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By Carey Gillam KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - The heavy use of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide appears to be causing harmful changes in soil and potentially hindering yields of the genetically modified crops that farmers are cultivating, a government scientist said on Friday. [More]

By Jim Forsyth SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Scattered heavy rains brought badly needed relief to parched north and west Texas overnight, but forecasters said on Friday that the storms quickly passed and were not enough to break the devastating drought that has gripped the state.

This summer has seen the release of a blockbuster movie, acclaimed documentary and news-worthy research paper that all--in different but weirdly complementary ways--present sympathetic portraits of chimpanzees, our hirsute doppelgangers. [More]

By Yuko Inoue and Julie Gordon TOKYO/TORONTO (Reuters) - Japanese manufacturers concerned about China's restrictive export quotas on essential rare earths may have found a way to resolve their supply concerns -- relocate production to China. [More]

Dear EarthTalk : I don’t hear much about the environmental impacts of our consumer culture any more, but it seems to me that our “buy, buy, buy” mentality is a major contributor to our overuse of energy and resources.

Warning that famine in Somalia is likely to get worse before it gets better, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday pledged an additional $17 million in U.S. aid to East African countries racked by the worst drought in 60 years.

Regular readers will know that I often avoid discussing new palaeontological discoveries at Tet Zoo, the exceptions being those where I was personally involved (hmm). [More]

Brain: The Inside Story Through August 14, 2011 [More]

BEIJING (Reuters) - ConocoPhillips China, a subsidiary of the Houston-based oil company ConocoPhillips, said on Friday that as much as 2,500 barrels of oil and mud leaked from an oilfield in China's northern Bohai Bay. A recent survey at the C platform of Penglai 19-3 oil field identified more oil-based drilling mud on the sea floor than originally estimated, the company said on its website (www.conocophillips.com.cn), adding that it expected to complete a cleanup by the end of this month.

What's the best way to find out if an unknown mixture contains a specific substance, like an environmental contaminant? You could use an expensive, bulky gas chromatograph--but Harvard researchers have developed an instrument you can carry in your pocket. They describe the device, called an inverse opal, in the Journal of the American Chemical Society .

This is not a climate science blog, nor is it a political or media critique blog.

When I was getting my solar panels installed, I couldn’t wait to see my electric meter literally spin backwards. [More]

You might think that temporary tattoos look cool, but what if they could also collect and transmit information about your heart rate , temperature, muscle contractions or brain waves? [More]

By David Cyranoski of Nature magazine On 11 March, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) warned that a 3-metre-plus tsunami would hit northeastern Japan.

Welcome to the huge and wonderful day here at the Scientific American blog network, where we are having great fun discussing food and trends in modern agriculture and why people are so passionate about these topics. [More]