Science

Monday: Afghan Elections Marred by Fraud, Violence; Bombs Kill 36 in Iraq

Afghan election workers move ballot boxes to the Independent Election Commission warehouse in Kabul on Monday. Photo by Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images. The Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan, an independent observer group, is voicing "serious concerns" about…

Fidel Castro’s Favorite Dolphin Show

Jeffrey Goldberg's recent interview with Fidel Castro may have raised questions about Castro's commitment to the Cuban model of socialism, but the Cuban leader was absolutely clear on one thing: he enjoys a good dolphin show: We went…

Friday: Afghans Prepare to Vote Amid Violence; Gulf Well Close to Being Sealed

An Afghan election worker and a donkey carry voting materials to a remote mountainous village in Shotol. Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images. On the eve of Saturday's parliamentary elections, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is urging citizens to vote despite…

Weighing the (Very Light) Nuts and Bolts of the X Prize’s Edison2

For even the biggest projects, the devil is always in the details. In late August, the NewsHour profiled a small group of race car enthusiasts in Lynchburg, Va., who have made what they say is a revolutionary new…

Bacteria Gobbling Natural Gas in the Gulf

By Hari Sreenivasan

While attention on the Gulf has mostly focused on oil, the explosion and spill also released tremendous amounts of natural gas. David Valentine, a microbial geochemistry professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his research team…

Ultra-Light Cars Reap Rewards of X Prize

Edison2's Very Light Car won the $5 million top prize of the X Prize competition to build an uber-efficient car. The car is engineered to be ultra-light, all the way down to the lug nuts. The Virginia-based…

Evan Williams Explains New Twitter Interface

By Hari Sreenivasan

For the 1 percent of users who woke up to a different Twitter experience Wednesday morning, it was probably the biggest change they have ever seen to the real time information service. Twitter has approximately 160 million users and there…

Can We Both Feed the World in a Sustainable Way and Feed it Quality Food?

Question: As a society, we in America seem proud of our desire to help others, and that is of course laudable. In recent years, there is a movement toward more environmentally-friendly food for a number of reasons, nutritional and otherwise.

Inspiration, Funding Cited as Top Needs for Math and Science Education

By the end of a Brookings Institution event on science and technology education, people were referring to superstring theorist Brian Greene as "rabbi." Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, the moderator, took it a step further, calling him "Rabbi Rev.

Scientists Use Scans to Better Understand Brain Maturity

As children mature, their brains bloom madly with activity -- growing, pruning and rewiring. During this process, some connections strengthen, while others die off. The brain is reorganizing itself with experience. Researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine…