POWER plants could be sabotaged by a simple internet attack that shuts down their control systems. Core Security in Boston, Massachusetts, has discovered a serious vulnerability in a software package called Suitelink that is widely used to automate the operation of power stations, oil refineries and production lines. This could allow ...

Breakthrough ideas have a way of seeming obvious in retro­spect, and about a decade ago, a Columbia University geophysicist named Dallas Abbott had a breakthrough idea. She had been pondering the craters left by comets and asteroids that smashed into Earth. Geologists had counted them and concluded that space strikes are rare events and ...

Harvard naturalist, theorist, and humanist E.O. Wilson discusses his work with ants, his new book The Creation, and why he writes with pen and paper.

Economist Bjorn Lomborg makes a persuasive case for prioritizing the world's biggest problems, asking ''If we had $50 billion to spend over the next four years to do good in the world, where should we spend it?'' His recommendations - based on the findings of the 2004 Copenhagen Consensus - controversially place global warming at the bottom of ...

 In the face of existential risks and the possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, the nonprofit Lifeboat Foundation is pursuing a variety of options, including helping to accelerate the development of technologies to defend humanity, and even self-sustaining space colonies for when other prevention strategies fail. To learn ...

7 of the biggest existential risks possible are examined in this 82 minute special.

Wow, the blogosphere has been absolutely gushing these past few days over the news that an Earth-like planet may have been discovered in the 'hood. This planet may boast a moderate climate that could conceivably support life and is only 20 light years away.Not surprisingly, this news has caused a number of pundits to fantasize ...

NASA can find and track most of the nearby asteroids that could hit and damage the Earth, but there is not enough money in its budget to finish the project within a 15-year deadline mandated by Congress. There are about 20,000 asteroids and comets...

NASA officials say the space agency is capable of finding nearly all the asteroids that might pose a devastating hit to Earth, but there isn't enough money to pay for the task so it won't get done. The cost to find at least 90 percent of the 20,00...