The Why Files

Canada's oil-drenched sands give it the second-largest oil reserves in the world. Using the "tar sands" pollutes air and water, destroys forests and could cause cancer. Should we leave oil sands alone?

POSTED 22 OCTOBER 2009 Google/Yahoo/Bing: New brain tutors? Staying mentally and physically active is a standard prescription for helping a healthy brain survive the assaults of aging...

Ultralight aircraft are guiding crane chicks toward Florida wintering grounds. Dangers remain, but it's a step ahead for Americas' largest flying bird, once reduced to 21 animals.

Owning a StarCAVE, an interactive virtual reality theater where scientific models are projected stereoscopically on every surface, including the floor, is probably a biologist’s single best bet at getting on MTV’s “Cribs.” Now showing: RNA. “You c...

Until now, getting a picture of genetic change in a tumor over time has been next to impossible. A new study reveals that cancer's genetic tangle gets more complicated with time.

Scientists propose 9 limits on human actions: Wrecking ozone, over-using fertilizer, killing species could block key "ecosystem services." Are there natural limits to fresh water use and pollution?

The green Jell-O torpedo you see above is called a salp. Typically the gelatinous little ocean creatures are less ostentatious, but researchers have lent this one some flouresceine dye for a photo-op...

How many dead? Research and real-life experience prove that people die when drivers pick up the cellphone. Even worse: texting on the road!

For aerial navigation in cramped spaces it’s bat MAV to the rescue. Big bucks have been pumped into micro-aerial vehicle (MAV) research due to interest from the surveillance industry. ...

Flax, the basis for linen, was spun and dyed, and lost in the mud. More than 30,000 years later, microscopic flax fibers provide the first cord in archeological history.

The ozone layer protects Earth from UV rays: Twenty-two years after a treaty to protect ozone, how is the layer doing? What has happened to the ozone hole above Antarctica?

2009 has been a big year for food recalls, largely because salmonella-contaminated dried milk, pistachio nuts and peanut products affected thousands of items in a wide variety of food products, says Kathleen Glass, associate director of the Food Research Institute...