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The Arctic Council added China and five other countries as official observers yesterday, expanding the focus of the organization and underscoring the complicated politics created by newly open waters in the north because of climate change.

As seemingly limitless as the air that swirls around us, wind has proven to be the world's fastest-growing source of renewable energy. Backers suggest wind power can continue growing as quickly as companies can raise turbines to capture it. But some scientists are challenging that assumption.

In the wake of the 2011 tsunami, the Japanese government is forgoing an opportunity to sustainably protect its coastline and is instead building towering concrete seawalls and other defenses that environmentalists say will inflict serious damage on coastal ecosystems.

The cause of a fire that triggered a massive explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, has been ruled undetermined, and investigators have not eliminated the possibility that the fire was set intentionally, state and federal officials said on Thursday.

A California agency on Thursday unanimously adopted a broad, long-range plan to manage the ailing Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

The National Marine Fisheries Service announced Thursday it will consider listing a population of harbor seals that live in a freshwater Alaska lake as a threatened or endangered species, a decision that could affect the massive Pebble Mine development project.

The number of people under 40 with type 2 diabetes in the UK has risen sharply in the past 20 years, research shows. In 1991 there were about 150 cases per 100,000 people, but by 2010 it rose to 500, an increase of about 270%.

Methane is created naturally near the Earth's surface, primarily by microorganisms by the process of methanogenesis. It is carried into the stratosphere by rising air in the tropics. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, stronger than carbon dioxide on a 20-year timescale, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, though on a century timescale, carbon dioxide is far stronger. "This research suggests significant benefits to slowing climate change could result from reducing industrial methane emissions in parallel with efforts on carbon dioxide," said Ira Leifer, a researcher with UC Santa Barbara's Marine Science Institute. Doing a a cross-continent drive, a UC Santa Barbara scientist has found that methane emissions across large parts of the U.S. are higher than is currently known, confirming what other more local studies have found. Their research is published in the journal Atmospheric Environment.

National Vegetarian Week 2013 runs from the 20 - 26 May and is setting out to prove that going veggie is surprisingly simple.

Short, sharp fluctuations in the Earth's climate throughout the last ice age may have stopped trees from getting a foothold in Europe and northern Asia, scientists say. According to a new study, warm spells were so brief that trees were unable to establish themselves before the temperature shot back down again. 'The warm events were so short-lived that ecosystems weren't able to respond in full,' says Professor Brian Huntley, of Durham University, who led the study.

One billion people in the developing world are deprived of access to effective healthcare due to a lack of access to energy, reports Andrew Heath of Practical Action....

In the wake of the Bangladesh factory collapse Sarah Compson implores us all as consumers to take responsibility for what we wear and not to turn a blind eye.

YouTube, owned by corporate giant Google, has banned our video discussing the corporate ownership of patents on human genes. This video, which featured nothing more than myself and Robert Scott Bell criticizing Angelina Jolie for hyping up BRCA breast cancer gene tests...

Just a few days remain before Amish raw milk farmer Vernon Hershberger of Wisconsin faces a corrupt legal system with an ingrown vendetta against the production and distribution of real food. Beginning on May 20, 2013, at 8 a.m., Vernon, who has been falsely accused...

Lost in the news cycle of scandal and corruption at the White House, Justice Department and the IRS, a vile abortionist got what was coming to him when a Philadelphia jury found him guilty of killing at least three babies born alive at his filthy, house-of-horrors clinic...

The European Union thinks it knows what's best for the world's health and future. The "all knowing" think they can govern the land, the plants, traditional herbal medicine, and each individual person, however they choose. That's why they have begun implementing the...

Over the last 30 years, the use of pesticides has spiked around the world. People now pour 2.5 million tons of these chemicals into the environment annually, contributing to a $35 billion industry run by global corporations. To make matters worse, the more people use...

It is a common "fact" that people who drink coffee before they sleep will find it hard to actually fall asleep, but drinking milk will help people to fall asleep a lot faster. The latter is common knowledge that has been passed on from the mouths of their mothers and...

A kindergartener from New York's Staten Island is being refused public education for not getting a vaccine that could put her and her newborn sister's life in danger, according to new reports. Five-year-old Frankie Elizabeth Wagner's pediatrician refuses to administer...

As we pass through spring and go into summer, health oriented foodies can focus on smoothie delights for refreshingly healthy beverages. In case you're unfamiliar with making your own smoothies, you'll come to realize how easy it is if you have a decent blender that...