Latest Articles
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Teeniest frog ever
Scientists thought they had found the world's smallest frog just a month ago, when a researcher announced he'd found coin-sized amphibians in New Guinea. But psych! Those weren't the smallest frogs. This is the smallest frog. In fact it's the smallest vertebrate known to man.
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Koch fiends: AFP’s favorite members of Congress
Americans for Prosperity gave five senators and 39 representatives perfect scores for their votes to uphold the Koch agenda in Congress.
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Go ahead, eat McDonald’s. Nobody will ever know
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.1010447&w=425&h=350&fv=] I’m told, by people with less finicky stomachs, that sometimes even the most well-intentioned foodies and factory-farm opponents really jones for an Egg McMuffin. If you can’t resist the occasional splurge — maybe it’s been a late and smokey night at college, if you know what I mean — then at least you […]
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American beef consumption is at a 50-year low
According to this graph from the Daily Livestock Report, we are way past Peak Beef. U.S. beef consumption has been dropping for the last 40 years, and projections put it back down at 1950s levels this year, which would mean we're eating less meat than at any time in the last 50 years. Americans are eating a lot less meat overall, but beef and to a lesser extent pork have seen the biggest reductions -- which is cool, because cattle and pigs are the most resource-intensive livestock.
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Climate change may have killed 4 out of 5 seal pups in 2011
North Atlantic sea ice in areas where harp seals breed has declined as much as 6 percent every 10 years since 1979, according to scientists from Duke University and the International Fund for Animal Welfare. As a result, in low-ice years, entire populations of brand-new seal pups die, reports Yale e360. According to Canada’s Fisheries […]
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Here are the potential Solyndras of 2012
Hey makers of right-wing talking points! Pay attention to these solar companies. They might fail this year, and as we all know, when a solar company fails you can repurpose its hide into a political hobby-horse and ride it forever.
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Sunflowers show how to capture solar energy more efficiently
In design, biomimicry -- the idea that nature does design best -- is all the rage. So it must have been a head-slapping "duh" moment when solar-power designers sought inspiration from sunflowers -- a plant that has "sun" in its name, for goodness' sake! It turns out that sunflowers are really good at using the sun (NO WAY), and mimicking their structure can allow designers to seriously reduce the size of concentrating solar power farms.
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Critical List: ‘Super fracking’; pollution threatens Lake Titicaca
Natural gas companies are looking into "super fracking," which uses larger, deeper cracks and draws power from our planet’s yellow sun.
West Virginians, Pennsylvanians, and Ohioans are all hoping that Shell will choose to build a petrochemical refinery in their state, because the plant promises jobs.
Maybe it's time to abandon Ulysses S. Grant's laws for federal land, which dictate that hard-rock mining is the best use for any plot. -
Meating halfway: Americans opt for less
The good news: Americans are consuming less meat. The bad news: The meat industry is still a terrible place to work.
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Turning your teeth green — in a good way [VIDEO]
Is this America's Greenest Dentist? He can't make getting your teeth cleaned more fun, but he can make it greener. Find out how he does it.
