Dec 20 What We’re Reading: Year-end Wraps, Interstellar Space and Magnified Mushroom Mold Biochemist Photo-Fiddler Here's a fun, visual story on a GlaxoSmithKline biochemist who, in his spare time, used small mirrors, PVC pipes and an old computer hard drive to design a specialized camera that snaps photos of insects in flight. Continue reading
Dec 18 Coast Guard Report Examines Oil in Sea Floor Near Blown-Out BP Well By Jenny Marder A federal report released Friday detailed the levels of oil that remain lodged in sea floor sediment around the blown-out BP well in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil was found in concentrations too small to collect in most… Continue reading
Dec 16 Polar Bears Have a Chance — If Drastic Steps are Taken A study by a team of high-profile agencies says that polar bears have a chance -- if (and that's a big "if") we sharply cut our greenhouse gas emissions. Polar bears depend on sea ice platforms to hunt… Continue reading
Dec 15 Watch BP Faces Lawsuit to Recover Billions in Damages From Gulf Spill The Justice Department filed a major lawsuit against BP and eight other companies involved in the Gulf oil spill disaster. Ray Suarez has more. Continue watching
Dec 15 DOJ Sues BP, Transocean Over Gulf Oil Spill By News Desk A pelican rests on an oil retention boom on July 25, 2010 near Grand Isle, Louisiana. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images. Attorney General Eric Holder and EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson announced a major lawsuit against BP, Transocean and other… Continue reading
Dec 14 Just Ask: How Does Sunscreen Work? By Jenny Marder As a cold front settles across the Eastern seaboard, we turn wistfully to thoughts of the sun for this week’s Just Ask! science post. This one comes from a reader, Amanda Teicher, who wants to know: “How does sunscreen work?”… Continue reading
Dec 13 Watch Gawker Hacking Exposes Some Web Users’ Bad Password Habits Gawker Media, one of the web's largest publishers, was hacked over the weekend and information for about 1.3 million users was made public. Jeffrey Brown speaks with the NewsHour's Hari Sreenivasan about the cyber attack and what it means for… Continue watching
Dec 13 Avoiding Eruptions – While Covering Them It took a long time and a lot of persistence to get to the summit of the most active volcano in Indonesia. The trip down came quicker - and went faster than I would have liked. Clearly, I… Continue reading
Dec 13 What We’re Reading: Saturn’s Rings, Little Brown Bat Disease and Fossil Looting Epidemiology: Fear in the Dust Nature News reports on the mineral erionite, which has been linked to startling rates of the rare lung condition, mesothelioma, in some Turkish villages. It turns out dangerous levels of erionite are also… Continue reading
Dec 13 Watch Is the Web Becoming Less Secure? In the wake of the Gawker Media hacking over the weekend, Jeffrey Brown gets a wider perspective about the vulnerability of online information and the danger of further cyberattacks from James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies… Continue watching