Features

Feeling the Heat: Reports From the Frontlines of Climate Change.

Campaign finance reform is a tricky subject: What at first looks like an obvious choice–say, abolishing political action committees (PACs)–has hidden, sometimes dangerous implications. Add to that the ease with which politicians obscure the real issues, and you’ve got a recipe for confusion and the status quo. E talked to two grassroots leaders who have given serious thought to creating the political will for real — and lasting — reforms…

The Limits of "Leave No Trace" Few hikers are tougher on wilderness than the Escondido Cougars high school football team. Before starting their 1999 fall season, 30 Cougars tackled the Sierra Nevada wilderness for pre-season bonding. The San Diego-county team pitched tents for a week at Deer Lakes, an idyllic trio of lakes in the […]

In the parental rush to provide children with only the healthiest, purest, most wholesome ingredients for life, many families opt to serve bottled water along with the mashed carrots and multi-grain Cheerios. Why? Because they’re worried about the contaminants in tap water, including fluoride. But fluoride is added to many bottled waters, and it also gets in some brands unintentionally. Critics say that people who drink bottled water aren’t getting enough fluoride.

Over the past century, science has begun to weave together the story of a historical cosmos that emerged some 12 billion years ago. The magnitude of this universe story is beginning to dawn on us, as we awaken to a new realization of its vastness and complexity.

Wildlife protection is headed for a showdown, but it may not come in the current Congress. The main players are Senator Dirk Kempthorne (R-ID) and Representative George Miller (D-CA); both have sponsored bills which, if passed, would dramatically change the face of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

If you haven’t thought about how much water you’re drinking lately, you’re probably drinking enough, says Dr. Heinz Valtin, a retired professor and kidney specialist at the Dartmouth Medical School, who recently spent 10 months studying the question. Valtin cautions that drinking too much water may increase exposure to water-borne pollutants, and may increase the risk of water intoxification, also called hyponatremia, a sometimes fatal condition that is the result of replacing lost fluids much faster than sodium.

The State’s Rapid Population Growth is Largely Due to Immigration Nowhere in America is immigration more of a battleground than in California, where a trickle of new residents has become a flood. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, in 1960 the state held 8.8 percent of the nation’s population and 13.9 percent of its […]

Louden County, Virginia, the third-fastest-growing county in the country, could easily become the outward-most link in the Washington, D.C. "edge city" corridor. The commute to the nation’s capitol is only an hour and a half, land is cheap.

The world is sharply divided in terms of access to safe hydration. Those who can afford it are guzzling ever-increasing numbers of designer water bottles, while half the world’s population lacks basic sanitation facilities, according to the United Nations (UN). Diseases caused by unsanitary water kill five to 12 million people a year, most of them women and children. A child dies every eight seconds from a preventable water-borne disease.