Earth and Environment

• Oil cost hits ship studies

  International Polar Year is feeling the pinch.

  23 July 2008

• Think tank reveals plan to manage tropical forests

  Novel way to use carbon credits to save trees.

  23 July 2008

• Where have all the flowers gone?

  At least 117 boys were being born for every 100 girls at the beginning of this century in China. Philip Ball asks whether Chinese birth rates can be controlled without exacerbating the gender imbalance.

  23 July 2008

• Ontario acts to protect its boreal forests

  23 July 2008

• Caribbean volcanoes implicated in Cretaceous killing spree

  Osmium isotopes prove origins of mass-extinction event

  16 July 2008

• Q+A: Science on a melting ice floe

  After Russian researchers are evacuated from their Arctic base, one member of the team explains what it was like to spend the winter on ice.

  16 July 2008

• US court slaps down pollution law

  Major clean-air programme is now in limbo.

  11 July 2008

• Organic dyes help harvest sunlight

  Solar-power costs could be slashed by cheap collectors, claim researchers.

  10 July 2008

• Developing nations reject G8 climate agreement

  Moving targets dog greenhouse-gas deal.

  9 July 2008

• Overfishing worse than thought

  Tropical fishermen catch far more species than reported officially.

  9 July 2008