Earth

Climate

Climate: Negotiating the brackets

Representatives of 193 nations are posturing and challenging, threatening and bluffing, as they wrestle to draft a successor climate treaty to the Kyoto Protocol. The chief objective is to lower global emissions of greenhouse gases. How to do it, who will pay for it, how high to strive – all of these are up in the air. Still. Three days before the negotiators are to sign onto a statement of shared goals and intentions.

Earth

Irrigation draining California groundwater at ‘unsustainable’ pace

The GRACE satellites have tracked water movement from the Central Valley since 2003.

Climate

U.N effectively locks out reporters, others in Copenhagen

For a year, the United Nations and national leaders have stumped around the world, championing the importance of the Copenhagen climate negotiations. It made this international conclave a must-see destination. And the UN responded by granting accreditation to huge numbers of government officials, UN officials, public-interest groups and journalists. In fact, to almost twice as many individuals as the conference center could hold. And that led to pandemonium today as the UN confronted literally thousands of people waiting to pick up their security badges – people this organization couldn’t or wouldn’t accommodate.

Climate

‘Climate-gate’: Beyond the embarrassment

The United Nations Climate Change meeting, which I arrive at tomorrow in Copenhagen, is currently deadlocked on more important issues than who said what impolitic thing about somebody else in a private email to a colleague.

Life

Dinosaurs broiled, not grilled

Debris from K-T impact could have been heat source and heat shield.

Paleontology

New fossil helps solidify dino origins

The dog-sized creature bolsters the notion that early dinosaurs first appeared in what is now South America.

Earth

Earth’s atmosphere may be extraterrestrial in origin

Analyses of krypton, xenon hint that air didn’t fizz from within the planet.

Earth

The big spill: Flood could have filled Mediterranean in less than two years

Discovery of a distinctive channel and new calculations of possible water movement suggest a fast and furious flow formed the sea.

Ecosystems

Greening Christmas

I love the smell of balsam and firs and decorating holiday cookies – preferably with the sound of popular holiday standards in the background. I even enjoy shopping for and wrapping carefully chosen presents in seasonal papers festooned with huge bows. So when my hosts, this week, asked what I wanted to see during my visit, the answer was simple. Take me to one of Germany’s famed Christmas markets. And literally within a couple hours of my plane’s landing, they were already ushering me into the first of what would be a handful of such seasonal fairs. But as I also quickly learned, this first was an unusual one: a "green" bazaar.

Humans

Another livestock drug endangers vultures

After one veterinary NSAID almost wiped out vultures in South Asia, one of the possible replacements turns out to be toxic too.

Climate

EPA: Greenhouse gases still endanger health

In April, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that based on its reading of the science, greenhouse gases threaten public health. Since then, the public and legions of interest groups have weighed in on the subject, shooting EPA some 380,000 separate comments. “After a thorough examination of the scientific evidence and careful consideration of public comments on the ruling,” EPA today reiterated its so-called “endangerment” assessment of greenhouse gases

Life

Bacteria seen swimming the electron shuffle

Researchers have captured the bacterium Shewanella’s behavior on film, and the microbes didn’t behave as expected