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Two washing-machine-sized satellites recently went into orbit around the moon. In March, they’ll start to gather detailed data about the quirks of the moon’s gravity.

Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from Mark Lynas's book , The God Species: Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans .

For centuries, the Dutch have built higher and higher dikes to keep waters at bay in a country where 55 percent of housing is located in areas prone to flooding. But climate change has convinced them this approach will no longer work, so the country is embarking on a mammoth task of moving dozens of dikes back to make room for swelling rivers

A rendering of the exterior of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences' Nature Research Center Imagine walking through a science museum and, among the usual displays of dinosaur bones, butterflies, and amphibians you come upon a series of windows into state-of-the-art research labs. Inside, scientists from nearby universities and veterinary schools work on projects related to biodiversity, genetics, nanoparticles, and animal health and welfare. In front of each window is a touch screen.

Two scientists who independently concocted potentially dangerous strains of bird flu viruses and have had the bioweapons community in a tizzy for the past month with the pending publication of their work today said that they would suspend their research for 60 days .

From Nature magazine [More]

Add methane emissions to the growing list of environmental risks posed by fracking.

Reprinted from Nature magazine [More]

The raging battle over SOPA and PIPA, the proposed anti-piracy laws, is looking more and more likely to end in favor of Internet freedom -- but it won't be the last battle of its kind.

Earth-sized planets near and far (NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech) Planets in habitable zones, planets orbiting twin suns, miniature solar systems , rogue planets, planets, planets, planets. If there is one single piece of information you should take away from the recent flood of incredible exoplanetary discoveries it is this: Our universe makes planets with extraordinary efficiency – if planets can form somewhere, they will

Science on Ice: Four Polar Expeditions [More]

A couple of weeks ago, Huffington Post launched its Science section . I invited Cara Santa Maria, the science correspondent at Huffington Post to tell us more about this new endeavor. Bora Zivkovic: Hello, welcome to the Scientific American blog network.

By Steve Scherer and Gabriele Pileri GIGLIO, Italy, Jan 20 (Reuters) - The vast wreck of the cruise ship Costa Concordia shifted on its undersea ledge on Friday, forcing a new suspension of rescue work and threatening plans to pump oil out to prevent environmental disaster. Firefighters' spokesman Luca Cari said rescue squads would be discussing the next step after the movement made conditions unsafe for divers already hampered by poor visibility, floating objects and underwater debris.

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined [More]

Ripples in the fabric of spacetime regularly zip across the universe from titanic cosmic events, such as the mergers of supermassive black holes millions to billions of times the mass of the sun.