Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
Science & Health Sep 30, 2013
'Yellow brick road' may lead to lost pirate booty
He calls it “the yellow brick road” because it is literally sprinkled with gold dust. This road runs along Cape Cod’s shifting seafloor, and undersea explorer Barry Clifford believes it leads to undiscovered treasure from the wreck of the pirate ship Whydah. Two weeks ...
Environment | FOCUS Sep 24, 2013
Global warming 'pause' gives ammo to skeptics' argument
A slowdown in warming that has provided fuel for climate skeptics is one of the thorniest issues in a report to be issued by U.N. experts on Friday. Over the past 15 years, the world’s average surface temperature rose far slower than many climate ...
Environment Sep 21, 2013
Arctic sea ice melt temporarily eases
The amount of ice in the Arctic Ocean shrank this summer to the sixth-lowest level on record, but that left much more ice than last year’s all-time low. The ice cap at the North Pole melts in the summer and grows in winter. Its ...
World Sep 17, 2013
Putin pledges to restore Soviet-era naval base in Arctic to protect assets
Russia is to re-establish its military presence in the resource-rich Arctic by reopening a Soviet-era base to patrol the increasingly navigable Northern Sea Route, President Vladimir Putin said Monday. Putin said 10 naval ships had arrived at the New Siberian Islands in the Arctic ...
Environment Aug 31, 2013
Otters surprise as sea grass saviors
Otters can help rejuvenate sea grasses, a vulnerable natural resource that protects coastlines and provides habitats for fish, according to new research. Scientists examined how the sea grasses in one area of California rebounded when otters returned to the area, and found that the ...
Science & Health Aug 28, 2013
Dolphin deaths, linked to virus, worst in years
Marine scientists said Tuesday that a die-off of bottlenose dolphins along the U.S. Atlantic coast is the largest in a quarter-century and is almost certainly from the same cause as a 1987-88 outbreak: cetacean morbillivirus, which is spreading throughout the population. From New York ...
Science & Health | Focus Aug 28, 2013
Air gun noise sparks alarm in war over offshore drilling
by Lenny Bernstein
The use of “seismic air guns” to determine how much oil and gas lies beneath a vast swath of the ocean floor off the southeast coast of the United States is provoking an early skirmish in a battle over oil drilling that is still ...
Environment Aug 21, 2013
Humans '95% likely' behind warming
It is all but certain that human activity has caused a steady increase in global temperatures over the past 60 years, leading to warmer oceans and an acceleration in rising sea levels, according to the most recent climate change report by an international U.N. ...
Environment Aug 19, 2013
Global coastal flooding losses could hit $1 trillion a year by 2050: report
The world's 136 largest coastal cities could risk combined annual losses of $1 trillion from floods by 2050 unless they drastically raise their defenses, a study warns.
Environment | FOCUS Jul 31, 2013
Shark attacks on humans are rare but not unheard of
by Juliet Eilperin
With beach season in full swing, the question inevitably arises: What are the chances of getting attacked by a shark? In a phrase: extraordinarily low — though not nonexistent. It is higher in certain parts of the U.S. (Florida tops the list) than in ...
Science & Health Jul 25, 2013
Arctic methane a climatic, economic 'time bomb'
Massive leakage of methane from thawing shorelines in the Arctic would devastate the world’s climate and economy, three scientists warned Wednesday. Billions of tons of the potent greenhouse gas are locked in the shallow frozen shelf of the Arctic Ocean, which warms when summer ...
Science & Health Jul 24, 2013
Threads key to mussels' magic staying power
Fine dangling filaments give mussels an amazing ability to cling to rocks and ship hulls and survive the ocean’s battering, scientists said Tuesday. Mussels have long been feted for the glue with which they adhere to surfaces in the harsh marine environment, but just ...