Scientific American Online

Twelve men have walked on the moon. And now you can, too. Virtually, that is. Because planetary researchers are enlisting everyday citizens in scientific exploration of the surface of the moon.

At the Web site moonzoo.org , you can check out new high-resolution images taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter Camera. And the team at Citizen Science Alliance, based at Oxford University, says you’ll then be one of the first to see the moon’s surface in what they call unprecedented detail.

At Dartmouth College's fourth annual Formula Hybrid International Competition last week, graduate and undergraduate electrical, mechanical and computer engineering students showed off high-performance plug-in hybrid vehicles they had designed and built. This year's race pitted 24 teams from the U.S. and abroad--including those from Italy, Russia and Canada--against one another in the areas of presentation, engineering design, acceleration, maneuverability and endurance. [More]

Editor's Note: William Gilly , a professor of cell and developmental biology and marine and organismal biology at Stanford University, is traveling with a group of students on board the Don José in the Sea of Cortez. They will monitor and track Humboldt squid and sperm whales in their watery habitats. This is the group's fourth blog post. [More]

The Horse Boy PBS, May 11 at 10 p.m. EST [More]

Dear EarthTalk: I know that purchasing organic crib sheets, mattresses and baby clothes is better for the environment--but do they make any difference in terms of the baby’s health? --B. B., Fairfield, Conn.

By Jeff Tollefson

Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) released their much anticipated global warming bill on Wednesday, setting the stage for one last attempt to get climate legislation through the U.S. [More]

By Daniel Cressey

Since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank in April, vast quantities of dispersant chemicals have been sprayed onto the resulting slick. [More]

By Nicola Jones

Some of the unusual animals that lived in the sea 500 million years ago thrived tens of millions of years later than previously known, a treasure trove of fossils in Morocco has revealed. [More]

By Richard Cowan and Timothy Gardner

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico worsens literally by the minute, with the addition of an estimated 3.5 barrels of crude. That's more than 200,000 gallons of oil a day adding to a slick that now covers an area roughly the size of Delaware. And some experts estimate the spill could actually be as much as 10 times worse.  

That would make BP's Gulf spill already worse than the infamous 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster , which discharged roughly 11 million gallons of oil off Alaska. But it would take two more years of spillage to catch up to another deep-water catastrophe : a blowout in an exploratory well off the coast of Mexico in 1979.  

We know someone is in pain just by looking at their face. Winced eyes, grimacing smile. We recognize it immediately. But can we see pain in nonhuman faces? [More]

By Janet Fang

Thirty years ago this week, Mount St. [More]

Dear EarthTalk: A friend with many minor health problems recently switched to a diet of only raw plant foods and reports feeling much better. She also insists her new eating habits are better for the environment. Does this make sense or is the strange diet making her crazy? --Phil C., Reno, Nev.

Solar panels could produce electricity at the same price as coal- and natural gas-burning power plants by the end of this decade if countries direct resources at this rapidly advancing corner of the energy industry, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency . [More]

Time for M.I.T.’s Clean Energy Prize. The annual competition gives teams of university students a chance to compete for $200,000 to kick-start their new clean energy business. [More]

What most people care about when it comes to the electrical outlet is that the current flows. "The only thing that matters is: when you walk in your house here or California or Colorado and turn on the light switch, does your house light up or doesn't it?" noted Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia during an event to unveil the world's first carbon capture and storage project at a working coal-fired power plant last October. [More]

Editor's Note: William Gilly , a professor of cell and developmental biology and marine and organismal biology at Stanford University, is traveling with a group of students on board the Don José in the Sea of Cortez. They will monitor and track Humboldt squid and sperm whales in their watery habitats. This is the group's third blog post. [More]

Blindspots: The Many Ways We Cannot See by Bruno Breitmeyer. Oxford University Press, 2010

By Jargal Byambasuren

DUNDGOBI, Mongolia (Reuters) - The winter camps of southern Mongolia are quiet during this year's breeding season, after an unusually harsh winter wiped out herds and left nomadic families with little but debt to their name.

By Meredith Wadman

Last month, Joseph Ng, a biologist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH), sat down with very mixed feelings to write a job advertisement for a new chair of the biology department. [More]