Change view of water temperature during time when first modern mammals emerged … learn more→

Earth has 657 more barrier islands than previously thought, according to a new global survey by researchers from Duke University and Meredith College. The researchers identified a total of 2,149 barrier islands worldwide using satellite images, topographical maps and navigational charts. The new total is significantly higher than the 1,492 islands identified in a 2001 […] … learn more→

Lizards living in their natural habitats cope better with the effects of climate change than those living in human-modified habitats, researchers from James Cook University have found. Dr David Pike, from JCU’s School of Marine and Tropical Biology said that 10 years ago, lizards born in human-modified habitats were larger, grew faster, and survived better […] … learn more→

Research shows that a walk in the park is more than just a nice way to spend an afternoon. It\’s an essential component for good health, according to University of Illinois environment and behavior researcher Frances \”Ming\” Kuo. \”Through the decades, parks advocates, landscape architects, and popular writers have consistently claimed that nature had healing […] … learn more→

A dramatic and surprising magnetic effect of light discovered by University of Michigan researchers could lead to solar power without traditional semiconductor-based solar cells. The researchers found a way to make an \”optical battery,\” said Stephen Rand, a professor in the departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Physics and Applied Physics. In the process, […] … learn more→

We need an economy for the twenty-first century, one that is in sync with the earth and its natural support systems, not one that is destroying them. The fossil fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy that evolved in western industrial societies is no longer a viable model — not for the countries that shaped it or for those that are emulating them. In short, we need to build a new economy, one powered with carbon-free sources of energy — wind, solar, and geothermal — one that has a diversified transport system and that reuses and recycles everything. We can change course and move onto a path of sustainable progress, but it will take a massive mobilization — at wartime speed. … learn more→

…why do we tolerate rules of economic life that violate our sense of the sacred? … learn more→

A wide-ranging group of experts has published a set of 40 key environmental questions to help align scientific research agendas with the needs of natural resource decision makers. The cover story of the April issue of BioScience, written by 30 co-authors, contains the results of a process in which 35 participants solicited and synthesized questions […] … learn more→

David Grewell flipped on the augers that carry corn from a truck to a biorefinery. Then, with a few more clicks of his computer mouse, he turned on the pumps that send grain all the way through an ethanol plant, from storage to hammer mill to slurry tanks to jet cooker to liquefaction, fermentation, distillation, […] … learn more→

Companies spend millions to develop their brand’s personality, in hopes that it can help sell products. But they’ve had no way of measuring whether that personality actually appeals to consumers. Now, research from North Carolina State University lays out a system for measuring the appeal of a brand’s personality. “We developed this means of measuring […] … learn more→