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

Dear EarthTalk : We have an invasion of phragmites in the wetlands bordering our neighborhood. I understand they are a non-native plant that, if left unchecked, will overrun the whole ecosystem. How does one remedy this situation in an eco-friendly way?

The world's largest forest antelope faces almost certain extinction in the wild in as few as 14 years if current population trends continue, according to a statement by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). Just 103 critically endangered mountain bongos (Tragelaphus eurycerus isaaci) remain in Kenya, the last country where the animals exist in the wild. They live in four scattered and isolated groups, the largest of which numbers 50 individuals.

All parents struggle to find the right balance between encouragement and discipline when it comes to raising their kids.

By Anna Driver and Matthew Bigg VENICE, La./WAVELAND, Mississippi (Reuters) - When a BP oil rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico last April, killing 11 workers, authorities first reported that no crude was leaking into the ocean. [More]

The fact that he'd stopped crying scared me. Damn rear-facing car seat.

What could the study of infectious disease teach us about the 2008 financial crisis? Plenty, argue University of Oxford ecologist Robert M. [More]

Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh | Photograph by Bill Cramer Manuela Veloso Professor of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon Pittsburgh Veloso, 53, a professor of computer science and member of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, is turning robots from joystick-operated poles on wheels into "CoBots" -- intelligent companions that can navigate and move. "CoBots can accompany you to a particular place, give you a tour, do tasks, or stand in for you as telepresence. It seems like science fiction, but it's not

Carmela Cuomo thought she had the secret within reach, hidden in a shallow black tank at the NOAA marine fisheries laboratory in Milford, Conn. The horseshoe crabs she had plucked from New Haven Harbor in 2000 trundled about their springtime ritual, digging pits in the sand, laying their eggs and fertilizing them.

Workers at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant fighting to keep additional radioactive iodine, cesium, strontium and other harmful elements from being released into the environment are monitored daily for exposure to radiation. The same is true of the police and firefighters scouring the area within 10 kilometers of the plant for missing people. [More]

By Sid Perkins for Nature magazine Beginning in late 2004, a flurry of massive, tsunami-spawning earthquakes have rocked the world, first slamming Indonesia, then Chile and most recently Japan. [More]

When your stomach’s empty, it pumps out the hormone ghrelin, to whet your appetite and get your juices flowing. But ghrelin doesn’t just make you crave a bite. It helps you track it down too--by sharpening your sense of smell.

Following the motions of a specific molecule inside a cell is no easy task In "Too Hard For Science?" I interview scientists about ideas they would love to explore that they don't think could be investigated. For instance, they might involve machines beyond the realm of possibility, such as particle accelerators as big as the sun, or they might be completely unethical, such as lethal experiments involving people.

Do animals give much thought to voluntary behavior? Before you or I reach for a cup of coffee, we make a conscious--even if barely so--decision to do it

Be kind to your bicycle, for you may need it more than it needs you. [More]

By Joanna Marchant of Nature magazine Female athletes may not be eligible to compete as women if they have natural testosterone levels in the male range. [More]