We are getting closer to the point where we may have to employ emergency engineering solutions to cool the planet, according to panelists at a geoengineering session during last week's Aspen Environment Forum.

The economic climate is right for redefining the automobile industry, Elizabeth Lowery, vice president for environment, energy, and safety policy at General Motors said last week at the Aspen Environment Forum.

Electric cars are the short-term solution to wean the world off of gas and oil and in return reduce the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that are driving climate change, according to a panel at the Forum on the future of transportation.

Last week, National Geographic made a surprise cameo in the pivotal closing moments of the series finale of Battlestar Galactica , the SciFi Channel series that tracks humanity's search through space for a new home after cyborgs called Cylons destroy their home planet. The episode ended with a 150,000-year flash-forward to modern-day New York City. So what had seemed to be a futuristic show was actually prehistoric. The humans of Battlestar Galactica were our ancestors, not our descendants. 

Viewers saw executive producer Ronald Moore at a newsstand reading a special mockup issue (above), created by our art department and using text provided by the show. Fans may note that the text of the mockup is different from the text on the show. The producers made some additional changes so the magazine explains how an archaeologist discovered the fossilized remains of “Hera,” a half-human, half-Cylon child who landed on planet Earth with the rest of the survivors. The suggestion is that Hera is also "mitochondrial Eve”—the name scientists give to the genetic mother of humanity. Which means that in the world of Battlestar Galactica , we humans are all part robot!

This scene has the fanosphere, and Battlestar fans on our staff, abuzz. We talked with executive producers Ronald Moore and David Eick to get the back story.

—Brad Scriber

Just six days into the job, Jane Lubchenco, the new head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), tells National Geographic "there is a great urgency in addressing [ocean] acidification by reducing CO2 emissions."

"The decisions that individuals make every day add up to affect our global climate," Lubchenco added. "The changes we are seeing now are influenced by our energy choices and uses over the last couple hundred years."

Oceans serve as a carbon sink, absorbing about a third of human-generated carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The additional CO2 changes the chemical composition and lowers the pH of the seas. Acidic waters can prevent some marine life from producing calcium carbonate needed for shells and exoskeletons.

Lubchenco, a marine biologist and former Oregon State University professor, was at the Aspen Environment Forum in Colorado yesterday to talk about climate change politics and science.

On a Rocky Mountain day that saw cloudy skies and several inches of powder, solar energy experts gathered at the Aspen Environment Forum encouraged conference participants to turn sunlight, normally abundant in Colorado, into profit. 

Solar power is expected to be a growth market, in both developed and developing countries.

While captured sunlight will never account for the bulk of energy on a global or regional scale, it could provide up to 25 percent of U.S. energy needs and play an important role in delivering energy to poorer countries, said Neville Williams, founder of several solar companies and the author of Chasing the Sun.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2007, solar energy accounted for less than one percent of total American energy use.

Some very cool lifelike sculptures of insects by artist Gary Staab were recently installed in the courtyard of the National Geographic Society headquarters here in Washington, D.C. They’ll be on display for about a year, so if you’re in the area, stop by to take a gander.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson outlines her priorities and tells National Geographic that the EPA is back, ready to protect human health and the environment, despite the bumpy road ahead.

Jackson told a crowd of more than two hundred Aspen Environment Forum participants last night that EPA's top strategy for tackling climate change is to work with Congress on legislation, instead of focusing on amendments to the Clean Air Act that would allow regulation of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases.

A reconstruction by Xing Li Da shows a newly described ornithischian, Tianyulong confuciusi, with feathers. Courtesy of Zheng Xiao Ting and Xing Li Da .

Well, it was bound to happen someday. Rumors of feathers among dinosaur groups other than theropods (meat-eaters like T .rex) have circulated now for some years. But here, with the announcement of feather-like structures on an ornithischian dinosaur in Nature, we have it not as rumor, but as a peer-reviewed report.

The 2009 Aspen Environment Forum—focused on sustainable energy—kicks off today in Colorado.

Wal-Mart executives, green building experts, climate scientists, Economist and Washington Post reporters, and government officials from Mozambique, Panama, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, among many others, will mingle among the mountains as they discuss climate change, energy extraction and use, innovation and technology, efficiency, and conservation.

