• Predictions by climate models are flawed, says MIT meteorology expert

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Richard Lindzen, a global warming skeptic, says that too much is being made of climate change by researchers seeking government funding; he said their data and their methods did not support their claims; for thirty years, climate scientists have been “locked into a simple-minded identification of climate with greenhouse-gas level. That climate should be the function of a single parameter (like CO2) has always seemed implausible. Yet an obsessive focus on such an obvious oversimplification has likely set back progress by decades,” Lindzen said

  • Large, magnitude 8 earthquakes hit New Zealand with regularity

    A new study finds that very large earthquakes have been occurring relatively regularly on the Alpine Fault along the southwest coastline of New Zealand for at least 8,000 years

  • Studying the physics of avalanches

    Snow avalanches, a real threat in countries from Switzerland to Afghanistan, are fundamentally a physics problem: What are the physical laws that govern how they start, grow, and move, and can theoretical modeling help predict them? New study offers answers

  • Game lets players try their hand at computer security

    A new game — Control-Alt-Hack — gives teenage and young-adult players a taste of what it means to be a computer-security professional defending against an ever-expanding range of digital threats; the game’s creators will present it this week in Las Vegas at Black Hat 2012; educators in the continental United States can apply to get a free copy of the game while supplies last; it is scheduled to go on sale in the fall for a retail price of about $30

  • Northrop Grumman delivers Nationwide AIS to Coast Guard

    Northrop Grumman has delivered its Nationwide Automatic Identification System (AIS) to the Coast Guard; the system provides a more comprehensive view of vessels bound for and navigating within U.S. ports and waterways

  • Capturing CO2 directly from air is chemically, economically viable

    With a series of papers published in chemistry and chemical engineering journals, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology have advanced the case for extracting carbon dioxide directly from the air using newly developed adsorbent materials

  • Pulling CO2 from air feasible, if still costly, way to curb global warming

    Emerging techniques to pull carbon dioxide from the air and store it away to stabilize the climate may become increasingly important as the planet tips into a state of potentially dangerous warming; lower-cost technology is a stumbling block so far

  • You want to report a pothole? There’s an app for that

    The city of Boston offers residents a new app – Street Bump – which will automatically report potholes they encounter; all the driver has to do is install the app and place the smartphone on the dashboard or in the cup holder; the app uses the phone’s motion detector and GPS locator to report potholes

  • Temperature rise, CO2 follow each other closely

    The greatest climate change the world has seen in the last 100,000 years was the transition from the ice age to the warm interglacial period; new research indicates that, contrary to previous opinion, the rise in temperature and the rise in the atmospheric CO2 follow each other closely in terms of time

  • Per capita CO2 emissions in China reach EU levels

    Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2)  increased by 3 percent last year; an estimated cumulative global total of 420 billion tons of CO2 has been emitted between 2000 and 2011 due to human activities, including deforestation; scientists suggest that in order to limit the rise in average global temperature to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, cumulative CO2 emissions in the period 2000–50 cannot do not exceed 1,000 to 1,500 billion tons

  • New method for detecting, measuring bridge damage

    Researchers have created a bridge health index, which is a rating system that more accurately describes the amount of damage in a bridge; the health index can extend beyond bridges and apply to other structures, such as gas pipelines, dams, buildings, and airplanes

  • Cutting massive power use at big data companies in a flash

    Big data needs big power; the server farms that undergird the Internet run on a vast tide of electricity — Google, for example, uses enough electricity in its data centers to power about 200,000 homes; now, a team of engineers has a solution that could radically cut that power use — a new type of memory in companies’ servers that demands far less energy than the current systems

  • Explaining 2011 extreme weather events

    2011 will be remembered as a year of extreme weather events, both in the United States and around the world; NOAA says that every weather event that happens now takes place in the context of a changing global environment; a comprehensive annual report – State of the Climate in 2011 — provides scientists and citizens with an analysis of what has happened so organizations and individuals can prepare for what is to come

  • Changing climate to lead to fewer, but more violent, thunderstorms

    Researcher predict that for every one degree Celsius of warming, there will be approximately a 10 percent increase in lightning activity; this could have negative consequences in the form of flash floods, wild fires, or damage to power lines and other infrastructure

  • Just-the-facts climate change Web site wins World Bank award

    The World Bank award a prize to a Web site built to be the antidote to the many myths circulating online about climate change, myths which cause misplaced apathy or alarm; the site also reveals how responding to climate change presents a world of opportunities for individuals and entrepreneurs