World's longest pedestrian suspension bridge opens in Switzerland

The world's longest pedestrian suspension bridge opened in Switzerland on Sunday, a ribbon-thin span nearly a third of a mile long that challenges hikers to proceed in places at nearly 28 stories above ground. Officials in the south of Switzerland unveiled the bridge after just 10 weeks of construction. It measures 1,620 feet long and rises as high as 278 feet above the Grabengufer ravine. The span is also impossibly narrow, at just 25.6 inches wide.

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From egg to the air: 21 days of bee development condensed into one mesmerising minute

After just three weeks of development, worker bees emerge from their brood cells fully formed, flying out to begin supporting their hive. In a stunning high-definition time-lapse video, the US photographer Anand Varma follows the bee's stages of development from egg to larvae to pupa to worker bee, with a sprightly score to match the insects’ rather startling journey into being.

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Mysterious craters blowing out of Russia could mean trouble for the whole planet

Mysterious craters blowing out of Russia could mean trouble for the whole planet Mysterious craters blowing out of Russia could mean trouble for the whole planet. In northern Siberia, rising temperatures are causing mysterious giant craters — and even more dire consequences could be in store, say climate scientists. The Russian province's long-frozen ground, called permafrost, is thawing, triggering massive changes to the region's landscape and ecology. It could even threaten human lives.

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Defying E.U. Court, Poland Is Cutting Trees in an Ancient Forest

The European Court of Justice had ordered a stop to logging in Bialowieza Forest, a Unesco World Heritage site.

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Newly Discovered Garbage Patch in the South Pacific Is 1.5 Times the Size of Texas, Study Says

A largely unstudied area of the South Pacific Ocean is home to a newly discovered garbage patch that researchers estimate to be 1.5 times the size of Texas, according to a recent study. This new patch found in the ocean's gyre is estimated to be as large as 965,000 square miles, reports ResearchGate. Gyres are areas of the ocean that are surrounded by circulating currents. They help circulate ocean waters around the world, but they also suck in pollution.

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A Very Modern Map of Britain's Ancient Roman Roads

Let's take the VII from Londinium to Letocetum.

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We only have a 5 percent chance of avoiding ‘dangerous’ global warming, a study finds

Climate pessimism has had quite a run lately. Maybe we need to redefine what optimism means.

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Controversial New Theory Suggests Life Wasn't a Fluke of Biology—It Was Physics

Take chemistry, add energy, get life. The first tests of Jeremy England’s provocative origin-of-life hypothesis are in, and they appear to show how order can arise from nothing.

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Your kitchen sponge harbors zillions of microbes. Cleaning it could make things worse

That sponge in your kitchen sink harbors zillions of microbes, including close relatives of the bacteria that cause pneumonia and meningitis, according to a new study. One of the microbes, Moraxella osloensis, can cause infections in people with a weak immune system and is also known for making laundry stink, possibly explaining your sponge’s funky odor. Researchers made the discovery by sequencing the microbial DNA of 14 used kitchen sponges, they report this month in Scientific Reports.

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How US climate machine has left 180 deniers in Congress

This anti-environmentalist tactic of countering critiques of industrial impacts on the planet with lies, obfuscation and defamation has a long history. It goes back at least to establishment attacks on the US municipal housekeeping movement in the progressive era of the late 19th and early 20th century.

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Utility Helps Wean Vermonters From the Electric Grid

In a new low-income development that replaced a trailer park here, rooftop solar panels sparkle in the sun while backup batteries quietly hum away in utility closets. About an hour away, in Rutland, homes and businesses along a once-distressed corridor are installing the latest in energy-saving equipment, including special insulation and heat pumps.

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Gef! The Strange Tale of an Extra Special Talking Mongoose

For several years in the 1930s the case of a Manx mongoose – who was said to speak in a range of foreign languages including ‘Hindustani’, as well as singing, whistling, coughing ‘in a human manner’, swearing, dancing and attending political meetings – was discussed across Britain. As a fantastical beast, he was a contemporary of Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, who was first supposedly photographed in 1933, although his fame was shorter-lived.

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The First Farmers

The world’s oldest grindstones dating back to 30,000 BCE, plentiful harvests as far as the eye can see and rolling pastures of green straight out of a golf course. An idyllic image bringing u…

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The Strange Wonders of Cactuses, the Plant of Our Times

A new book collects historical images of cactuses and succulents that were tracked down in the wild by devoted photographer-explorers.

