Latest Articles
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'Peak Coal' comes to Appalachia
By 2015, coal production in Appalachia will be half what it was in 2008. Some coal industry advocates argue that such a drop is due to increased regulation by the Obama administration (go figure). But geologists and others who work in the industry say it's actually the result of a much more basic fact: Appalachia is running out of coal.
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Company makes fuel from wood using nothing but water
A company called Renmatix says it can make ethanol from wood and woody biomass using nothing but water. If they're right -- and they just cut the ribbon on an R&D facility in Pennsylvania in order to find out -- it could mean the unlocking of a vast reserve of biomass previously untouched by the cleantech industry.
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Busting Monsanto's 'better' broccoli
The seed giant is now selling a ready-to-eat broccoli product meant to "maintain your body's defenses against the damage of environmental pollutants and free radicals." Can you taste the irony?
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Where the sun don’t shine: Solar Decathlon beams amid scandal and rain
The Department of Energy's annual eco-jamboree inspires fresh sun-powered designs on a budget.
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The crude reality of oil in Nigeria
The director of Sweet Crude talks about what it's like to spend time with people who know the true cost of oil. Her film is now out on DVD.
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Colbert: 'I know global warming is real, folks'
When everyone's favorite fake Tea Partier acknowledges the reality of climate change, maybe we're getting somewhere.
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Terrifying recycled playground will eat your children
Let's say you want to build a playground for refugee children from Myanmar. And let's say you also want to recycle some rubber tires. You could tie the tires to ropes and make swings out of them, like kids have done pretty much since the tire was invented, or maybe you could put them on the ground to make an obstacle course. Or, hey, you could fashion them into a sort of Gigeresque nightmare squid! That one sounds good, let's do that.
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Beauty and the Beastly BPA-Soaked Soup
Disney princess-mania can strike 3 to 5-year-old children at any time. That’s bad enough for kids (and mostly their parents), but now these bedazzled damsels are harming all children in a whole new way -- by enticing them to ingest high levels of BPA.
Campbell's has been using Disney princesses and other Disney characters to sell kid-targeted food. Cartoon labels and "cool shapes" -- i.e. noodles that are supposedly, though unidentifiably, made to look like kids’ favorite characters -- help entice "healthy kids" into eating chicken in salty chicken broth. And of all the soups tested for BPA in a recent study, the Disney Princess Cool Shapes soup scored the worst.
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Would you believe Mark Zuckerberg killed a bison?
Does this look like the face of a man who could kill a bison? Does this look like the DOG of a man who could kill a bison? WELL IT IS. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is continuing his yearlong challenge of eating healthier and more sustainably by only eating meat he kills himself, rather than meat from environmentally unfriendly factory farms. And now he's going after the deadliest game. Or wait, no. But pretty big game nonetheless.
