Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

By Nicola Jones of Nature magazine This month, scientists will test a new way to extract methane from beneath the frozen soil of Alaska: they will use waste carbon dioxide from conventional wells to force out the desired natural gas. The pilot experiment will explore the possibility of `mining' from gas hydrates: cages of water ice that hold molecules of methane

By Nicola Jones of Nature magazine Two scientists from New Zealand will travel to Antarctica on December 28 in a quest to continue a 100-year-long record of Earth's magnetic field: a record begun by British explorer Robert Scott at the start of his ill-fated expedition to the geographic south pole (see "Turning the world upside down "). Record-keeping is necessary because the magnetic poles move about, thanks to the complex circulation of Earth's fluid outer core

By Nicola Jones of Nature magazine Endangered seals in a marine protected area are heading towards local extinction, even while the same species thrives in an unprotected area nearby. [More]

By Nicola Jones of Nature magazine The non-profit programme MyMicrobes , launched today, is inviting people to have their gut bacteria sequenced for about €1,500 (2,100). [More]

By Nicola Jones of Nature magazine Piracy is stopping oceanographers and meteorologists from collecting data vital to understanding the Indian monsoon and rainfall patterns in the United States, researchers say. Pirate activity off the coast of Somalia has skyrocketed in recent years. [More]

By Nicola Jones of Nature Magazine The world's insatiable demand for the rare-earth elements needed to make almost all technological gadgets could one day be partially met by sea-floor mining, hints an assessment of the Pacific Ocean's resources. [More]

By Nicola Jones of Nature magazine The spacesuits worn by the first astronauts are falling apart from old age. [More]

By Nicola Jones of Nature magazine The past five years has seen a spurt in the creation of giant marine protection areas, including a 320,000 square-kilometer marine reserve announced earlier this month in Australia. "Now we have a competition for politicians to see who can have the biggest one," said Daniel Pauly of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, at the start of the Society for Conservation Biology's 2nd International Marine Conservation Congress in Victoria, Canada, on Saturday. [More]

By Nicola Jones of Nature magazine When audiences saw dramatic scenes of people setting their tap water on fire in the Oscar-nominated documentary Gasland, hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," was thrown into the spotlight. [More]

By Nicola Jones A study transplanting gut bacteria from human twins into mice could help to explain why some malnourished children develop kwashiorkor -- a condition that triggers swelling in the belly, fatigue and vulnerability to disease. [More]