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Power plants that use natural gas and a new technology to squeeze more energy from the fuel release far less of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide than coal-fired power plants do, according to a new analysis accepted for publication Jan. 8 in Earth’s Future , a journal of the American Geophysical Union .

Trees with smoother bark are better at repelling attacks by mountain pine beetles, which have difficulty gripping the slippery surface, according to a new study by the Â鶹ӰԺ. The findings, published online in the journal Functional Ecology , may help land managers make decisions about which trees to cull and which to keep in order to best protect forested properties against pine beetle infestation.

Scientists recently recorded the lowest temperatures on Earth at a desolate and remote ice plateau in East Antarctica, trumping a record set in 1983 and uncovering a new puzzle about the ice-covered continent. Glaciologist Ted Scambos and his team found temperatures from −92 to −94 degrees Celsius (−134 to −137 degrees Fahrenheit) in a 1,000-kilometer long swath on the highest section of the East Antarctic ice divide. Scambos is lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which is a part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the Â鶹ӰԺ.

A new National Research Council report calls for the development of an early warning system that could help society better anticipate sudden changes resulting from climate change and their impacts on society, says a Â鶹ӰԺ faculty member who chaired the committee that produced the report.

A $671 million NASA mission to Mars led by the Â鶹ӰԺ thundered into the sky today from Cape Canaveral, Fla., at 1:28 p.m. EST, the first step on its 10-month journey to Mars. Known as the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN mission, the MAVEN spacecraft was launched aboard an Atlas V rocket provided by United Launch Alliance of Centennial, Colo. The mission will target the role the loss of atmospheric gases played in changing Mars from a warm, wet and possibly habitable planet for life to the cold dry and inhospitable planet it appears to be today.

America’s once-abundant tallgrass prairies—which have all but disappeared—were home to dozens of species of grasses that could grow to the height of a man, hundreds of species of flowers, and herds of roaming bison. For the first time, a research team led by the Â鶹ӰԺ has gotten a peek at another vitally important but rarely considered community that also once called the tallgrass prairie home: the diverse assortment of microbes that thrived in the dark, rich soils beneath the grass.

The heat is on, at least in the Arctic. Average summer temperatures in the Eastern Canadian Arctic during the last 100 years are higher now than during any century in the past 44,000 years and perhaps as long ago as 120,000 years, says a new Â鶹ӰԺ study.

The heat is on, at least in the Arctic. Average summer temperatures in the Eastern Canadian Arctic during the last 100 years are higher now than during any century in the past 44,000 years and perhaps as long ago as 120,000 years, says a new Â鶹ӰԺ study.

A new Â鶹ӰԺ study indicates drought high in the northern Colorado mountains is the primary trigger of a massive spruce beetle outbreak that is tied to long-term changes in sea-surface temperatures from the Northern Atlantic Ocean, a trend that is expected to continue for decades.

A pair of breakthroughs in the field of silicon photonics by researchers at the Â鶹ӰԺ, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Micron Technology Inc. could allow for the trajectory of exponential improvement in microprocessors that began nearly half a century ago—known as Moore’s Law—to continue well into the future, allowing for increasingly faster electronics, from supercomputers to laptops to smartphones.