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What more evidence do we need to stop killing pigs for food?

That pigs are smart and sensitive is not in doubt. How can we justify continuing to kill them for food?

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The Right (and Wrong) Way to Bounce Back From Disaster

A city is a complicated, self-organizing system. In recovery efforts, there’s no one body in charge.

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Satirical maps of the world

Objective geographical representation isn’t always the intention of maps – they can also provide social, economic or political commentary on a region, as British Library maps curator, Tom Harper discusses.

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It’s Not Your Imagination. Summers Are Getting Hotter.

Summer temperatures have shifted toward more extreme heat over the past several decades.

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Newfound Dino Looks Like the Creepy Love Child of a Turkey and an Ostrich

A newly identified bird-like dinosaur has a head crest that is uncannily similar to the crest of a cassowary. By Laura Geggel.

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How Scott Pruitt Is Gutting the EPA on Behalf of the Fossil-Fuel Industry

Trump's EPA chief is gutting the agency, defunding science and serving the fossil-fuel industry. By Jeff Goodell.

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Mediterranean Sea 'trashed' by plastic waste

The Mediterranean - Europe's summer playground - is being trashed by accumulating plastic waste. Research suggests about 3,000 tons of the material is floating on the surface, with more added every year. And because the sea is almost fully enclosed the plastic is trapped - taking decades to break down. Not only are tourists swimming in the debris, marine creatures are mistaking it for food.

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This common herb will keep bee pollinators buzzing in your garden

There is a common assumption that those plants which delight human eyes will also be the most attractive for bees. Two scientists at the University of Sussex can offer a more empirical take.

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Scientists dim sunlight, suck up carbon dioxide to cool planet

Scientists are sucking carbon dioxide from the air with giant fans and preparing to release chemicals from a balloon to dim the sun's rays as part of a climate engineering push to cool the planet. Backers say the risky, often expensive projects are urgently needed to find ways of meeting the goals of the Paris climate deal to curb global warming that researchers blame for causing more heatwaves, downpours and rising sea levels.

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A molten puddle deep under Iceland may reveal where volcanoes get their lava

Ultralow-velocity zones may anchor volcano-feeding mantle plumes

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Watching ice melt: inside Nasa’s mission to the north pole

For 10 years, Nasa has been flying over the ice caps to chart their retreat. This data is an invaluable record of climate change. But does anyone care?

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The Oxymoron of Commercial Wildflowers

Are the blooms sold by florists ever truly “wild”?

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Politically charged: do you know where your batteries come from?

We need to think about the raw materials of batteries -- where they come from and their environmental cost.

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First human embryos edited in U.S., using CRISPR

Researchers have demonstrated they can efficiently improve the DNA of human embryos.

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Japanese woman dies from tick disease after cat bite

A Japanese woman died last year of a tick-borne disease after being bitten by a stray cat, Japan's health ministry says, in what could be the first such mammal-to-human transmission. The unnamed woman in her 50s had been helping the apparently sick cat. Ten days later she died of Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (SFTS), which is carried by ticks.

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Google enters race for nuclear fusion technology

The tech giant and a leading US fusion company have developed a new computer algorithm that has significantly speeded up progress towards the goal of unlimited energy

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Robot reveals first images of lava-like nuclear debris at Fukushima

The radiation-hardened bot adds to Japan's $72 billion cleanup

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The Moon's Role in a Solar Eclipse

This video explains how our moon creates a solar eclipse, why it's such a rare event to see, and how data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has enhanced our ability to map an eclipse's path of totality.

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Canines saved from Korea's 'dog meat festival'

Nearly 150 dogs that faced slaughter to be served as “stamina boosting” meals in South Korea have been rescued and sent to shelters in the United States. Human Society International (HSI), an international animal protection group, carried out the project last weekend. The group rescued the dogs from a farm in Yesan, South Chungcheong Province, which faced closure for business reasons. If the group had not worked properly, the dogs could have been sold to dog meat retailers.

