What's the Point If We Can’t Have Fun?

My friend June Thunderstorm and I once spent a half an hour sitting in a meadow by a mountain lake, watching an inchworm dangle from the top of a stalk of grass... By David Graeber.
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NASA Adds to Evidence of Mysterious Ancient Earthworks

High in the skies over Kazakhstan, space-age technology has revealed an ancient mystery on the ground. Satellite pictures of a remote and treeless northern steppe reveal colossal earthworks — geometric figures of squares, crosses, lines and rings the size of several football fields, recognizable only from the air and the oldest estimated at 8,000 years old.
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Bill Gates says that only socialism can save us from climate change

The world’s richest man, Bill Gates, has said that the private sector is too selfish and inefficient to produce effective energy alternatives to fossil fuels.
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Is desalination the future of drought relief in California?

San Diego is set to soon start supplying itself with millions of gallons a day of fresh, drinkable water, using saltwater from the Pacific Ocean, converted by a brand new desalination plant. As California's historic drought continues, the plant will likely intensify the debate over the role of desalination may play in the state's water supply. Special Correspondent Mike Taibbi reports.
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Sotheby's Is Auctioning Off What Might Be the World's Largest Cat Painting

Titled 'My Wife's Lovers,' the oil work was commissioned by a wealthy 19th century feline fancier.
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I Photograph My Experiments With Moving Water

I have always been fascinated with photographing water, a photograph of moving water is like a frozen moment in time that will never be quite the same again. I experiment a lot throwing water around to see what happens - I get wet a lot and have wrecked a couple of cameras, but hopefully the results are worth the effort.
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Storms, Possible Tornadoes Lash Texas; 2 Still Missing

The second day of turbulent weather in Texas.
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Acorns and Mast Years: Masses of Acorns and Why

If you've been clocked on the head more than once this autumn by what can only be described as a missile-launched tree-nut, you may be wondering "what's up with all of the acorns this year?"
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Excitement Grows as NASA Carbon Sleuth Begins Year Two

Scientists poring over data from NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 mission are seeing patterns emerge as they seek answers to questions about atmospheric carbon dioxide.
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Swimming with Giant Manta Rays off the coast of Ayangue, Ecuador

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The Deep Blue by Jorge Cervera Hauser

Way out into the blue, right where you lose all sight of land — and feel overwhelmed, as if devoured by the sea — you will find the beautiful creatures of the open ocean, who live in the ‘pelagic’ zone. Today, we are fighting to protect them.
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These bats look exactly like teddy bears and cute little piggies

Bat expert Merlin Tuttle explains why we should learn to love the winged mammal.
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Vampire Moths Suck the Blood of Vertebrates, Including Humans

Vampire moths can pierce the thick hides of animals such as buffalo, tapirs, and elephants.
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These Ice Cellars Fed Arctic People for Generations. Now They're Melting

Native people in Alaska and Russia store their whale meat and other traditional foods in permafrost. But their underground freezers are thawing, causing food problems. By Eli Kintisch.
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They Might Sound Gross, But Intestinal Worms Can Actually Be Good Tor You

Intestinal worms have an incredibly bad reputation. The thought of them sneaking around inside our bodies and eating us from the inside is pretty unpleasant. But just 100 years ago, before toilets and running water were commonplace, everybody had regular exposure to intestinal worms. Thanks in part to modern plumbing, people in the industrialized world have now lost almost all of their worms, with the exception of occasional pinworms in some children.
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For the future of solar, we’ve got the tech—it’s the economics, stupid

In the US, the future of solar energy will be made in California. Earlier this month, the state's governor signed legislation that commits California to obtaining half of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. And to some extent, that future is now—the state's utilities are working to meet a goal of one-third renewables by 2020.
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Letting Go of Paradise

Three years after Superstorm Sandy slammed into New Jersey’s coast, few local communities want to accept that the Shore’s glory days are numbered. By Steven Ashley.
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Rules of the Game: Vermont Wardens Police the Wilderness

Before dawn last Saturday, two Vermont game wardens navigated a Boston Whaler down the inky black Otter Creek and onto Lake Champlain, stopping briefly to watch the sun rise.
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Drones Captured These ‘Killer’ Whale Family Portraits

Not just beautiful, these photos show that raising killer whale calves is a family affair. By Erin Blakemore.
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Absurd Creature of the Week: It’s Not a Jewel—It’s the World’s Most Stunning Caterpillar

Jewel caterpillars are creatures of such beauty that you just want to wrap one in a gold chain and hang it around your neck, Mr. T style. Don't.
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Greater than the sum of its parts

It is rare for a new animal species to emerge in front of scientists’ eyes. But this seems to be happening in eastern North America.
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Severe Storms, Possible Tornadoes, Flooding Slam South-Central Texas

Here's what we know about the impacts from this round of severe weather.
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Massive 'Crack in the Earth' Opens up in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains

The immense crack, which appears to split a hilltop in half, was discovered by startled backcountry hunters.Contrary to some sensational claims swirling about on social media, the crack is not an opening to the underworld or a sign that Yellowstone is about to erupt.
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Halloween's 5 Favorite Animals

Halloween is often associated with many iconic, spooky animals. From spiders, to black cats, ravens, werewolves and vampire bats, innocent creatures seem to get a bad rep for the fear they instill in humans. But are the animals really all that spooky?
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Lush Carpets of Flowers Thrive in the World's Driest Desert

Receiving barely a half-inch of rainfall per year, Chile's Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on Earth, but that all changes when El Niño rolls around every few years.
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9 Things You Didn't Know About the Sand Cat

These wild felines max out the adorable scale. Boasting fluffy ears, big eyes and tiny noses, it's easy to mistake the sand cat for a charming kitten.
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Breaking the mould: Untangling the jelly-like properties of diseased proteins

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have identified a new property of essential proteins which, when it malfunctions, can cause the build up, or ‘aggregation’, of misshaped proteins and lead to serious diseases.
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Study spells out why some insects kill their mothers.

