Category: Science

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U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Project Manager Brenda Barber, overlooking the site of the Loughlin’s former home in the Spring Valley section of Washington, D.C.

The House Over Hades

In June of 1996, Kathi Loughlin’s phone rang at work. It was her child’s nanny, and she was frantic. “Something is going on here, you need to come home,” the nanny said, a note of panic in her voice. Loughlin had trouble understanding what exactly

Retired chemist L. Philip Reiss, 79, with a photo of his grandfather, Winford Lee Lewis, the inventor of the chemical warfare agent lewisite. (Photo by Theo Emery).

The Scientists Who Created America’s War Gases

SONORA, Calif. — In a back room of L. Philip Reiss’ condominium, the retired chemical engineer has covered the walls and filled his drawers with mementos of a long life in science. In one corner, he’s hung keepsakes from years volunteering with a Boy Scout

Snow-mantled mountains crown the northern tip of Prins Karls Forlandet in April in the Svalbard archipelago, Norway.

Methane: Arctic Promise and Peril

Consigned to my bunk all night by gut-wrenching seas, I wistfully thought back to terra firma on mainland Norway a few days earlier. Before boarding the University of Tromsø’s research ship, R/V Helmer Hanssen,

The aftermath of the Lac-Megantic crude railcar explosion in 2013. (Credit: Axel Drainvile via Flickr)

BOOM: North America’s Explosive Oil-by-Rail Problem

U.S. regulators knew they had to act fast. A train hauling 2 million gallons of crude oil from North Dakota had exploded in the Canadian town of Lac-Megantic, killing 47 people. Now they had to assure Americans a similar disaster wouldn’t happen south of the border, where the U.S. oil boom is sending