EarthScape

In the effort to slow the pace of global warming, researchers and policy makers are encouraging the use of lighter colors for rooftops and streets worldwide. Dark, non-reflective surfaces which are common for asphalt and asphalt shingles, absorb heat from the sun and create a “heat-island” effect, plus a greater need for air conditioning. Lighter…

Your facial expression may tell the world what you are thinking or feeling. But it also affects your ability to understand written language related to emotions, according to research published in the July issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Two new fish species — with pancake-flat bodies, wiggling lures on their faces, and elbowed fins for “walking” on the seafloor — have been discovered in the path of spewing Gulf of Mexico oil. One of these pancake batfishes lives in the northern Gulf where oil is already spreading from the Deepwater Horizon blowout.

The United States and dozens of other countries have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars toward clean energy initiatives to help battle climate change, U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu said on Tuesday. Meeting in Washington, D.C., for a two-day conference, delegations from 24 countries representing 80 percent of global energy consumption promised 11 initiatives that…

Pending court approval, several companies affiliated with National Car Rental will pay a fine of $475,000 for repeated violations of motor vehicle idling regulations at two New England airports: Logan International in Boston, Mass. and Bradley International near Hartford, Conn. What is so wrong about idling? Diesel combustion releases fine particles and gases into the…

A NASA oversight committee unanimously passed a plan to postpone the space shuttles’ retirement and build a new U.S. launch system, while helping to develop commercial space taxis, though the private sector road to space would be funded at a fraction of the amount Pres. Barack Obama proposed in his controversial blueprint for the U.S.…

ScienceDaily (July 15, 2010) — Miss Marple notwithstanding, arsenic might not be many people’s favorite chemical. But the notorious poison does have some medical applications. Specifically, a form called arsenic trioxide has been used as a therapy for a particular type of leukemia for more than 10 years. Now researchers at the Stanford University School…

President Barack Obama set a new policy on Monday intended to improve coordination of uses of U.S. coastal waters ranging from recreation to commercial fishing to offshore drilling. As his administration contends with the BP Plc oil spill, Obama was to sign an executive order creating a single National Ocean Council to make sense of…

Why is there a brain and why are some larger and others smaller? What advantage is there to having them has been often argued. Recently published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, new studies reveal that “species which have developed large brains live for longer than those with small brains, as the protective brain theory…

Glaciers are massive sheets of ice, sliding slowly down a mountain and carving enormous grooves in the land. They flow down to the lowest point where gravity can take them, often into the ocean. The normal school of thought for these “tidewater glaciers” said that due to their weight and compaction to the earth’s surface,…