From Brazil to Borneo, new roads are being built into tropical forests at a dizzying pace, putting previously intact wilderness at risk. If we hope to preserve rainforests, a leading researcher says, new strategies must be adopted to limit the number of roads and reduce their impacts. … learn more→

In the past six months, it seems something has fallen from the sky every second minute. In September, the UARS satellite re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere, causing a media frenzy. In October, the German satellite Rosat re-entered, with much less fanfare. Before Christmas, there were reports of space junk falling near Esperance in Western Australia. And […] … learn more→

We distort reality when we omit the health and environmental costs associated with burning fossil fuels from their prices. When governments actually subsidize their use, they take the distortion even further. Worldwide, direct fossil fuel subsidies added up to roughly $500 billion in 2010. Of this, supports on the production side totaled some $100 billion. […] … learn more→

SOPA, PIPA bills pushed by Hollywood to stop Internet piracy, but House and Senate backers log off after blackout protests by Wikipedia, Google and others. … learn more→

When networking, it’s important to talk about how you can help the person and add value to his organization. It may sound obvious, but people often get too caught up in trying to sound natural and overlook this key part of any communication. Mark Grimm, a public speaker and messaging strategist, said it’s easy to […] … learn more→

A groundbreaking project at the University of Sheffield is set to revolutionise the way we engage with the past via the use of online virtual worlds and social networking. Based on popular online virtual worlds such as Second Life, academics from the University of Sheffield’s School of English Language, Literature and Linguistics and the Humanities […] … learn more→

Last December’s meeting of the American Geophysical Union featured three of the world’s leading climate scientists: James Hansen (NASA’s chief climate scientist), Elco Rohling (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton) and Ken Caldeira (Stanford School of Earth Science). But it was Hansen who attracted the most attention when he stated: “If you doubled CO₂, which practically all […] … learn more→

Sustainability studies, for me, is an opportunity to explore our relationship with some power greater than finite ourselves. And what could possibly be more important than that? … learn more→

Soon, scholars worldwide will have an easier time creating, publishing, and sharing maps and other geospatial data, thanks to the release of WorldMap, an open source software platform that fills the growing niche between desktop mapping applications and more lightweight, nimble Web solutions. Developed by Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis, WorldMap allows scholars to share […] … learn more→

China has undertaken ambitious reforestation initiatives that have increased its forest cover dramatically in the last decade. But scientists are now raising questions about just how effective these grand projects will turn out to be. In China, major environmental degradation caused by deforestation was apparent even 2,000 years ago, when the great waterway once simply […] … learn more→