EarthScape

The evidence is stronger than ever that pollution from industry, traffic and power generation causes strokes and heart attacks, and people should avoid breathing in smog, the American Heart Association said on Monday. Fine particulate matter from burning fossil fuels such as gasoline, coal and oil is the clearest offender, the group said. “Particulate matter…

Have you ever wondered how can you possibly gain so much weight when somebody else eats even more and gains less? Obviously, some of the answer is how much exercise one does. Another part of the answer is shown in the first study of its type by Australian researchers. Healthy people with a genetic predisposition…

Cape Wind, the first offshore wind farm in the US to win regulatory approval, has found a buyer for half of the electricity it will generate, when completed. Investor-owned energy company National Grid announced a power purchase agreement with Cape Wind Associates, the project’s developers, on Friday.

Long hours behind the wheel may increase the risk of skin cancer, according to a surprising new study. Facial skin cancers were found to occur more often on the left-side — the side that’s next to the window while driving — among a group of about 1,050 patients in Saint Louis. The findings were most…

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) continues to monitor water conditions in the part of the Gulf of Mexico that is being impacted by the huge oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon sinking. NOAA has recently modified and expanded the boundaries of the closed fishing area to better reflect the current location of the…

BP Plc said on Monday it had incurred $350 million in costs so far from the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as fears mounted of a prolonged and growing environmental and economic disaster. BP was considering its next move to contain the spill after its most promising short-term remedy struck a snag…

BP Plc engineers will search for a solution on Sunday after suffering a setback in an attempt to contain oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico with a huge metal dome, dashing hopes for a quick, temporary solution to a growing environmental disaster. The company was forced to move the four-story containment dome off to…

BP Plc engineers using undersea robots had a massive metal chamber hovering just above a gushing, ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday in a mission seen as the best chance yet to contain what could be the most damaging U.S. oil spill. The 98-ton structure has been lowered to the seabed…

Whatever happened to Neanderthal man and woman? Where did they go? After extracting ancient DNA from the 40,000 year old bones of Neanderthals, scientists have obtained a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, yielding important new insights into the evolution of modern humans. Among the findings, published in the May 7 issue of Science, is…

The key to long-term weight loss and maintenance might be to lose weight quickly rather than gradually, at least in the initial stages of dieting, a new study suggests. More research is needed to determine the best approach, however.