Science-based policy is essential for guiding an environmentally sustainable approach to cellulosic biofuels.

A computer whiz turned geneticist borrows tactics from Wal-Mart and cattle breeders to manage what may be the world's largest genetic analysis.

A new type of ready-to-use food is changing the way severe malnutrition is treated. But questions remain about how far to push its introduction--and science has a hard time providing the answer.

Two new studies point to random, wind-induced circulation changes in the ocean--not global warming--as the dominant cause of the recent ice losses through the glaciers draining both the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets.

Climate models suggest that extreme precipitation events will become more common in an anthropogenically warmed climate. However, observational limitations have hindered a direct evaluation of model-projected changes in extreme precipitation.

A detailed knowledge of how carbon cycles through soils is crucial for predicting future atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.

The elusive Asian houbara bustard could fall victim to falconers and poaching without strong international protection.

Last week, India's Department of Biotechnology announced that it was teaming up with the Wellcome Trust on a 5-year, $140 million program to support up to 375 scientists in all stages of their careers.

Confronted with land degradation, chronic water shortages, and a growing population that already numbers 1.3 billion, China is looking to a transgenic green revolution to secure its food supply. Later this month, the government is expected to roll out a $3.5 billion research and development (R&D) initiative on genetically modified (GM) plants. "The new initiative will spur commercialization of GM varieties," says Xue Dayuan, chief scientist on biodiversity at the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Science of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The global atmospheric circulation transports energy from the equatorial regions to higher latitudes through a poleward flow of high-energy and -entropy parcels and an equatorward flow of air with lower energy and entropy content. Because of its turbulent nature, this circulation can only be described in some averaged sense.