Fuel from water? A form of Alchemy? Researchers have been trying for years to find a limitless, environmentally benign source of fuel. Now a University of Colorado Boulder team has developed a radically new technique that uses the power of sunlight to efficiently split water into its components of hydrogen and oxygen, paving the way…

The impacts of a warming planet are widespread and diverse. The amount of snow the American west receives each year is a significant factor in how much water is available for agricultural irrigation and human consumption. A new report projects that by the middle of this century there will be an average 56 percent drop…

Photographs of our planet taken from orbit are spectacular. The ones that the Apollo astronauts took from lunar orbit are amazing. Did you ever wonder what Earth looks like from as far away as Saturn? Would it be visibly blue? This question has been answered by the cameras on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft which captured this…

NASA’s Curiosity Rover has been exploring Mars for almost a year now. It has been acquiring detailed data on the current atmosphere. A pair of new papers report measurements of the Martian atmosphere’s composition by NASA’s Curiosity rover, providing evidence about loss of much of Mars’ original atmosphere. Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) suite…

Rodeo riders love longhorn cattle. What would they think about a longhorn dinosaur? A remarkable new species of horned dinosaur has been unearthed in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, southern Utah. The huge plant-eater inhabited Laramidia, a landmass formed when a shallow sea flooded the central region of North America, isolating western and eastern portions for…

Think sea levels will rise only a bit in response to an increase in global temperature of one degree? Think again! A new study estimates that global sea levels will rise about 2.3 meters, or more than seven feet, over the next several thousand years for every degree (Celsius) the planet warms. This international study…

The Bureau of Land Management has been tracking range conditions as the current drought lingers on. Drought conditions across the West have impacted rangelands, leaving little water and forage for animals and livestock, prompting the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to undertake targeted actions, such as providing supplemental water and food for wild horses; reducing…

Data from satellites have been used a lot recently to monitor the loss of ice from ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland. Having these data is relatively recent, however. It would be better if the data existed for a longer period so more accurate predictions of future rates of ice loss or accretion could be…

Icebergs in situ make little noise, right? What about when the calve? There is growing concern about how much noise humans generate in marine environments through shipping, oil exploration and other developments, but a new study has found that naturally occurring phenomena could potentially affect some ocean dwellers. Nowhere is this concern greater than in…

Carbon credits are created by emissions controls and by other manufacturing practices and they can be sold to other facilities to offset emissions that cannot be economically reduced. These are attractive when a facility cannot meet a new regulation, and is near the end of its useful life, making it uneconomic to install expensive new…