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A federal energy panel issued a blunt warning to shale gas drillers and their regulators today, saying they need to step up efforts to protect public health and the environment or risk a backlash that stifles further development. 201CConcerted and sustained action is needed to avoid excessive environmental impacts of shale gas production and the consequent risk of public opposition to its continuation and expansion,201D said members of the Energy Department2019s Shale Gas Subcommittee in a draft report released today

Asimo Gets An Upgrade For robot fans, Honda's Asimo has perhaps always been the biggest treasure: He's been in development for decades, and Honda just this week revealed a refresh that makes Asimo the most advanced yet. There's a host of improvements, from slicker and faster gaits, more sophisticated movements, individually articulated fingers (flexible enough to cope with sign language) to improved voice recognition that can discern commands even when three voices are talking at once. The best way to understand how advanced this child-sized bot is nowadays is to watch this video: [youtube eU93VmFyZbg] Asimo is, arguably, just one step away from being the science fiction robots we've been seeing for years

How a 55-person business in Minnetonka developed the software solution India needed to tackle its energy problems. Pull out your world map and smack in the middle of the eastern hemisphere lies India, that colossal diamond-shaped country brimming with more than 1.2 billion people—the majority of whom are under the age of 35. Its economy is growing like gangbusters, it is now an influential member of the G20, and foreign firms have made significant investments there.

Samuel Lazerson, an associate research physicist in advanced projects at the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), has created a video simulation showing the intricate nature of a plasma pulse within an experimental fusion machine known as a heliotron. The simulation shows the superconducting field coils, saddle loops, and plasma of the Large Helical Device (LHD) at the National Institute for Fusion Science in Japan.

The world could burn nearly 8,000 million metric tons of coal by 2035 -- most of it in China -- unless countries radically change their energy policies, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The IEA's World Energy Outlook released this week found that China almost singlehandedly fueled the rise in coal use throughout the first decade of the 21st century

TV Essayist and 60 Minutes fixture for 33 years, Andy Rooney, died this week after appearing in "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney" over 1,000 times. TV Essayist and 60 Minutes fixture for 33 years, Andy Rooney, died this week after appearing in "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney" over 1,000 times. Here is an entrepreneur's ode to Andy trademark segment "You Ever Wonder Why...?"

TV Essayist and 60 Minutes fixture for 33 years, Andy Rooney, died this week after appearing in "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney" over 1,000 times.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists have a new theory on the mysterious mechanism that causes the explosion of massive, or core, stars. These ‘Type II supernovae’, the term given to exploding core stars, are huge and spectacular events – intriguing because for a short time they emit as much light as is normally produced by an entire galaxy

Researchers from the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) jointly launched today a groundbreaking new online tool called the Materials Project, which operates like a "Google" of material properties, enabling scientists and engineers from universities, national laboratories and private industry to accelerate the development of new materials, including critical materials.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Heated to extreme temperatures of up to 150 million degrees Celsius, the plasma in ITER's giant experimental fusion reactor will be fed a fuel of frozen pellets of deuterium-tritium, fired into the tokamak vacuum vessel by pellet injectors. Testing of the most recent pellet injection design technology developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and US ITER is under way this fall at the DIII-D research tokamak in San Diego, operated by General Atomics for the Department of Energy through the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences.

(PhysOrg.com) -- If hydrogen is to ever to serve as an onboard energy carrier for the transportation industry, a material will be needed that can store large amounts of hydrogen at ambient temperature and pressure.

In 2011, only 20% of leaders in private companies worldwide are women. Meanwhile, heavily male-dominated industries like banking and utilities face the toughest challenges in a generation

Imagine K12 is a new Palo Alto incubator birthing only education startups.

In his new book, "Reinventing Fire," Lovins creates a system for powering a 21st century civilization without using 20th century methods. Amory Lovins, the chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute and the author of influential books like Winning the Oil Endgame and Natural Capitalism, is back with a new book--and this time, he's claiming that the U.S.

Think your electricity bill is high? It's not. Neither is your heating bill or the price you pay at the pump.