Feb 2, 2015 - Parts of it might come off sounding like a napkin draft of an old Robert Heinlein novel – the daring mission by one Netherlands-based non-profit group to colonize Mars. 25 participants in all – chosen from all walks of life, across the world, out of a panel of 3,500 different applicants. Those chosen for this […]

Feb 2, 2015 - By Kathleen Prudic, Oregon State University An iconic North American migration is in jeopardy. The monarch butterfly migrates back and forth from Mexico to Canada every year, its orange and black sails peppering blue skies. In the past 20 years, almost one billion monarchs have gone missing across North America. That’s about 1,000 acres, or […]

Feb 2, 2015 - By Ken Sayers, Georgia State University Reconstructions of human evolution are prone to simple, overly-tidy scenarios. Our ancestors, for example, stood on two legs to look over tall grass, or began to speak because, well, they finally had something to say. Like much of our understanding of early hominid behavior, the imagined diet of our […]

Feb 2, 2015 - By Britta Denise Hardesty, CSIRO and Chris Wilcox, CSIRO You might have heard the oceans are full of plastic, but how full exactly? Around 8 million metric tonnes go into the oceans each year, according to the first rigorous global estimate published in Science today. That’s equivalent to 16 shopping bags full of plastic for […]

By Brendan Cruz Colón, Harvard University Photosynthesis – turning the sun’s energy into food for plants – is the biological system that feeds the world. But despite its awesome power, the process is extremely inefficient. We can’t really blame plants for this because photosynthesis evolved for ancient earth’s conditions. What if we could improve on […]

Feb 2, 2015 - By Tobias Pamminger, University of Sussex Ants have a reputation of being industrious hard-working animals, sacrificing their own benefit for the good of the colony. They live to serve their queen and take care of all essential tasks including brood care, gathering food and maintaining the nest. However, not all ant species live up to […]

Feb 2, 2015 - By Stam Zervanos, Pennsylvania State University According to legend, if the groundhog sees his shadow on February 2nd, there will be six more weeks of winter; if not, an early spring is predicted. Of course groundhogs – also known as woodchucks – don’t emerge at this time just to be furry weather predictors. So what’s […]

Jan 1, 2015 - By Jack Goodman, University of Toronto Parts of the northeastern United States are still digging out after a blizzard. And more snow is on the way. You may have seen news stories warning that shoveling snow can raise the risk of a heart attack, or heart problems, at least for some people. So, why is […]

By Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research As first glance, asking whether global warming results in more snow may seem like a silly question because obviously, if it gets warm enough, there is no snow. Consequently, deniers of climate change have used recent snow dumps to cast doubt on a warming climate from human […]

Jan 1, 2015 - By Monica Grady, The Open University As a headline, “No gas leak on the International Space Station” ranks alongside recent news stories, such as “Mild earthquake in North Texas – no damage reported” and “No-one hurt in bedroom fire”. But behind what, thankfully, seems to be a non-story, lies a salutary tale of the problems […]