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Switching gas and electricity suppliers will not get customers the best deal. The only way householders in the UK can save money on their gas and electricity bills is to work out how much they use each month, according to a University of Warwick economist.

Putting itself on display through a clear glass window, the Cornell-affiliated Museum of the Earth's fossil preparation laboratory has opened to visitors, who can now watch paleontologists - including several Cornell students - carve away at hunks of rock to reveal the fossils inside.

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Stanford Earth scientists lend geophysical support to a theory of life's origins - but show that, if it's accurate, the first organisms could only have arisen during one brief stretch of geological time, long ago.

Exploring an asteroid with the Desert RATS Earlier this month, European scientists linked up with astronauts roaming over the surface of an asteroid.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. For University of Illinois river researchers, new insight into river cutoffs was a case of being in the right place at the right time. Geography professor Bruce Rhoads and geology professor Jim Best were conducting research where the Wabash River meets the Ohio River in the summer of 2008 when they heard about a new channel that had just formed, cutting off a bend in the winding Wabash just upstream from the confluence.

New research from the University of Leeds shows that a large-scale volcanic eruption in southern Iceland, similar to the Laki eruption in 1783, could result in widespread air pollution across Europe. The study shows that an event on a similar scale to the eight-month-long Laki eruption in 1783 - 1784 would release huge amounts of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere.

PASADENA, Calif. Observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission indicate the family of asteroids some believed was responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs is not likely the culprit, keeping open the case on one of Earth's greatest mysteries. While scientists are confident a large asteroid crashed into Earth approximately 65 million years ago, leading to the extinction of dinosaurs and some other life forms on our planet, they do not know exactly where the asteroid came from or how it made its way to Earth.

Sept. AUSTIN, Texas — International energy company Statoil has signed an agreement with The University of Texas at Austin to fund $5 million of research over five years focusing on geology, geophysics and petroleum engineering.

by Morgan Kelly Scientists looking to capture evidence of dark matter - the invisible substance thought to constitute much of the universe - may find a helpful tool in the recent work of researchers from Princeton University and New York University. The team unveiled in a report in the journal Physical Review Letters this month a ready-made method for detecting the collision of stars with an elusive type of black hole that is on the short list of objects believed to make up dark matter.

A new piece of software has been developed to help protect vulnerable coastal communities from the destruction of a tsunami.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Home prices in many of the world's most famous cities run to well over $1,000 per square foot.

Last month, scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and several other U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories traveled to two small Alaskan towns - tiny dots amid the vastness of the tundra, and perfect places to observe Earth at a crossroads.

Sept. AUSTIN, Texas — Shell and The University of Texas at Austin today signed a five-year agreement to invest $7.5 million to address short- and long-term challenges facing the growing worldwide unconventional oil and gas industry.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Biomaterials, in particular biodegradable materials, are increasingly used in medicine. These materials serve on their own as structural support and replacement, and as platforms for drug release, embedding of cells and tissue engineering. Yet, many materials and devices fail in clinical trials because they do not perform as expected from in vitro experiments.

Logging in Victoria's mountain ash forests is increasing the risk of catastrophic wildfires, according to an expert from The Australian National University. In a study published in the journal PNAS last week, Professor David Lindenmayer from the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society, and a team of world-renowned ecologists, analysed Victoria's mountain ash forests after the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires as well as decades of ecological data.

Is it possible to make valid climate predictions that go beyond weeks, months, even a year? UCLA atmospheric scientists report they have now made long-term climate forecasts that are among the best ever — predicting climate up to 16 months in advance, nearly twice the length of time previously achieved by climate scientists.

News release URL Scripps HD Pier Cam Keeling Research Group Prospective Students Scripps Homepage ScrippsNews Home First Global Picture of Greenhouse Gases Emerges from Pole-to-Pole Flights HIPPO creates atlas of atmosphere September 7, 2011 By NCAR with edits by Rob Monroe The NSF/NCAR Gulfstream V research aircraft, known as HIAPER (High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research).

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The whole atmosphere is effectively worth more than 100 times the value of the world economy (Gross World Product - GWP), according to research being presented to the annual International Conference

One weekend in June, a scientifically representative sample of California voters gathered in Torrance for the first-ever statewide "deliberative poll." Spearheaded by Stanford communication Professor James Fishkin, the gathering aimed to educate and facilitate discussion among participants, who were polled on their opinions toward a variety of statewide reforms.

PASADENA, Calif. The initial work of NASA's Mars rover Opportunity at its new location on Mars shows surface compositional differences from anything the robot has studied in its first 7.5 years of exploration.

— Coral Gables — The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GRI) announced yesterday that eight research consortia will be funded for a total of $112.5 million over three years to sup

Early humans were using stone hand axes as far back as 1.8 million years ago. Credit: Pierre-Jean Texier, National Center of Scientific Research, France. A new study suggests that Homo erectus , a precursor to modern humans, was using advanced tool-making methods in East Africa 1.8 million years ago, at least 300,000 years earlier than previously thought.

After pounding North Carolina and Virginia on Aug. Hurricane Irene made a second landfall near Little Egg Inlet, N.J., early Sunday morning, Aug.

Hurricane Irene made landfall early Saturday morning, Aug. 27, just west of Cape Lookout, NC, as a category one hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (75 knots).

