Salt-loving Plants Could Help Ease Food Crisis

Plant scientists said they had bred a strain of wheat that thrives in saline soils, boosting the quest to feed Earth’s growing population at a time of water stress and climate change. The first beneficiaries of this could be Japanese farmers whose fields were submerged by last year’s tsunami…

Landslide raises questions about $15.7 billion Exxon plan

A deadly landslide in the mountains of Papua New Guinea, near where U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil is building a $15.7 billion gas project, is raising fresh questions about the global energy industry’s scramble for ever harder-to-reach resources…

Midway Atoll Expecting Japan Tsunami Debris Soon

Japanese debris swept into the ocean by last year’s massive earthquake-caused tsunami is still likely a year away from washing up in Hawaii, but people at Midway are expecting some soon. Scientists have deployed hundreds of high-tech devices to help monitor the path of the debris, which could be hazardous to ships, marine life and coastlines.

Madagascar Gets Roadmap To Conserving Marine Life

A new study provides a plan for preserving Madagascar’s dazzling array of marine life, by creating more than 1 million hectares (3,861 square miles) of protected areas to conserve its coral reefs, mangroves, and other marine ecosystems.

Is Protecting the Environment Incompatible with Social Justice?

Humanity’s challenge in the 21st century is to eradicate poverty and achieve prosperity for all within the means of the planet’s limited natural resources. Oxfam investigates the question of whether environment conflicts with development and social justice.

How Earth’s Next Supercontinent Will Form

The Earth has been covered by giant combinations of continents, called supercontinents, many times in its past, and it will be again one day in the distant future. The next predicted supercontinent, dubbed Amasia, may form when the Americas and Asia both drift northward to merge, closing off the Arctic Ocean, researchers suggest.