You might think you don’t know much about the history of Earth’s climate. But dramatic climate change is reflected in your genes. Here’s the story. There’s a special type of DNA that flows only from mamas to children. It doesn’t get shuffled with papas in the process of reproduction, like most genes, and that leads […]
Crude oil is a mix of stinky chemicals. But smell as they may, the liquids in petroleum are vital to us. An alert reader of these columns recently queried me about what we get out of a barrel of oil – and what those products mean in terms of miles actually driven on American highways. […]
The goal of growing more fuel to meet our energy needs looks increasingly realistic. Those of us who heat our houses with wood, of course, have been relying on trees for energy for a long time. But the more interesting task ahead may be to use trees for liquid fuels that can power vehicles. There […]
President Obama’s pick for Secretary of Energy is a physicist with a Nobel Prize. Dr. Steven Chu also has a long record of advocating more nuclear power, as well as increasing our use of renewable energy like next-generation solar. In short, Chu looks likely to move our nation a step away from heavy reliance on […]
The gene for death has been isolated – and reversed – by scientists. Not a bad day’s work, you might say, and a bright ray of light in this dark winter of gloomy news reports. Sorry, it’s not the death of human beings that’s at issue. But it is a gene for death that’s embedded […]
Budgeting for fuel costs was never more challenging than in 2008. Our worst agony was in July, with household budgets straining under the cost of getting to work and back. Half a year later, prices have plummeted to where they were much earlier in this decade. Lots of people have asked me – and pretty […]
You can be forgiven if the price of gold escaped your notice in 2008. What with the national election, the critical illness of U.S. car companies, the housing market crisis, and new fighting in Afghanistan, you had a number of stories to follow this past year. But because the price of gold is a useful […]
We all make a thousand choices about the energy we use each day, and we pay for each decision we make. Some choices have big consequences, like living close to work or putting a woodstove into the living room. One smaller choice we consumers confront more frequently is what light bulbs we buy, a matter […]
As schoolchildren know, dinosaurs lived in a much warmer world. Back in the era of T Rex and Stegosaurus, dinos flourished all over the globe beside truly balmy seas. Fantasize with me for a moment about going back in time to those days, when we could swim in the surf all year round and our […]
If you cut me off from food for three days, I’d be fine. My body would burn the natural insulation I carry, but not much would change except that I’d be a bit grumpier. But if you cut off nutrition from malnourished children for three days, the consequences are far more severe. Unlike me, poor […]