A Sandia National Laboratories-led team has demonstrated faster, more efficient ways to turn discarded plant matter into chemicals worth billions. The team’s findings could help transform the economics of making fuels and other products from domestically grown renewable sources.

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the Philippines and saw the thirtieth tropical cyclone of the northwestern Pacific Ocean typhoon season form.

Mushrooms may contain unusually high amounts of two antioxidants that some scientists suggest could help fight aging and bolster health, according to a team of Penn State researchers.

Simple technologies can be learned effectively through imitation, while complex methods require professional training. If Ghanaian pineapple farmers are to achieve higher yields through more sustainable agriculture, they will need to be trained in exactly these types of complex applications. This was the conclusion reached by a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (ifW), who provide evidence for this assertion in the form of a new study with recommendations.

Drought is the world’s costliest natural disaster. To monitor, detect and quantify drought, many drought indices have been developed. Previous studies have shown that different indices can yield diverse results for a specific drought event, and a drought index can also give different results depending on the method used for the calculation of potential evapotranspiration (PET).

A new systematic synthesis by researchers at the University of Hawai?i at M?noa shows that there are at least 27 different physiological pathways in which a heatwave can kill a human being, and everyone is at risk.

What if you could experience the beauty of Sidney Spit (at the northern tip of Sidney Island) without leaving your home? Robert Newell has applied cutting-edge technology to develop a virtual reality experience that takes visitors on a tour of the park, over land and underwater, using visualization tools.

Today, more than 1.3 billion people are living without regular access to power, including more than 300 million in India and 600 million in sub-Saharan Africa. In these and other developing countries, access to a main power grid, particularly in rural regions, is remote and often unreliable.

Increasingly, many rural and some urban communities are turning to microgrids as an alternative source of electricity. Microgrids are small-scale power systems that supply local energy, typically in the form of solar power, to localized consumers, such as individual households or small villages.  

A well-designed climate observing system could help scientists answer knotty questions about climate while delivering trillions of dollars in benefits by providing decision makers information they need to protect public health and the economy in the coming decades, according to a new paper published today.

Forgot to water that plant on your desk again? It may soon be able to send out an SOS.