11-12: Innovation and Research

Back in the 1980s, when conservation advocates were trying to stop logging in old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, they relied on a 1982 regulation that required the National Forest Service to protect wildlife such as the spotted owl throughout its range. They won, and a new Northwest…

On Wednesday, the EPA released a new interactive map letting people check out the biggest stationary sources of global-warming emissions in their area. It’s a nifty tool. But could it actually lead to less pollution? Quite possibly, yes, if the past is any guide.

In a conference call with…

The human race has been considered a race of hunter–gatherers. Groups that lived inland hunted wild animals and when the opportunity presented itself, they fished in lakes and rivers. Alternatively, groups that lived by a coast relied far more heavily on fish from the ocean, naturally leading to…

Until now, most seismic research on landslides has focused on how to identify individual slides among the general seismic din of the Earth. But in comparison with earthquakes, rockslides produce "kinda ugly signals", so they are difficult to detect, says Jackie Caplan-Auerbach, a…

Scientists should communicate with the public about their research. We've been hearing variations on that for years, but a recent decision by a group of scientists to use crowdfunding to ask for research dollars directly from the public has revisited this notion in a new way. I'm…