Before Risk, before Dungeons & Dragons, before Magic: The Gathering, there was Diplomacy. One writer enters international competition to play the world-conquering game that redefines what it me...

California is parched. Wells are running dry. Vegetable fields have been left fallow and lawns are dying. Who can we blame? From almonds to politicians to cheap water, here are seven candidates.

Live in Denmark,1964. Oscar Peterson on Piano Ray Brown on Bass Ed Thigpen on Drums

SpaceX aims to bring the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket back to Earth for a soft touchdown on an unmanned "spaceport drone ship" in the Atlantic Ocean after the booster sends Dragon on its way toward the orbiting lab Monday April 13th.

Scientists are working to unravel the mystery of a methane blob over the Four Corners region of the U.S. Southwest. The hot spot, first detected from space, contains a significant amount of the greenhouse gas.

David Shukman looks at what could be done on air pollution beyond the annual warnings.

Next time you sip a humble glass of H2O, consider this: The story of water connects each of us to processes that shape our universe.

As striking photos of the oil spill in Vancouver's English Bay spread on social media Thursday, many voiced concerns that the sight of fuel on water will become common if B.C. becomes home to more oil pipelines. As a toxic bunker fuel spill spread across Vancouver's English Bay and washed ashore on the city's many beaches, people took to social media to share worrying photos, along with fears for the province's environmental future.

Not long ago, I walked into a friend’s kitchen and found her opening one of those evil, impossible-to-breach plastic blister packages with a can opener. This worked, and struck me as brilliant, but I mention it only to illustrate a characteristic that I admire in our species: given almost any entity, we will find a way to use it for something other than its intended purpose.

The question of being is the darkest in all philosophy.” So concluded William James in thinking about that most basic of riddles: how did something come from nothing? The question infuriates, James realized, because it demands an explanation while denying the very possibility of explanation. “From nothing to being there is no logical bridge,” he wrote. In science, explanations are built of cause and effect. But if nothing is truly nothing, it lacks the power to cause.

Concept artist and illustrator Björn Hurri has been releasing a series of steampunk illustrations as a tribute to Star Wars. Björn is currently working in the entertainment industry as Lead Artist ...

This is Felicity, California, otherwise known as the “Center of the World.”

In less than 60 days, Congress - whether they like it or not - will be forced to decide if the NSA’s most notorious mass surveillance program lives or dies. And today, over 30 civil liberties organizations launched a nationwide call-in campaign urging them to kill it. Despite doing almost everything in their power to avoid voting for substantive NSA reform, Congress now has no choice...

Peter De Cupere’s “Tree Virus” sculpture wasn’t much to look at: a dead, black tree rooted in a craggy white ball suspended over a dirt pit, all of it covered by a plastic igloo. Built on a college campus in the Netherlands in 2008, the whole thing might have been leftover scenery from a Tim Burton film if it weren’t for the outrageous smell.

Patterns appearing on both the very large and very small scale are extremely rare, but researchers at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) in Japan have found a similar pattern in two apparently unrelated systems.

On the campaign trail, British Prime Minister David Cameron was invited Monday to a family Easter barbecue in Poole, a coastal town in southern England. Journalists and photographers attending the event expected to report on Cameron’s talk about tax and pensions with the Docherty family, but instead a picture of his eating a hot dog with a knife and fork went viral.

Built-in cruelty toward chickens exists because industrialized animal agriculture is about profitably producing masses of cheap meat.

After decades of debate, scientists just gave Brontosaurus back to the people. Eat your heart out, Apatosaurus.

The key to making it work is having lots of windows and removing interior walls.

When Congress returns from recess next week, Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.), who resigned after Politico raised questions about his mileage reimbursements, will not return with it. Before Schock becomes a footnote in history, it’s worth reflecting on how he represents everything wrong with the way Congress raises money.

A group of rogue artists mounted a large statue of National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden in Fort Greene Park early on Monday morning, but Parks workers had covered the bust with a blue tarp by 12:30 pm and removed the statue by 1:30 pm on Monday.

A federal appeals court is asking the Obama administration to explain why the government should be allowed to keep secret its plan to shutter mobile phone service during "critical emergencies." The Department of Homeland Security came up with the plan—known as Standing Operating Procedure 303—after cellular phones were used to detonate explosives targeting a London public transportation system.

We tend to think of wood as a warm material appropriate to indoor spaces of a home and concrete in terms of cold building blocks best left to the driveway paving, retaining walls or an outdoor porch. This minimalist modern cabin reverses these conventions.

Working under the cover of darkness early Monday, a small group of artists installed a tribute to NSA-leaker Edward Snowden in a Brooklyn park.

Scott County, Indiana, the center of an exploding HIV outbreak, has been without an HIV testing center since early 2013, when the sole provider -- a Planned Parenthood clinic -- was forced to close its doors. The clinic did not offer abortion service...

Read by Thich Nath Hanh, chanted by brother Phap Niem. The creators of this audio track were Gary Malkin, the composer/arranger, producer, and collaborator Michael Stillwater. The work came from a CD/book called Graceful Passages: A Companion for Living and Dying, and it could be purchased by going to wisdomoftheworld.com

Myths and legends, such as those about the full moon, are an important part of culture. But when direct scientific evidence proves the contrary, we have to make a choice between what we believe in and what evidence tells us is the truth.

The NSA is monitoring almost all of our international communications. This is a fundamental violation of First and Fourth Amendment rights....

Monsanto company arguably holds an inordinate amount of the global food supply, not only with its genetically engineered seed but its complimentary product, Roundup herbicide, which contains the active ingredient glyphosate. Which is why they spat lividly when a subset of WHO publicly announced that glyphosate is a probably cause of cancer. They demanded a retraction.

A man installs shark-shaped balloons enclosed in a plastic globe