Dr. King’s research focuses on a metric called  Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI). In his work, he strives to define what EROI includes and what it means – with the hope of allowing us to compare the efficiency of the different energy sources that we currently, or might soon, rely upon to power our lives. In Dr. King’s  publication in  Environmental Research Letters , he discusses EROI in terms of another interesting dimension, called the Energy Intensity Ratio (EIR), which brings economics into the mix.

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– Davide Castelvecchi – On the Physics Nobels, The Atlantic Gets Dark Energy All Wrong and `We Hate Math,’ Say 4 in 10 — a Majority of Americans

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As in previous competitions, each dwelling was judged on 10 criteria, including comfort, market appeal and energy balance–the energy generated by each house versus how much it consumed. But this year, for the first time, the Solar Decathlon included affordability as one of its judging criteria.

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Republican lawmakers have been bashing Chu for his 2009 approval of a $535 million guaranteed federal loan to Solyndra , a solar-energy firm that declared bankruptcy last month. Some Congressional Tea Partiers also favor slashing government spending on all non-military research and development. In his talk at Stevens, Chu argued that the federal government can and must help nurture scientific innovation, which historically has been crucial to our economic prosperity.

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But thanks to the Wendy Schmidt X Prize that won’t be true next time. A company from Illinois known as Elastec / American Marine won the $1-million first prize by tripling previous cleanup rates.

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Those weird faster-than-light neutrinos that CERN thought they saw last month may have just gotten slowed down to a speed that’ll keep them from completely destroying physics as we know it. In an ironic twist, the very theory that these neutrinos would have disproved may explain exactly what happened.

In the staring contest between the Occupy Wall Street protesters and New York City, Mayor Bloomberg blinked first , deciding that the occupiers didn’t represent the kind of safety crisis Brookfield Office Properties, the owners of  protest epicenter Zucotti Park,  described in its letter to the NYC police commissioner . The protesters can now stay, much as Bloomberg f irst promised days before .

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"We are very lucky today. Hardly any waves. Most of the time when we come out here it’s much more choppy," the marine biologist shouts over the engine roar. "It’s better for Acropora palmata to be in moving waters."

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Jessica Hellmann, an ecologist at Notre Dame University in Indiana, is in the midst of exactly the kind of painstaking study that can help guide those who want to move species . Hellmann works, among other places, on Vancouver Island, studying a kind of oak savanna ecosystem that most people associate with California. The star players of these savannas are called Garry oaks or Oregon white oaks, large trees often gnarled into unique shapes. Under their canopies grow mossy meadows of wildflowers, including buttercups and star- shaped blue camas. For Canadians, this kind of ecosystem is a beloved break from the evergreens that otherwise dominate the landscape. And according to the nonprofit Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Team, "approximately 100 species of plants, mammals, reptiles, birds, butterflies and other insects are officially listed as ‘at risk’ in these ecosystems" in Canada. The range of these Garry oak savannas hugs the Pacific coast from central California to just about halfway up Vancouver Island. These savannas are quite rare in Canada and threatened by land development. Hellmann thinks that British Columbians might be interested in establishing such ecosystems farther north on the island or even on the province’s mainland as the climate warms. So one set of questions that her study is asking bears directly on whether such a move would work.

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Edwards’s pheasant was described as fairly common when it was first described and named by French ornithologist Alphonse Milne-Edwards in the 19th century. Things took a turn for the worse during the Vietnam War when the bird’s forest habitats were almost completely denuded by herbicides sprayed by U.S. forces. Since then, logging and deforestation for agriculture have taken their toll on the remainder of the pheasant’s historic range.

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– Glendon Mellow – Scratching into Canine Ancestry: Lori Dunn

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