Detouring because of stormy weather, the space shuttle Discovery and its seven astronauts took a detoured to California, blasting Southern California with its customary sonic boom before landing safely in at Edwards Air Force Base.

Spain is one of the leading European countries, along with Sweden, in terms of wood production for paper paste, but this uses large amounts of energy. Spanish and Swedish scientists have compared the environmental load stemming from forestry operations, and have concluded that the Spanish sector uses more energy than the Swedish one. They are proposing improvements, such as the use of biofuels, in order to make forestry production more sustainable.

Using a carbon nanotube instead of traditional silicon, Cornell researchers have created the basic elements of a solar cell that hopefully will lead to much more efficient ways of converting light to electricity than now used in calculators and on rooftops.

Much of circumpolar Arctic research focuses on the physical, direct changes resulting from climate warming such as sea ice retreat and temperature increases. “What’s understudied is the living component of the Arctic and that includes humans,” said Syndonia “Donie” Bret-Harte, associate professor of biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and co-author of a paper to be published September 11, 2009 in the journal Science.

Researchers at The University of Nottingham have a new weapon in their arsenal of tools to push back the boundaries of science, engineering, veterinary medicine and archaeology.

Unlike animals and humans, plants can't run and hide when exposed to stressful environmental conditions. So how do plants survive? A new Université de Montréal study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found a key mechanism that enables plants to keep dangerous gene alterations in check to ensure their continued existence.

Analysis of a rock type found only in the world's oldest oceans has shed new light on how large animals first got a foothold on the Earth.

Findings yield deep insights into the pathogen's remarkable adaptability, suggest a '2-speed' genomic strategy that enables it to outwit plant hosts

If you wanted to know if your child had a fever or be certain that the roast in the oven was thoroughly cooked, you would, of course, use a thermometer that you trusted to give accurate readings at any temperature within its range.

The simple picture of star formation calls for giant clouds of gas and dust to collapse inward due to gravity, growing denser and hotter until igniting nuclear fusion. In reality, forces other than gravity also influence the birth of stars. New research shows that cosmic magnetic fields play a more important role in star formation than previously thought.

The large group of segmented worms known as annelids, which includes earthworms, leeches and bristle worms, evolved millions of years ago and can be found in every corner of the world.

At 3:26pm EDT on Tuesday afternoon the space shuttle Discovery undocked from the International Space Station to begin the journey home. Discovery and its crew of seven spent over a week completing docked operations at the space station.