actually Our Climate Present

How do we live with the fact that the world we knew is going and, in some cases, already gone? By Jon Mooallem.

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Thailand to increase green areas by 40 percent in next 20 years

Thailand plans to create forests in urban areas to help absorb air pollution and build more green offices. Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) Permanent Secretary Wijarn Simachaya said in a seminar on topic of forests in cities and sustainability that the ministry is now pursuing its 20-year plan to increase green areas in the country by 40 percent, compared to 32 percent at present.

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Aurora photographers find new night sky lights and call them Steve

A group of aurora enthusiasts have found a new type of light in the night sky and named it Steve. Eric Donovan from the University of Calgary in Canada spotted the feature in photos shared on a Facebook group. He did not recognise it as a catalogued phenomenon and although the group were calling it a proton arc, he knew proton auroras were not visible.

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Smallpox could return as Siberia's melting permafrost exposes ancient graves

Last known case of the deadly disease was in Somalia in 1977, but Russian scientists investigating an anthrax outbreak have found the virus's DNA in corpses once entombed in the frozen ground. By Ian Johnston. (Aug. 16, 2016)

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Bill Nye criticizes CNN on air for inviting climate change skeptic

Bill Nye on Saturday accused CNN of doing a "disservice" to viewers by bringing a climate change skeptic onto the network for a panel discussion. "I will say, much as I love CNN, you’re doing a disservice by having one climate change skeptic, and not 97 or 98 scientists or engineers concerned about climate change," Nye said during an appearance on CNN's "New Day." Nye was participating in a panel discussion on the network with May Boeve, the executive director of the environmental group 350.org, and William Happer, a physicist and climate change skeptic.

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The Kekulé Problem

Where did language come from? Cormac McCarthy explores the uniquely human capability of near infinite expressive power arising through a combinatorial grammar built on the foundations of a far more ancient animal brain. How have these two evolutionary systems become reconciled? Cormac expresses this tension as the deep suspicion, perhaps even contempt, that the primeval unconscious feels toward the upstart, conscious language.

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Dramatic rescue saves 7 horses from icy death in frozen-over slough

Firefighters near Grande Prairie, Alta., used their specialized training to rescue 10 frantic horses that broke through an ice-covered slough on Sunday. Dramatic video shows how firefighters saved the horses, three of which later died from the ordeal. The herd had wandered onto the ice before falling through, said Trevor Grant, regional fire chief in the County of Grande Prairie.

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How gardeners can combat climate change

Gardening simply requires greater vigilance than before.

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FedEx slammed for 'lack of sincerity' in banning shark fin shipments

Package delivery company FedEx has come under fire for “lacking sincerity” in banning shark fin shipments after its Hong Kong managing director refused to speak with wildlife activists. On Thursday, activists from environmental group WildAid made a surprise visit to a FedEx media event attended by Anthony Leung, managing director of the company’s Hong Kong and Macau branch. Leung declined to engage with the activists, WildAid said.

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