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Photograph by Douglas Sonders Alec Ross Senior Adviser for Innovation, Office of the Secretary of State Washington, D.C. Ross, 39, heads the State Department’s initiative to work with technologists in the private sector. "WE HAVE TO LEVERAGE technology in service of our diplomatic and development goals.

A three-month tax amnesty program in Washington state is causing buzz today, after Governor Christine Gregoire announced the program collected a staggering $321 million, nearly double the amount expected. "It is cash on hand

Sometimes conservation plans work so well that once-endangered species no longer need protection. That's the case in Central America, where the Morelet's crocodile ( Crocodylus moreletii ) has recovered enough that many of the protections put in place decades ago to help it are now on the verge of being lifted. Once heavily hunted for their skin, which was heavily valued as a source of high-quality leather, the Morelet's crocodile began its slow climb toward survival back in 1970, when Mexico (where most of the animals live) banned hunting of all crocodiles and caimans.

The two hour drive from New Orleans to Venice is like cutting into a slice of apple pie -- it’s as American as it gets. Busy streets and high-rise buildings give way to farms, fields, and wetlands, in the perfect picture of rural, small-town America

One year after the blowout at the Macondo oil well in the Gulf of Mexico and subsequent burning and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, what has been learned? [More]

By Melissa Gaskill of Nature News In April 2010, BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded and sank. [More]

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]

By Nadia Drake of Nature magazine Every year, thousands of undocumented migrants make the dangerous crossing from Mexico to Arizona in the United States through the Sonoran Desert. [More]

"Every 30 seconds, a Latino turns 18 years old." Marketers, take note. Univision, the Spanish-language network, outperformed NBC in primetime last week, which makes twice in four weeks that it achieved the feat against the so-called "Big Four"--ABC, NBC, FOX, and CBS.

Erika Anderson has something of a Silicon Valley pedigree. She graduated from MIT and Cornell Law School before bringing her socially conscious business plan to the Bay Area's Singularity University

Charging sales tax on Internet purchases can be a messy, nebulous issue. Case in point: You can buy the latest Stieg Larsson novel on Amazon.com without paying any tax. But order the same book from Barnes & Noble’s website, and you'll still pay the 9.5 percent tax you would have paid at a store location in San Francisco, because any company with brick-and-mortar operations in California must collect sales tax online.

The New York Times often covers Shell Oil's misdeeds and questionable choices, which in past years have included drilling in the arctic and denying human rights abuses in Nigeria . The oil industry is undeniably contentious and filled with scandals and coverups--all the more reason for the Times to write about it. But how can the Times remain objective when it is partnering with Shell Oil on an energy conference

You may recall that BP nearly obliterated the Louisiana and Florida coasts last year following the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, which saw approximately 205 million gallons of oil dumped into the Gulf of Mexico (seen above from space). There's no way to get around the issue in the oil company's first corporate social responsibility report since the disaster--but that hasn't stopped BP from trying.

By Tom Doggett and Ayesha Rascoe WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The failure of the underwater blowout preventer that led to the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was caused by the inability of attached cutting devices to shear and seal the pipe of the leaking well, the U.S. government said on Wednesday.

The same company behind the popular Roomba robocleaner is producing an underwater robot that can stay below the surface for months.