Lawrence Weinstein doesn’t know how many jelly beans are in this jar, but he has a very good guess. And it’s higher than you might expect. Weinstein, who teaches estimation at Virginia’s Old Dominion University, has a knack for solving problems with little data. His secret is more method than magic: Break questions into pieces, approximate, and use metric units for easier math.

The peaceful landscape at Monte Albán in Mexico belies the fact that the culture that built it, the Zapotec, were quite violent. Photograph by Christina Elson.

I’m glad to see National Geographic news report on the Zapotec civilization whose roots are in the lovely Oaxaca Valley, Mexico. In the news story archaeologists offer ideas about what led to the decline of one of Mesoamerica’s earliest states. Some of their ideas echo what’s going on around us today—environmental instability, the collapse of the economic system, and loss of faith in state leaders. These problems caused people to drift away from a political organization they’d lived under for almost a thousand years.

There is another aspect of Zapotec culture that echoes current events—violence. This is a subject that is now receiving a lot of attention among archaeologists.  

If luxury-brand autos and SUVs—the trappings of conspicuous consumption and 46-cents-a-gallon gas—are the most visible things on Saudi Arabia’s highways, a close second may be non-Saudi chauffeurs. Women are not permitted to drive in Saudi Arabia, so opportunities abound for immigrants willing to take mothers shopping and daughters to school.

Do you know where Czechia is? It’s not a fictional place—devised perhaps by Franz Kafka, although its capital is Kafka’s birthplace, Prague. That’s right, it’s the Czech Republic. If you read National Geographic very closely, you’ll find that the masthead lists Czechia as one of our 27 foreign-language editions. How did we get from Czech Republic to Czechia?

In short, it’s for convenience’ sake. As a one-word name for Czech Republic, Czechia is used by some people, just as America or the States are used as shortened names for United States of America. After Czechoslovakia’s “velvet divorce” in 1993, the newly formed Czech Republic sought a one-word name that could be used. That same year, the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs approved Czechia, or Česko, literally Czechland in the Czech language. Public acceptance of that ruling remained elusive, however.

In New York City, senior gardener Abu Talib oversees the Taqwa Community Farm and its 13 chickens.

In 19th-century Manhattan, hogs roamed the streets and cattle grazed in public parks. Today, chickens are the urban livestock of choice, and not just in New York. City dwellers across the U.S. are adding hens to their yards and gardens, garnering fresh eggs, fertilizer, and community ties, with localities debating and updating their ordinances accordingly.

While New Yorkers put on all their green and stake out a prime spot on the parade route that is stumbling distance to an endless supply of Guinness, the Irish band members of Bell X1 will indulge in a diner breakfast, prep for an appearance on David Letterman, then jet off to Boston for a St. Patrick’s Day gig.

Bell X1 is perhaps best known for providing the soundtrack to a scene with two girls kissing to “Eve, the Apple of My Eye” on the teen drama The O.C., “We’ll take our breaks where we can get them,” said lead singer, Paul Noonan, at a recent show. The crowd sang along to their quirky lyrics and beats, which have been compared to Talking Heads and Coldplay.

Growing up in the suburbs of Dublin, Noonan says that on March 17th he would usually pin some clover on his jacket, watch the capital’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, and go home before the streets became “awash in vomit.”

Samantha (at left) and Natalie Turner sweep sludge from a trough on their family’s drought-stricken farm in New South Wales, Australia.

The diesel engine clatters to life. My friend Mike is giving me a quick lesson in how to operate his father’s bulldozer. Accompanied by a cacophony of metal on metal, I maneuver pedals and levers. I lower the blade and begin knocking down trees. I’m helping build a logging road near Prospect, Oregon. Despite a lack of finesse, I’m making progress and having fun. I’m on top of the world.

When I read Robert Draper’s “Australia’s Dry Run” and look at Amy Toensing’s photographs in this month’s issue, I’m reminded of that day three decades ago when I was young and didn’t understand the potential consequences of bulldozers.

Photographer Tyrone Turner photographed the March 2009 coverage on energy efficiency and produced a striking set of images using a thermal camera. I had a chance to ask him about the challenges of the assignment.

Click to expand graphic.

Okay, I saw Disney’s Race to Witch Mountain and liked it, but I’m in my 40s and not really the target audience. I can offer the grown-up (and National Geographic) perspective, but to give you real insight into the movie, I’m sharing this blog with my 9-year-old son, Jeremy.

