"By taking sophisticated instrument readings of the snow depth and reflected sunlight, researchers hope to improve the accuracy of runoff forecasts."

Pilots will soon launch an effort to fly a solar-powered airplane across the United States.

"The first crossing of the United States by a solar-powered plane is expected to start in just over a month, its creators said on Thursday, as they make final preparations for an attempt two years from now at the first round-the-world flight without any fuel."

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 3 to 2 on Tuesday to require improvements to the emergency vents at 31 American reactors that share design similarities with the Japanese reactors that melted down two years ago. The agency stopped short, however, of requiring filters to scrub out radioactive particles coming through those vents."

"The U.S. drinking water and sewage infrastructure earned a barely passing grade of D from the American Society of Civil Engineers today, which said at least $1 trillion is needed to fix the problem."

"If the Obama administration has its way, $2 billion in new revenue from offshore oil drilling will fund research into how to wean American drivers off imported oil."

Today the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case testing the reach of GMO companies' market power based on intellectual property claims -- and while environment and health are not immediately before the court, a case that could have wide impacts on both.

"In Carlsbad, the nation's largest desalination facility will require lots of energy — and money. It is expected to provide no more than a tenth of San Diego County ratepayers' overall water supply."

"Tesla Motors and The New York Times are at odds over one reporter's account of an ill-fated winter test drive of the Model S electric car. Many blame winter, but Tesla Motors blames gross inaccuracies in the Times report."

An asthma inhaler rigged to a GPS device? Just as this new medical tech device may help researchers determine the precise triggers of asthma attacks, the emerging field of geomedicine promises to help correlate environmental conditions with health risks.

"Bird flu researchers end a yearlong moratorium on experiments to determine whether the H5N1 virus can mutate and spread among humans. The work, which was deemed risky, won't resume yet in the U.S."

"The lighting industry has finally come up with an energy-efficient replacement for the standard incandescent bulb that people actually seem to like: the LED bulb."

"NEVADA, Iowa -- Science and engineering company DuPont has started construction of a large cellulosic ethanol biorefinery in Iowa, with completion expected in mid-2014."

"A blue-ribbon panel of scientific and technology advisers to President Obama warns that the nation risks losing its longstanding supremacy in food production because research in agriculture has not kept up with new challenges like climate change, depleted land and water resources and emerging pests, pathogens and invasive plants."

"In the midst of the very active North Atlantic hurricane season, the main weather satellite scientists use for keeping tabs on the weather across eastern North America and the Atlantic Ocean has gone offline. The outage began late on Sept. 23, after a period when the satellite, known as GOES-13, had been experience increasing vibrations, or “noise,” in particular instruments that was degrading its performance. According to the Capital Weather Gang blog, the satellite was put in stand-by mode while engineers work to fix the problem from the ground."