Volume 12, Number 2
Features
Closed-Source Crops
A handful of giant corporations are laying claim to the germ plasm of the world’s major food crops. And when yield is the grail of profit, biodiversity isn’t a priority.
By Paul Salopek
Ultra Zoom
An ordinary camera and an extraordinary technology create billion-pixel images that allow viewers to
virtually fly deep into a landscape and explore nature in stunning detail.
Greener Pastures
What goes on in the stomachs and under the hooves of cows might be the key to turning deserts back into grasslands—and even cooling the planet.
By Judith D. Schwartz
To Build a (Better) Fire
A kind of hippie Manhattan Project in rural Oregon tackles climate change, air pollution, and deforestation by bringing together the best minds in the field to invent cheap, durable, clean-burning stoves for 3 billion people.
By Burkhard Bilger
Conversations
Turtle Whisperer
John Nielsen talks with Alexander Gaos, a biologist on a mission to convert fishermen and poachers into allies in the protection of eastern Pacific hawksbill sea turtles.
Solutions
Perennial Agriculture
New technologies are reinventing farming from the roots up
Vulture Restaurants (Print only)
Feeding stations dish out poison-free carrion
A Clean Green 2-for-1
Algae can treat your wastewater and then fill up your tank
Fast CO2 Relief
Limestone scrubbers transform powerplant emissions into ocean antacid
Crossing to Safety
Innovative wildlife bridges designed to protect travelers on four wheels and four legs
Cleared for Takeoff
Airport wetland restoration could reduce bird-plane collisions
Think Again
Battle of the Book
By Daniel Goleman and Gregory Norris
Journal Watch
By David Malakoff
Alaskan avalanche is a case study in energy conservation
Jet contrails contribute to global warming
Bats are a boon to U.S. economy
Wind-turbine color is a life-or-death matter
Are the vines taking over?
Color-blind sharks
Grim outlook for monarch migration
Plastic wine stoppers threaten cork-oak habitat
Tourists may spread deadly virus to gorillas
Biodiversity in rivers means less water pollution
The Essayist
Of Ants and Men
By Tim Flannery
Bookmarks
Coming to Terms with the Gulf Oil Blowout
A review of Carl Safina’s A Sea in Flames: The Deepwater Horizon Oil Blowout
By Eric Wagner
Art & Science
Conservation Crochet