As the railroads shaped the American West in the 19th century, a new electrical generating and transmission system for the 21st century will leave its lasting mark on the desert.

Barack Obama called for cutting U.S. oil imports by a third before 2025, in a speech aimed at defending his energy agenda from Republicans seeking to limit fuel efficiency standards.

Google is offering to add a social twist to Web searches, in a bold offensive to prevent Facebook and other social-networking companies from gaining an upper hand in Web innovation.

Eight business and social media experts explain how businesses can—and indeed must—use social media to expand their sphere of influence, attracting customers and shaping opinion.

We're faced with puzzles every day in life. That's why it's so important to keep your mind flexible, says NY Times Crossword Editor Will Shortz, recounting a time he had to use his puzzle solving skill in an airport parking garage. 

You are looking at the first color image of Mercury from orbit. It was taken by NASA's Mercury Messenger spacecraft, which is on a mission to "unravel the history and evolution of the Solar System's innermost planet."

Using data from the Large Hadron Collider experiment, a team of scientists has observed new behaviour of an exotic "B meson" particle that should shed light on a new physics.

No single analysis can discern which nuclear power plants in the U.S. are most at risk for a disaster, but the probabilities of an accident damaging a reactor core have been roughly penciled out.

After taking a vow of silence for 17 years and refusing any transportation, save his own feet, for 22, John Francis is speaking out about the lessons of conservation and planetary harmony.

While early searches at the Large Hadron Collider did not turn up long-sought-after particles, there is good reason to believe that supersymmetry will be discovered, says Dr. David Toback.

A new generation of climate models and the visionaries who wield them show that our carbon legacy will last far longer than most of us realize, long enough to interfere with future ice ages.

The innocuous white vapour trails that criss-cross the sky might have contributed to more global warming so far than all aircraft greenhouse gas emissions put together.

An artificial silicon-based "leaf" that collects energy in much the same way as a natural one could provide a day's worth of power for homes without access to an electricity grid.

N.A.S.A.'s Messenger spacecraft, which entered orbit around Mercury on March 17, sent its first images of the hot planet's surface, including its previously unseen southern pole, back to Earth.

British research aimed at helping farmers cut their contribution to climate change shows how to reduce the amount of methane produced by cows and sheep belching and breaking wind.

Mental health remains a huge concern for the space industry, whether considering humanity's eventual colonization of other worlds or merely the price of a space tourism weekend.

Amazon getting the jump on Google and Apple with the launch of its digital music locker service has prompted closer looks at legality and whether licenses should be paid for streaming.

The human heartbeat could be used to power an ipod after scientists developed a tiny chip which uses the body's own movement to generate power, the Telegraph reports.

Should more be done to limit companies like Apple from staking claims to generic words and phrases? What's the harm in this kind of appropriation of language?

Fifteen million iPads were sold last year. Charles Arthur looks at the impact of tablet computers on the way we relate to technology and users reveal how their work lives changed.