Asthma is a common chronic inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and bronchial spasms. Symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath. Dirty polluted air is known to cause respiratory inflammation. Now exposure to dirty air has been linked to decreased function of a gene…

Yesterday, the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar approved the nation’s first-ever large-scale solar energy plants to be built on public lands. Both plants, located in California, are first in a series of clean energy projects under final review by the Department of Interior (DOI) that are to be built on public lands. The California…

A toxic spill of mining waste from an industrial plant in Hungary is the worst of its kind in the country’s history and may end up matching the Baia Mare cyanide spill in Romania in 2000. The spill, with a pH level of up to 13, has already spread into rivers with fears that heavy…

An area of deep-sea coral reefs has just been discovered off the coast of Israel, the first such reef to be found in what is generally considered a region with sparse sea life. The area stretches over a few miles, roughly 2,297 feet (700 meters) under the ocean surface and some 19 to 26 miles…

The United States said on Wednesday U.N. climate talks were making less progress than hoped because of a rift over poorer nations’ emission goals, and that other avenues might be needed to tackle climate change. Negotiators from 177 governments are meeting this week in the north Chinese city of Tianjin trying to agree on the…

Soaring international production of livestock could release enough carbon into the atmosphere by 2050 to single-handedly exceed ‘safe’ levels of climate change, says a study. Scientists combined figures for livestock production in 2000 with Food and Agriculture Organization projections for population growth and meat consumption by 2050. They found that the livestock sector’s emissions alone…

Sleep is sleep. Diet is diet. Then again cutting back on sleep reduces the benefits of dieting, according to a study published October 5, 2010, in the Annals of Internal Medicine. When dieters in the study got a full night’s sleep, they lost the same amount of weight as when they slept less. When dieters…

America is certainly the land of plenty. This country has been blessed with an overabundance of natural resources and some of the world’s most fertile agricultural land. However, every year millions of tons of food is wasted. According to a new study published in the journal, Environmental Science & Technology, the amount of food wasted…

Researchers have uncovered the largest geothermal hot spot in the eastern United States. According to a unique collaboration between Google and academic geologists, West Virginia sits atop several hot patches of Earth, some as warm as 200˚C and as shallow as 5 kilometers. If engineers are able to tap the heat, the state could become…

US President Barack Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, took on climate change deniers in a comprehensive, data-heavy speech last month at the Kavli Science Forum in Oslo, Norway. Proclaiming that “the earth is getting hotter”, Holden went on to enumerate on the causes of climate change (human impacts) and its overall effect (not good), discussing…