November 2, 2009 | The Solix Biofuels Company out in the Colorado Desert is one of about 200 companies trying to find a way to make biofuels out of algae by extracting its natural oils. The company has found an investment partner in the...
October 29, 2009 | Dr. Kinari Webb runs an environmentally friendly health clinic on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo that offers patients living in extreme poverty access to affordable health care. Health in Harmony allows patients to pay for treatment in everything from...
October 22, 2009 | In this video, NewsHour Health Unit correspondent Betty Ann Bowser reports on concerns over the possible H1N1 flu vaccine shortage that is causing chaos at hospitals as flu season approaches. She visits a Maryland public health clinic where about 2,000...
October 20, 2009 | To study the history of climate change, scientists from 14 nations gathered in the far north end of Greenland to drill into the 1.6-mile core of solid ice. The goal of the North Greenland Eemian ice drilling project, or NEEM,...
October 12, 2009 | Hoping to confirm suspicions that there is water in the form frozen ice that could sustain life on the moon, NASA scientists crashed an LCROSS lunar probe into a moon crater last week. According to space reporter and former NASA...
October 5, 2009 | New research published in the journal Science last week announced new findings 17 years in the making from a 4.4 million year old human ancestor. The new discovery suggests the line of human evolution may be much more complex than...
September 30, 2009 | In this video, NewsHour Science Unit correspondent Spencer Michels looks how politics can get in the way of fixing important infrastructure problems. He reports from San Francisco where engineers and politicians have battled over how to fix the earthquake-prone San...
September 14, 2009 | Since the swine flu outbreak began last spring and spread to more than 100 countries researchers have been working around the clock to come up with an effective shot in sufficient quantities before too many people got sick. In the...
September 8, 2009 | Until the 1990s, most students in the American school system had "shop class" - a period devoted to making things out of wood or metal, or learning how to repair cars and other machines. But "shop class" soon became computer...
September 4, 2009 | "The World at Night" is a traveling photography exhibit sponsored by Astronomers Without Borders, an organization that uses photography to promote the idea that everyone around the world shares a common night sky. In this audio slideshow, astronomers and photographers...
September 3, 2009 | While wildfires rage on in California, another western state has had its share of forest fires in recent years. Average spring temperatures have risen nearly three degrees in Washington State since 1950. Scientists and researchers are noticing that with the...
August 21, 2009 | While Oklahoma has long been associated with oil and natural gas production, some of the state's young people are turning to its burgeoning wind turbine industry for jobs amidst a recession and global energy crisis. Oklahoma's secretary of commerce and...
August 13, 2009 | President Barack Obama awarded 16 people with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation's highest award for civilians. Among the list of honorees was retired...
August 5, 2009 | In parts of Southeast Asia, setting a bird free from its cage is a tradition that symbolizes improving a person's soul. But public health workers are now concerned that birds in markets in the region could be spreading H5N1, the...
July 29, 2009 | Recently released findings show that calling or texting while driving may be significantly more dangerous than previously assumed. The studies found that drivers making a phone call were four times more likely to crash and that texting was twice as...
July 22, 2009 | 40 years after the astronauts of the space shuttle Apollo 11 captured the nation's imagination with the first moon landing, government officials are questioning whether human space exploration is still worth the price. Sending humans to the moon costs the...
June 22, 2009 | The launch of two satellites bound for the moon last week marked the beginning of NASA's new plan for human spaceflight. The spacecraft will look for potential landing sites, measure radiation, and search for water. NASA is also moving ahead...
June 1, 2009 | This video is two minute report of President Obama announcing his new White House position coordinating the nation's digital security, saying the country faces what he called a transformational moment. You can use this to introduce a general conversation, or...
May 20, 2009 | President Obama announced sweeping new standards on gas mileage and auto emissions. The new standard would increase the fuel economy of vehicles sold in the United States to a minimum of 35.5 miles per gallon (cars 39 miles per gallon...
May 12, 2009 | NASA launched the Atlantis shuttle and its six-member crew into space on Monday to repair the 19-year-old Hubble Space Telescope for the last time. The Atlantis crew will spend 11 days working on Hubble, adding a new camera and fixing...
May 5, 2009 | NewsHour Correspondent Ray Suarez is in Mexico City this week, where health officials are optimistic that the spread of H1N1 "swine flu" virus is waning. With the help of the antiviral drug, Tamiflu, more flu patients are recovering and leaving...
May 1, 2009 | With the H1N1 virus, also known as the swine flu, now detected in at least 16 U.S. states some local communities are now taking forceful steps to prevent the virus' continued spread. More than a hundred individual schools have closed...
April 24, 2009 | Battlefield robots are nothing new in Hollywood, but they aren't just science fiction anymore. The military has deployed thousands of them for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. Robots, thus far, have been used mostly to inspect and dismantle roadside bombs....
April 23, 2009 | Students from across the country applied technical and scientific knowledge to design a city of the future, imagine how it would work and what it would be like to live there in the 17th Annual Future City National Competition. More...
April 20, 2009 | The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency formally declared that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are a significant threat to public health, opening the door to new government action on climate change. The EPA reviewed possible health dangers from global warming caused...
April 15, 2009 | After years of being on the market solar and alternative energy schemes seemed to finally catch on as photovoltaic installations were up 75 percent last year, and a recent industry report says solar, along with wind and biofuels, continued another...
March 31, 2009 | After years of research and billions of dollars, California scientists believe that they are close to producing fusion, the same power that makes the sun burn, as an alternative source of energy. Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in...
March 16, 2009 | With the economy is such a fragile state, President Barack Obama must walk the fine line between inspiring optimism and fostering realistic expectations for the future. In this video, regular NewsHour commentator Mark Shields and former Reagan speechwriter Michael Gerson,...
February 18, 2009 | President Obama has made changing U.S. energy policy to rely more on renewable sources a top priority. In California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to push his large and influential state to 33% renewable energy by 2020. Northern California's Pacific...
January 23, 2009 | As the economy continues to fumble, once infallible high tech firms are also proving they are affected by the market. This week Microsoft and Intel announced job cuts- the first time ever for Microsoft-bringing the total amount of tech industry...
December 31, 2008 | The International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM) invites students from around the world to craft biological "machines," or living organisms, using original combinations of DNA and other organic material to help tackle environmental and health problems. Synthetic biology is a...
November 14, 2008 | Some researchers believe that more than five million square miles of the Pacific Ocean has become a garbage patch of plastic trash from North America and Asia. The trash is carried from shorelines by ocean currents to an area called...
October 21, 2008 | The aging infrastructure of roads and bridges in America was in the spotlight last year when a bridge in Minneapolis collapsed, killing 13 commuters. Most of the country's transportation infrastructure of roads and bridges was put in place in the...
October 9, 2008 | More than 35 years after Congress passed the Clean Water Act mandating that all waters in the United States be both fishable and swimmable, this goal has yet to be met. Scientists say that storm water runoff can cause large...
September 11, 2008 | Scientists celebrated this week when they successfully sent subatomic particles at a very high speed around a 17-mile underground tunnel in Geneva, Switzerland, called the Large Hadron Collider. The contraption might allow researchers to learn more about the creation of...
August 18, 2008 | In this video report, NewsHour correspondent Spencer Michels looks into how large businesses are producing new "green" household goods, catering to a new demand for environmentally-friendly products. Michels talks to representatives from cleaning product company Clorox, which is trying to...
August 15, 2008 | In this video discussion, University of Chicago scientist Paul Sereno tells the NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown about how his team, looking for dinosaur bones in Niger, Africa, found two populations of humans in a burial ground; the bodies are 6,000 to...
August 7, 2008 | This video report looks at the story of Bruce Ivins, an Army microbiologist who committed suicide just as federal prosecutors were preparing to file criminal charges against him in connection with the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people. You...
May 15, 2008 | In an unusual decision, the Interior Department declared the polar bear species to be officially "threatened," under the Endangered Species Act, because of global warming. Scientific evidence shows that the shrinking Arctic ice cap will no longer support the polar...
