The Cambrian period began a little over 500 million years ago. Before the Cambrian period, life on earth consisted of mostly single-celled organisms and bacteria. Afterwards the evolutionary ancestors of all the major groups of living things today were hanging around the planet. So what caused this evolutionary leap? According to [...]

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) – Online pornography hunters’ Internet adventures are already fraught with danger from malicious code many porn sites use to commandeer visitors’ machines or steal personal data. Now comes a scheme some researchers say amounts to extortion: One site’s threat to disable visitors’ computers with relentless pop-up ads if they [...]

BERKELEY – A genetic study of the salamander family that encompasses two-thirds of the world’s salamander species shows that periods of global warming helped the amphibians diversify and expand their range from North America into Europe and Asia, where pockets of them are still found today. Interestingly, while one period of warming allowed [...]

Hollywood icon Julia Roberts angrily gave chase to a car carrying paparazzi photographers after spotting them filming her near a school, reports said Thursday. The actress raced after the photographers in her Mercedes sports utility vehicle, blasting them with her horn and gesturing the lensmen to pull over, in footage broadcast by syndicated [...]

WASHINGTON (AP) – Remember biology class where you learned that children inherit one copy of a gene from mom and a second from dad? There’s a twist: Some of those genes arrive switched off, so there is no backup if the other copy goes bad, making you more vulnerable to disorders from obesity to cancer. [...]

Hats off to Google…I’ve been around a while now and I’ve never seen what has so quickly grown into such a large, influential organization be so openly idealistic, agile, innovative and committed, not only to green tech but to corporate social and environmental responsibility in general. Better yet, leading IT companies in general are making [...]

MOSCOW (Reuters) – When does a legitimate Russian political protest become an illegal gathering? Answer: When a second person joins in to spoil it.

So says Viktor Shenderovich, a radio journalist and political satirist who had been staging a lone protest outside a Moscow police headquarters Wednesday, holding a sign saying “Free Garry [...]

A new Web-based tool allows U.S. residents to learn how their local electricity consumption may be linked to the destruction of landscapes in the Appalachia region of the eastern United States. With “My Connection,” a feature from North Carolina-based Appalachian Voices, users can enter their ZIP codes and use Google Earth to view the [...]

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Thousands of Belgian parents camped in cold, wet weather Thursday to enroll their children in French-speaking schools under a new first-come, first-served registration system.

Families set up impromptu camp sites outside school gates, with police in attendance to keep the peace ahead of the start of registration for next year’s school term [...]

Developed countries are failing to meet Kyoto Protocol targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and must drastically cut them for the sake of poorer countries, says a UN report.

The authors argue that rich countries are driving an “ecological debt crisis”, which will affect the world’s poor earliest and hardest.

The Human Development [...]

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A 200-year-old cannon wheeled out by Indian villagers to greet a visiting minister exploded after being overstuffed with gunpowder, killing two men, a newspaper reported Thursday.

Residents of Badoli village in western India’s Rajasthan state had planned the gun salute Tuesday evening to welcome Kirodi Lal Meena, a state minister, the [...]

The holidays are officially upon us, which for many of us means big family dinners with a nice turkey, ham, or prime rib in the middle of the table. And if you are one of those cutting edge chefs that likes to deep fry your holiday fowl, unfortunately, this course bring an [...]

When the International Olympic Committee awarded Beijing the 2008 Summer Games in July 2001, the announcement ignited wild celebrations across the country. The Chinese Communist Party hoped to use the Games to showcase the country’s emergence as a dynamic, modern nation. But as China’s leaders begin final preparations for the Games next August, [...]

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. citizens will not have to drive less or read in the dark to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, but they will have to buy more efficient cars and appliances, a report from two business groups said on Thursday.

“You may have different lightbulbs, and your car may [...]