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Human liver cells seeded in mouse expands 50-fold to functional organoid

Being able to grow your own new organs may be in reach—with some cellular assembly required. With a carefully constructed clump of cells, mice grew their own functional human liver organoids in a matter of months, researchers report this week in Science Translational Medicine. The cellular organ seeds blossomed in the rodents, expanding 50-fold in that time. They appeared to form complex liver structures, tap into vasculature...

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Stunning Photos Showing NYC Subway Cars Being Dumped Into the Ocean

It’s not every day you see a series of photos clearly documenting someone with a front end loader pushing industrial waste directly into the ocean without any care of secrecy or stealth.

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A Subway-Style Map of the Mighty Rivers of America

A designer who spent his youth floating on rafts has conjured up a delightful transit guide to America’s waterways.

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Philippines' Duterte warns miners: 'I will tax you to death'

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday said he wanted to stop exporting mineral resources and might close the mining sector completely and tax miners "to death" if damage to the environment persisted. "The protection of the environment must be made a priority ahead of mining and all other activities that adversely affect one way or another," Duterte said in his State of the Nation address, his second since assuming power in June last year. "This policy is non-negotiable."

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The clever electronic inks rewriting our energy future

“There are just three demonstration sites at this scale that we know of anywhere in the world, so Australia has joined quite an elite group of global leaders poised to make this technology a commercial reality,” said Professor Dastoor. Professor Dastoor said the material could be rapidly manufactured, enabling accelerated deployment into the marketplace.

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Don’t water plants on sunny days? Three horticultural myths exposed

Some sage old sayings are based on facts – others are not worth the bother, writes James Wong

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Why Is The Very Hungry Caterpillar So Dang Hungry?

Because it's hoarding protein. Not just for itself, but for the butterfly it will become and every egg that butterfly will lay. And it's about to lose its mouth... as it wriggles out of its skin during metamorphosis.

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A third of marine megafauna died in a mass extinction that we didn’t even know about

Ancient climate change was to blame.

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A recycling robot named Clarke could be the key to reducing waste

Developed by AMP Robotics, Clarke makes use of artificial intelligence to recognize and sort various food and beverage containers.

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Bear chases 200 sheep over cliff edge to their deaths

More than 200 sheep have plunged to their deaths in the Pyrenees while apparently trying to escape a brown bear. The bears have been reintroduced to the mountain region over the past three decades after being wiped out by hunters.

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This Dutch startup turns plants into batteries.

Imagine a lamp, any lamp. Now imagine having to water it. Dutch product designer Ermi van Oers created Living Light: plants that double as lights. Or lights that double as plants – whichever way you prefer looking at it. The lighst run on electricity generated by bacteria in the soil.

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Are our gardens the monarch butterfly sanctuaries we think they are?

An ecologist at Cornell doubts the practical value of the milkweed trend. But there are other reasons to keep planting it, he says.

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1861 The First Battle of Bull Run Video C-SPAN.org

1861 Review: First Battle of Bull Run Adam Goodheart, author of 1861: The Civil War Awakening, talked about the First Battle of Bull Run, also known as First Manassas, held July 21, 1861. He talked about how the battle changed public perceptions of the war. He was interviewed at a portrait of General Winfield Scott in a Civil War exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery.

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Trump officially nominates climate-denying conservative talk radio host as USDA’s top scientist

Sam Clovis, a former Trump campaign adviser and one-time conservative talk radio host, has no background in the hard sciences, nor any policy experience with food or agriculture. Still, that did not stop President Donald Trump from officially nominating Clovis to the position of the United States Department of Agriculture’s undersecretary of research, education, and economics, the agency’s top science position.

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Arks of the Apocalypse

All around the world, scientists are building repositories of everything from seeds to ice to mammal milk — racing to preserve a natural order that is fast disappearing. By Malia Wollan.

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This is officially the hottest day in Shanghai in at least 145 years

Apparently, weather forecasters weren't kidding about this being a rather hot week. The Shanghai weather bureau issued its first red alert for heat of the year today with temperatures hitting a record high of 40.9 degrees Celcius at around 2 p.m. in Xujiahui. That's the highest temperature ever recorded at the Xujiahui weather station, which was established all the way back in 1873. The previous high was 40.8 degrees, recorded during the sweltering summer of 2013.

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Rebecca Solnit on a Childhood of Reading and Wandering

In Praise of Libraries and the Forests That Surround Them.

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