EarthScape

Snow melt in the Colorado River basin is occurring earlier, reducing runoff and the amount of crucial water available downstream. A new study by NASA/UCLA shows this is due to increased dust caused by human activities in the typically arid American southwest region during the past 150 years.

One of the most painful things in life is a kidney stone. That hard jagged chunk of calcium, if it grows to a sufficient size, can completely clog up the works, leaving blood in the urine and intense pain. But for those with chronic kidney stone pain, there is new reason to hope. A recent…

On August 31, 2010, Governor David Paterson signed into law the Smart Growth Public Infrastructure Policy Act, which is intended to address sprawl by requiring certain state agencies to approve, undertake and fund infrastructure projects in a manner that is consistent with smart growth principles. The new legislation will affect a variety of projects throughout…

The majority of executives and consumers polled in a survey in July do not think the majority of businesses are committed to “going green.” Only 29 percent of executives and 16 percent of consumers polled think that the majority of businesses are committed to “going green.” Almost half (45 percent) of executives and 48 percent…

This spring the Barack Obama administration took a first step toward achieving a nation-wide fleet of (comparably) green vehicles. The administration officially confirmed that by the model year 2016, the US car fleet must measure up to an average fuel economy standard of 35.5 miles per gallon. The announcement marked the first time fuel economy…

Super sized electromagnetic coils are helping explain how aquatic life might be affected by renewable energy devices being considered for placement along America’s coastal waters and in the nation’s rivers. An electromagnetic field is a physical field produced by electrically charged objects. It affects the behavior of charged objects in the vicinity of the field.…

This week, from September 19-25, marks the 20th anniversary of the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990. The old way of doing things was to let companies pollute, and then pay a fortune to try to clean it up. This act states that it is a national policy of the United States to prevent pollution at…

Crushed leg bones, battered skulls and other mutilated human remains are likely all that’s left of a Native American population destroyed by genocide that took place circa 800 A.D., suggests a new study. The paper, accepted for publication in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, describes the single largest deposit to date of mutilated and processed…

According to an article published last week in the New York Times, major banks conducting business in the United States appear to be increasingly wary of financing mountaintop removal mining. This practice, a form of surface mining, involves the use of explosives to remove the tops of mountains to expose coal seams beneath. While viewed…

Unusually heavy monsoon rains over northern India have flooded villages, leaving more than half a million people homeless and submerging crops in a key sugar producing region, officials said on Monday. Torrential rains have lashed the impoverished and densely populated state of Bihar since Friday, causing the Gandak river to overflow and sweep away hundreds…