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

The Cities are the topic of the month here at Scientific American (and at least this week on the blogs), so I should chime in on an aspect of urban ecology that I am comfortable discussing – the effects of increased light at night on animals. [More]

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Plants and animals are responding up to three times faster to climate change than previously estimated, as wildlife shifts to cooler altitudes and latitudes, researchers said on Thursday. Scientists have reported this decade on individual species that moved toward the poles or uphill as their traditional habitats shifted due to global warming, but this study analyzed data on over 2,000 species to get a more comprehensive picture

By Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. emissions of the main greenhouse gas rebounded nearly 4 percent last year as factories ran harder while the economy recovered and as consumers boost air conditioning during the hot summer, the government said on Thursday

HOUSTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government said it was investigating reports of an oil sheen in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana, and BP Plc said its offshore wells were not the culprit. The U.S

Top 10 Most Polluted Air [More]

At last, the field of genomics has something to offer Cheech and Chong. DNA sequencing hit a new high last night with the midnight release of the Cannabis sativa genome.

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fast-melting Arctic sea ice appears to be pushing walruses to haul themselves out onto land, and many are moving around the area where oil leases have been sold, the U.S. Geological Survey reports. [More]

At their most fundamental level, brains are made up of neurons. [More]

Most of the people who moved to London, New York City, Chicago, Berlin and other big cities during the 19th century traded away their health to make better wages. Crowding, unsafe drinking water, bad sanitation, harsh working conditions and industrial pollution made them sicker than their cousins back home in the countryside and shortened their life spans. But starting in the middle decades of the 1800s, government reforms and urban leaders began turning the health of these cities around by investing in water, sanitation, waste removal, education and more.

You probably look in a mirror every day without thinking about it. But mirrors can reveal a great deal about the brain, with implications for psychology, clinical neurology and even philosophy. They can help us explore the way the brain puts together information from different sensory channels such as vision and somatic sensations (touch, muscle and joint sense)

On a civic scale, health brings wealth. And no society can be healthy without the proper disposal of human waste

The women maneuvered their crude canoes down narrow alleys of brack

Special Issue: Cities The city is a solution to the problems of our age, and this week, we present it in the true urban spirit: best ideas forward

Economic opportunity has always been a big part of the allure of urban life , yet most cities are at least pockmarked by areas of extreme poverty . Often the scope of the problem eludes government agencies as well as the impoverished communities themselves. Poverty atlases that map the extent of privation have existed for decades as a means to alert urban leaders to areas lacking basic services, such as water, electricity and sanitation

A Florida biologist has linked a vicious coral-killing pathogen in the Caribbean and Florida Keys to human sewage that leaks into the ocean from improperly treated wastewater. [More]