Climate Science

What happens when a whale dies?

What happens when a whale dies? Little ocean beasties get a feast, as illustrated in this video, the most beautiful and least icky illustration of decomposition you may ever see.

Critical List: Climate change is shrinking animals; Mexico could export water to the U.S.

Climate change is shrinking animals, like sheep and salamanders, and fruits too.

Mexico could start exporting water into the United States.

One partner in the Macondo well is ponying up $4 billion to settle with BP over last year's oil spill.

Why the insurance industry won’t save us from climate change

Could pricey premiums deter people from living in high-risk areas and prompt action on climate change? The evidence so far suggests not.

Critical List: Texas drought creating baby animal shortage; Keystone XL doc on Oscar shortlist

The Texas drought has meant fewer births of adorable baby animals. Maybe the new climate lobby can include all of the internet.

Also joining the climate fight: yuppies and freelancers. Starbucks is worried about the future of its business model, as rising temperatures threaten coffee crops.

Democrats aren't the only ones who back clean energy projects that don't end up saving the world. Orrin Hatch, for instance, backed a company trying to develop a hybrid Hummer, which collapsed under the weight of its own irony.

China wants to dominate the global wind-turbine market, as well as the solar market.

Democrats who campaign for climate action win more

Listen up, Obama: Analysis of recent elections shows that expressing and pursuing goals for climate action pays off politically.

Record heat will rob us of peanut butter

Start getting accustomed to nothing and jelly sandwiches, Fluffernothings, and Reese's Nothing Cups. Record temperatures and droughts are projected to drive the price of peanut butter through the roof, with wholesale costs going up by as much as 40 percent, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Texas tries to censor climate change information

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is learning the hard way that politicizing a government report is much, much harder after you've hired a reputable and principled scientist to write it. John Anderson, the author of the agency's report on Texas' Galveston Bay, says the agency removed references to humans' contributions to climate change. Anderson and the research center that gave him the assignment are fighting against the release of the edited report.

Cheap, genetically engineered salmon sushi, coming soon!

The only thing that stands between us and eating fish riddled with genes that some dude spliced together in the lab is the Office of Management and Budget. The FDA has finished its evaluation of genetically engineered salmon and recommended that the fish be commercialized.

The GE fish grows fast and big, which means more fish for all of us. But it also could have worrisome impacts on the environment, because it's a fish that we programmed in order to bend its entire existence to our will!

The Dead Sea may not be so dead after all

The planet is kind of amazing sometimes. Researchers have discovered plumes of fresh water at the bottom of the Dead Sea, deeper than any previous plumes that had been found. And around the plumes: life. Even though most microbes that live in salt die in fresh water and vice versa, some tough little buggers are hanging on in a space where salinity shifts constantly.

Australian golf course is infested with sharks

Hey, remember that rumor that sharks were roaming the streets after the Queensland floods earlier this year? That may well have been reality. This Brisbane golf course is infested with 10-foot sharks, who washed into the water hazards during a previous giant flood.