As forest landowners shift their attention away from logging toward more lucrative--and destructive--uses such as suburban development, forest conservation is more crucial than ever. Historically, protecting woodlands has been a slow and difficult process: conservationists raised large sums of money, bought big tracts, and put them into public ownership with strict rules against intrusions. Recently, however, a handful of organizations have found an easier way: buy the land with loans and repay them by turning the forest into a nonprofit business. [More]

In the middle of Los Angeles’s endless sprawl sits an unusual-looking gas station made of recycled materials and sustainably harvested wood. Its roof is an abstract assembly of polygons topped with solar panels. The owner, petroleum giant BP, calls it Helios House and touts it as America’s first “green” gas station, be­­cause it is certified according to the standards of Leadership in energy and Environmental Design (LEED), the most commonly used rating system for sustainable architecture.Of course, the building is still a gas station: it sells petroleum-based fuel that is burned in automobiles and thereby endangers the environment. The incongruity of a gas station being hailed as green is not strictly the fault of its architecture. Nevertheless, Helios House is emblematic of how hollow LEED certification can be as an indicator of a building’s environmental benignity. Too often LEED can reward building planners for taking some environmentally progr

The leading cause of infant death in developed countries, sudden infant death syndrome, is still largely a medical mystery. Past studies have revealed that in the brain stems of more than half of infants who die from SIDS, the neurons that produce serotonin--a chemical responsible for regulating heart rate, body temperature and mood--are overly prevalent and abnormally shaped. Until now, no one has known how these problems might cause death, but a July 4 science study reveals clues about what might be going wrong in SIDS and how doctors might prevent it.Mood researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Monterotondo, Italy, were investigating how serotonin levels affected anxiety-related behavior in mice when they got a surprise. They bred the mice to have too many 5-HT1A receptors, which are known to signal neurons to slow down the release of serotonin when the chemical is abundant in the brain. Having more receptors ultimately lowers serotonin levels and overall seroton

Patients have on average a 70 percent lower chance of dying at the nation's top-rated hospitals compared with the lowest-rated hospitals across 17 procedures and conditions analyzed in the eleventh annual HealthGrades Hospital Quality in America Study, issued today by HealthGrades, the leading independent healthcare ratings organization. Based on the study, HealthGrades today made available its 2009 quality ratings for all nonfederal hospitals in the country at www.healthgrades.com.

James W. Pennebaker looks at every single word people use - even the tiny ones - and is leading a resurgent interest in text analysis.

Putting green fluorescent protein to practical use earned three scientists a Nobel Prize in chemistry.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian capsule carrying U.S. video game developer Richard Garriott and a new crew docked with the International space station Tuesday.

Tech guru Larry Magid scrutinizes the Republican's and Democrat's online efforts to garner votes in those all-important swing states.

A NEW drug developed to treat lung disease may hold the key to a needle-free life for diabetes sufferers.

'Hypervelocity' stars were thought to come from our galaxy's centre ? but they may be immigrants from a dwarf galaxy that merged with our own