Studying is a key contributor to academic achievement, but after sports practice, then your music lesson, dinner with your family, and homework that is due tomorrow, it’s already 1 am and you are just starting to study for that US History midterm. But you’re exhausted. Should you go to sleep... 

There is a lot of stored Methane in the environment and numerous natural sources. Well add a sort of new one that may be bigger than previously supposed. A new study demonstrates that old organic matter in sedimentary basins located beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet may have been converted to methane by... 

There are many logical (and illogical) reasons to have a large or a small family. Scientists have taken a step closer to solving one of life’s mysteries – why family size generally falls as societies become richer. Evolutionary biologists have long puzzled over this because natural selection is expected... 

Weathercasters in the U.S. not only tend to not ever mention climate change, but the majority of them do not even believe it is human-caused, as an article I recently wrote shows. However, that may change. The American Meteorological Society (AMS) released an official position statement on climate change... 

Water scarcity’s effect on food production means radical steps will be needed to feed a population expected to reach nine billion by 2050, warns Stockholm International Water Institute. Read the original post: Food shortages could force world into vegetarianism, warn scientists  Read More →

Photo by Shutterstock . The brazen lies of the Romney/Ryan campaign — on full display in Paul Ryan’s spectacularly dishonest speech at the Republican National Convention — have political pundits at a loss. Here’s Kevin Drum : I struggle to describe [the attack on Obama's selectively... 

Molly Steinwald (right) with a group of high school interns (Photo by Julia Petruska.) You can take Molly Steinwald out of the city, but you’re never, ever going to get the city out of Molly Steinwald. Trust me. She’s tried. Steinwald grew up a free-school-lunch kid on the outskirts of the old mill... 

Every year at the Pacific Coast Producers (PCP) processing plant in Woodland, Calif., half a million tons of tomatoes are sliced, diced, canned, boiled, and shipped to grocery stores nationwide. The operation is driven by steam, lots of it, which comes from a suite of massive natural-gas-powered boilers.... 

The government has been picking energy winners and losers for a long time already. (Photo by Shutterstock .) Now that renewables are receiving some of the same incentives that fossil fuels have enjoyed for nearly 100 years, we’re suddenly being inundated with calls for a purely “free-market” approach... 

A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity prevents anything, including light, from escaping. There are none to see nearby but their effects are massive when they are found. NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission has led to a bonanza of newfound supermassive black holes... 

We read the whole 62-page Republican platform so you don’t have to. No need to thank us. Well, actually, you really should thank us. Thank us profusely, please. Here are the good bits, by which we mean the bad bits. Climate change gets a mention Only in a mocking way, within a section entitled... 

Nuclear power in Germany accounted for 17.7% of national electricity supply in 2011, compared to 22.4% in 2010. German nuclear power began with research reactors in the 1950s and 1960s with the first commercial plant coming online in 1969. It has been high on the political agenda in recent decades, with... 

Our world orbits a single star. There are many more multiple stars systems than those that are single star systems. How hard would it be to have planets orbit a double star? Well that answer is not clear yet but astronomers have found planet orbiting a double star. Astronomers at the International Astronomical... 

Isaac might not be in the same league as Hurricane Katrina seven years ago, but the latest storm to batter Louisiana’s Gulf Coast is punching above its weight class in more ways than one, scientists say. The 2005 Hurricane Katrina, which devastated Louisiana and parts of Mississippi and Alabama,... 

India is a fast-developing nation with a population of 1.2 billion people, and by 2030 will likely be the most-populous in the world. India’s disparities and inequalities are staggering, with 32.7 percent of the population living on $1.25 per day. As the country continues to grow, the impacts on... 

Can we have enough to eat and a healthy environment, too? Yes — if we’re smart about it, suggests a study published in Nature this week by a team of researchers from the University of Minnesota and McGill University in Montreal. Here is the original post: Hope of Greater Global Food Output,... 

A really bad cardiac arrest can be so powerful that it results in sudden death. However, should a cardiac arrest occur during or shortly after exercise, the individual is three times more likely to survive than those who suffer a cardiac arrest that is not exercise related. This is the finding of Dr.... 

Photo by campuspartybrasil . George Monbiot has a new piece in the Guardian titled “The day the world went mad,” which looks at the underwhelming reaction in the press and political sphere to the Aug. 27 announcement of record Arctic ice melt. As Arctic sea ice faces a death spiral due to human-caused... 

Photo by Dominic Gan . Make no mistake: Processed food is out to get you. “No!” you can say. “I only want to eat whole foods! Just leave me alone!” But does processed food listen? No. It just kicks back and laughs. “Just try to get away from me,” processed food says. “I’m everywhere... 

Photo by Shutterstock . Like the speakers at the ongoing Republican National Convention , I communicate the “hard truths.” Here’s one for today: No one likes a party pooper. I’m inspired by a recent poll conducted by The New York Times which found 60 percent of New York City residents oppose...