Among social insects, why does it pay for workers to help the queen in some situations but then also pay to kill her in others? It appears that workers are more calculating, and help or harm the queen depending on the circumstances they find themselves in.
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Indonesia is burning. So why is the world looking away?

A great tract of Earth is on fire and threatened species are being driven out of their habitats. This is a crime against humanity and nature
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Haute dogs fill social calendars — and closets — for Halloween

The National Retail Federation estimates that 20 million pet owners will dress their pets this Halloween, spending $350 million on the costumes.
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Close-Up Photos of Insect Eyes from the USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab

An incredible gallery of macro photographs that show insect eyes in extraordinary detail and clarity.
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Biological concrete for constructing 'living' building materials with lichens, mosses

The Structural Technology Group has developed and patented a type of biological concrete that supports the natural, accelerated growth of pigmented organisms. The material, which has been designed for the façades of buildings or other constructions in Mediterranean climates, offers environmental, thermal and aesthetic advantages over other similar construction solutions. The material improves thermal comfort in buildings and helps to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels.
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Scientists: Warming ocean factor in collapse of cod fishery

PORTLAND, Maine - The rapid warming of waters off New England is a key factor in the collapse of the region's cod fishery..the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland, said the gulf is warming at a rate 99 percent faster than anywhere else in the world, .
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Lockdown: the End of Growth in the Tar Sands

Just a few days ago, Hurricane Patricia became the strongest hurricane ever measured as it made landfall on the western coast of Mexico. It hit as we approach the end of another year that is expected to break last year’s record as the hottest year of recorded temperatures.
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Glass Half Empty

The coming water wars.
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Electric eels curve bodies to heighten their shock value

Electric eels can wield their zapping power in subtle and surprising ways. A new study finds that when dealing with struggling or hard-to-subdue prey, these eels bend their bodies into a horseshoe-like shape to more than double the voltage they deliver to their almost-meal. By Amina Khan.
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Infographic: 730 North American Birds In A Single Chart

Pop Chart Labs' latest looks like it came off the wall of a science class in the 1970s.
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Strengthening Cyclone Chapala Targets Oman and Yemen

Strengthening Tropical Cyclone Chapala is expected to target Oman and Yemen early next week.
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Aquafina to say it comes from same source as tap water

The label on Aquafina water bottles will soon be changed to spell out that the drink comes from the same source as tap water, the brand's owner PepsiCo said Friday. A group called Corporate Accountability International has been pressuring bottled water sellers to curb what it calls misleading marketing practices. Aquafina is the single biggest bottled water brand, and its bottles are now labeled "P.W.S." The new labels will spell out "public water source."
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Four UK Bird Species Including Puffins 'Face Extinction'

Puffins and turtle doves are among four UK bird species now at risk of extinction, according to the latest revision of a global conservation database.
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Will Clean Tech make Fossil Fuels more Expensive?

Renewables are getting cheaper all the time. Interestingly, they may also drive up the cost of the competition.
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Headless Cockroaches: The Myth, The Legend, The YouTube Videos

We will probably never know who was the first person to behead a cockroach and watch in horror as its antennae and legs continued to twitch—not just for a few seconds of death throes but for...a while. This is gross, but also deeply fascinating. In the world of science, there is a substantial body of work that dispassionately examines the headless cockroach. But there is also of genre of kitchen-sink cockroach science that’s more about the flat-out ick factor.
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Hotel Vermont to serve roadkill-inspired menu

Are you brave enough to eat road kill? You can find out at the Hotel Vermont in November.
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Southern Kansas sees sudden spike in earthquakes

A sudden spike of earthquakes in southern Kansas is raising eyebrows in the region, where there have been more earthquakes in the past two weeks than there were in the years between 1990 and 2013. As of Oct. 26, there have been 52 earthquakes in Kansas since Oct. 15, most of a magnitude around 2.0 or 3.0. According to the Kansas Geological Survey, there were just 19 earthquakes in the state between 1990 and 2010. There were no recorded earthquakes in 2011 or 2012.
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A few species of ant are pirates that enslave other ants

Instead of finding their own food and caring for their own young, some ants simply make other insects their slaves.
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Do Animals Cry?

Plenty of animals have tears that moisturize their eyes. But does that mean they’re sad? Quick Questions explains!
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India’s ‘Birdman’ Feeds 4,000 Parakeets A Day

See Full Description.
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There's a new drug to treat some types of baldness - and it actually works

Baldness is a problem that scientists have been tackling for a long, long time - you won't find many men or women happy to be losing their hair prematurely, and all kinds of cures and strategies have been suggested over the years.
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Female only Antarctica climate change expedition

More than 70 female scientists from around the world are preparing for a world-first expedition to Antarctica to study climate change.
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Historic high tides from supermoon and sea level rise flood the Southeast coast

Ocean water surged into neighborhoods on the Southeast coast on Tuesday morning during high tide, pushing gauges well beyond predicted levels. Seemingly overnight, spurred by sea level rise, we’ve entered an era where king tides compete with hurricanes in the water level record books. Tuesday morning’s high tide peaked at 8.69 feet in Charleston, over a foot and a half higher than the predicted level. The highest crest on record in Charleston was 12.56 feet on Sept. 21, 1989...
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