Large and powerful Hurricane Irene is poised to become the first hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Ike in 2008.

WHAT: UCLA engineers using mobile field shakers will simulate an earthquake to test the security of the fragile system of levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the hub of California's water distribution system, which provides fresh water to some 23 million residents throughout the state, including Los Angeles.

Students already knowledgeable about the science behind ocean acidification and warming will learn more about the challenges those ocean changes pose for tribes, shellfish growers and other sectors of

Tuesday's earthquake in Virginia was not a geological surprise, according to Stanford geophysicist Mark Zoback.

The magnitude 5.8 earthquake that shook central Virginia on Tuesday afternoon is one of the biggest earthquakes to hit the east coast of the U.S. since 1897, and was comparable i

Japan's nuclear meltdowns provide valuable lessons for the design of future nuclear powerplants. CAMBRIDGE, Mass.

Billions of tons of carbon trapped in high-latitude permafrost may be released into the atmosphere by the end of this century as the Earth's climate changes, further accelerating global warming, a new computer modeling study indicates. The study also found that soil in high-latitude regions could shift from being a sink to a source of carbon dioxide by the end of the 21 st century as the soil warms in response to climate change.

Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have discovered that the dwarf planet 2007 OR10—nicknamed Snow White—is an icy world, with about half its surface covered in water ice that once flowed from ancient, slush-spewing volcanoes. The new findings also suggest that the red-tinged dwarf planet may be covered in a thin layer of methane, the remnants of an atmosphere that's slowly being lost into space.

New research shows evidence of early oxygen on our planet. Today, oxygen takes up a hefty portion of Earth's atmosphere: Life-sustaining O2 molecules make up 21 percent of the air we breathe. However, very early in Earth's history, O2 was a rare ' if not completely absent ' player in the turbulent mix of primordial gases.

Measurements at Scripps Pier Reveal Extent of Leakage from Damaged Fukushima Reactor August 15, 2011 By Susan Brown Sulfur dioxide and sulfates collected in an instrument at the end of the pier at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography revealed the extent of radiation leaked from the damaged nuclear reactors in Fukushima, Japan following the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011.

UC San Diego 2011 Research Funding Reaches Near-Record $960 Million August 16, 2011 By Paul K. Mueller Research teams at the University of California, San Diego competed for and received more

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—How common are droplets of saltwater on Mars' Could microbial life survive and reproduce in them' A new million-dollar NASA project led by the University of Michigan aims to answer those questions. This project begins three years after beads of liquid brine were first photographed on one of the Mars Phoenix lander's legs.

A research group led by Jonathan L. Mitchell, UCLA assistant professor of earth and space sciences and of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, has answered this question by using a global circulation model of Titan to demonstrate how planetary-scale atmospheric waves affect the moon's weather patterns, leading to a "stenciling" effect that results in sharp and sometimes surprising cloud shapes.

The secrets embedded in one of the earliest maps to show Britain in its geographically recognised form have been uncovered, as researchers launch the newly digitised Gough Map.

The children enjoyed lessons in art, took part in a paleontological dig during a dinosaur workshop and got hands on with a giant bubble maker and remote control robots in the Science and Technology department.

PASADENA, Calif. Like scars that remain on the skin long after a wound has healed, earthquake fault lines can be traced on Earth's surface long after their initial rupture. Typically, this line of intersection is more complicated at the surface than at depth. But a new study of the April 4, 2010, El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake in Baja California, Mexico, reveals a reversal of this trend.

Like scars that remain on the skin long after a wound has healed, earthquake fault lines can be traced on Earth's surface long after their initial rupture.

The icecap in the Arctic is getting both smaller and thinner. Within a few decades, the Arctic Ocean could be completely ice-free during the summer, in spite of the fact that Earth should be heading for a geologically cooler period. This contradictory development is caused by global warming. Yet the Arctic has in fact been ice-free once before, between 8500 and 6000 years ago.

The effects of the March 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that devastated areas of Japan can be seen as far away as Antarctica. Satellite images show new icebergs were created after the tsunami hit the Sulzberger Ice Shelf. Using radar images acquired by ESA's Envisat satellite, a NASA team was able to spot the icebergs - the largest measuring about 6.5 by 9.5 km in surface area and about 80 m in thickness.

Crew members prepare the remotely operated vehicle Jason to dive to Axial Seamount. (Bill Chadwick, Oregon State University) Researchers returning from a cruise some 250 miles off the coast of Oregon have reported seeing a volcanic eruption on the seafloor that they accurately forecast five years ago—the first successful prediction of an undersea eruption.

Five months after Japan's devastating tsunami, earthquake and Fukishima nuclear power plant explosion, the issue of humanitarianism will be the topic of discussion at The Australian National University this week.

Aug. AUSTIN, Texas — An international team of researchers has found the strongest evidence yet that parts of North America and Antarctica were connected 1.1 billion years ago, long before the supercontinent Pangaea formed.

MIT researchers reconstruct Baja California's 2010 'Easter Earthquake.' On April 4, 2010, the ground beneath the deserts of Baja California started to rumble, then rip apart, sending tremors throughout a region 40 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border.

It turns out that, even when you're talking about the weather, "normal” is a relative term. On July 1, normal temperatures all across the United States became slightly warmer.