Lithium—it’s not just my second-favorite song in the Nirvana catalog. The soft and silvery metal is the key ingredient in making the long-lived lithium-ion batteries needed to build workable electric cars. All the big electrics—the Tesla Roadster, the Nissan Leaf, the Chevrolet (yes, not Chevy) Volt—use lithium-ion batteries, as …
From the beginning of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, there have been questions over just how much crude really is bleeding out of BP’s well. The first figure—supplied by the company—was 1,000 barrels a day. The government later upped that to 5,000 barrels, a number that stood despite the skepticism of a raft of outside experts. …
From the beginning of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill—which has now resulted in at least 50 million gallons oil spewing into the ocean, if not far more—President Barack Obama has been in an awkward position. The energy giant BP is financially responsible for the spill, but it is also the only company that has the technology, expertise …
I turned 32 yesterday. As periods of time go, not that long—according to the actuarial tables of the Social Security Administration I’m just 41.6% through my life, which actually looks depressing when you write it out. But the world has undergone immense changes over those years—explosions, really—and that growth forms the …
As paleontologists look more closely at the skeleton of Homo floresiensis, the species’ origin gets ever more mysterious