Jeremy: It is a great movie because it is about aliens, and aliens are pretty cool. It has a lot of funny scenes—people in the audience laughed. And there are a lot of car chases—the main characters are always driving in this beat-up taxi.

As a young American graduate student in London, I often elicited howls of laughter or mere bafflement from my British colleagues with my apparent mangling of the English language. One evening in particular, my friends were quite amused when I announced that I needed to change my pants before heading down to the pub. How was I to know that “pants” was short for “underpants”? (What we call pants in the U.S. are called trousers in the U.K.)

Have you made plans for Pi Day? Do you even know what Pi Day is? 

As the name implies, it’s a day to celebrate 3.14. The Exploratorium, a San Francisco museum, hosts an annual homage to the number that never knows when to stop. In fact, the museum claims to have invented this celebration 21 years ago. It has since spread across the country (among mathletes, at least).

We spoke to Larry Shaw, technical curator emeritus, who takes partial credit (or blame) for Pi Day’s conception.

The 1787 Fugio cent (top) was the first coin authorized by the U.S. government. Four new "tails" for the 2009 penny will pay tribute to Abraham Lincoln's life.

They are buried behind cushions, spit out by parking meters, and cursed by cashiers, yet pennies, apparently, are still loved by Americans. Hence the Treasury is issuing four new designs to honor the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth.

FROM BITE TO BELLY   How does a 12-foot-long eel move food down its throat? Sliding rear jaws. After the front jaws bite, the rear ones slide up and grab the prey. As those retract, the front jaws release. The eel then juts its head forward, which aids in the swallowing process.

Pulsing mouth, vacant stare, snakelike body: The moray eel truly suggests alien origins. But there’s more. Back behind this giant reef fish’s already toothy maw looms a second set of jaws, which launch from the throat, grab prey from the front teeth, then retreat into the dark tunnel of the eel’s esophagus. It’s the stuff of science fiction. But to scientists studying this unique morphology, it’s a brilliant feeding mechanism for such an elongated creature.

Every Sunday, New Yorker Felicia Persaud calls her parents in Guyana. For an hour they chat: Is everyone OK? Any family news? She spends about a hundred dollars a month on the calls but doesn’t mind. Hearing her parents makes her feel "they’re right here." Besides, her taciturn dad turns out to be a big phone talker.

What follows is a column from David Brindley, Director of the Copy Desk for National Geographic magazine and a member of the Style Committee for the entire National Geographic Society.

Once a month the National Geographic Style Committee meets to discuss matters of style and usage large and small—and often arcane. At our latest meeting, a colleague was puzzled by the absence of “pixelated” in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, our first choice for spelling and definitions not listed in our own Style Manual. “Pixel” (the small units that constitute images) and “pixilated” (meaning “somewhat unbalanced mentally” or “bemused”) are listed. But my colleague wanted to know how to spell “pixelated,” as in an image where the pixels are pronounced. To everyone’s surprise, especially given the dramatic shift from film to digital photography, there is no such entry.

Pop Omnivore loves the earth. Pop Omnivore also loves to eat. So when we caught wind of the fact that Mark Bittman has a new book out called Food Matters: A Guide To Conscious Eating, we were keen to dig in.

Bittman writes a popular weekly column for the New York Times Dining & Wine section and is the author of several cookbooks. Therefore, it makes sense that his latest publication includes over 75 recipes. But Food Matters is not all ingredients and instructions on how to assemble them. It's also chock-full of charts, graphs, and numbers that show how eating a certain way can benefit not only the health of humans but also the health of our planet. Bittman adds a personal note to the book by sharing the story of his own diet-related struggles--which at one point ranged from high cholesterol to sleep apnea--and how he cured them with this surprisingly simple food philosophy.

The Amazing Race has been having an amazing season … until last night. No, we’re not talking about the unfortunate elimination of the middle-age couple—he’s a recovering addict, she’s as solid as a rock. 

We’re talking about a word.

It popped up in the name of one of the challenges posed to the globe-trotting teams of Americans.

Here’s how CBS sums it up: “In Gypsy Moves, teams had to travel to a gypsy settlement where they needed to load all of a family’s belongings onto a horse-drawn cart. Then, they had to navigate the cart to the family’s new encampment where they had to unload the belongings.”

Ian Hancock told us why he does not use the word gypsy to describe his origins. He is a professor of Romani studies at the University of Texas at Austin and author of We Are the Romani People.