R.K. Pachauri, an engineer and economist by training, is director-general of The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, India, and a corecipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his role as chief of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC periodically issues consensus reports on the science of climate change. Senior editor Janet Raloff spoke with him about changes he hopes to see from the Obama administration. (p. 32)

Data compilation by region, type of hazards shows deaths from more frequent events accumulate into significant numbers. Lightning strikes also high on the list.

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The chemistry of minerals preserved in Australian rocks suggests tectonic activity for Earth’s earliest eon. (p. 10)

Bacteria can build a biofilm that preserves a tissue's structure.

A volleyball-sized stalagmite taken from a cave in northern China has given scientists insight about how the region’s precipitation has varied — and possibly influenced the rise and fall of various dynasties — for the past 1,800 years. Researchers collected the telltale formation about 1 kilometer inside Wanxiang Cave, which lies along the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. In recent years the area has received an average annual precipitation of 48 centimeters, with about 80 percent of that falling during the May-to-September monsoon season. But rainfall amounts have varied signific...

Chemical biomarkers in ancient Australian rocks, once thought to be the oldest known evidence of complex life on Earth, may have infiltrated long after the sediments were laid down, new analyses suggest. (p. 5)

Tales of the black band: Clues to a 4,200-year-old mystery lie frozen in icy records stored atop Mt. Kilimanjaro.

This dusty library saves the geo-curious a trip to Antarctica.

Featured blog: As glaciers continue to dry up, so does any hope of gleaning information from them about the past climate record.