Today's New York Times has a front-page story about how biofuels are driving up food prices around the world and how they therefore may not be a such a great idea after all. That could be true if the only feedstocks available for producing biofuels were food crops, as the article implies, but that's far from the truth.

MIT researchers have proposed a strange new way to predict the severity of a hurricane: Listening underwater. Currently, the most common way to gauge a storm's strength is to either study satellite images (which can be pretty inaccurate), or fly a weather plane straight on into the storm and gather critical data (which gets expensive).

Worried that embalming fluids or emissions from cremation will pollute the earth after your death? There may be a more eco-friendly albeit somewhat grisly alternative—dissolving the body in lye. The process, which has been used to dispose of animals and lab specimens for many years, is now being considered more seriously for human use. Called alkaline hydrolysis, the method uses a steel cylinder that dissolves the body in lye with 300-degree heat and 60 pounds of pressure per square inch. The result is a sterile, coffee-colored liquid with the consistency of motor oil that can be safely poured down the drain. A small amount of bone residue that can be scattered like cementation ashes is the only solid byproduct.

Bioplastics, like biofuels, are on the rise as consumers demand alternatives to fossil fuel-based plastics and big business take their wants seriously. Everything from shopping bags to clamshell containers are being reengineered out of bio-based packaging in the hope of finding a truly disposable container; one that, instead of ending up floating in the ocean, will quickly decompose underground. That ideal, as you might expect, is not quite so simple. And already, our two leading alternative bag types are falling short of the hype.

With a death toll steadily rising, the effects of Myanmar's devastating cyclone have yet to be quantified, but days after the storm one thing is clear: they will be long-lasting and far-reaching.

"Our biggest fear is that the aftermath could be more lethal than the storm itself," said Caryl Stern, head of the U.N. Children's Fund. Four days on, electricity and water supplies are still cut throughout the country. With broken sewage lines, mounting trash, impassable roads preventing access to clean water and food, and damaged hospitals, the nation faces a likely-devastating public health crisis. The World Health Organization has pinpointed malaria and tuberculosis—two diseases that thrive amidst overcrowding and bad water—as especial threats. Meanwhile, the spread of communicable diseases is speeded by blocked roads, which trap sick people in and keep health workers out.

The good news is that the ozone hole over Antarctica is slowly healing, thanks to controls on ozone-depleting substances that were once widely used in products such as refrigerators and aerosol cans. Stratospheric ozone protects us from harmful ultraviolet radiation that can cause problems such as skin cancer and crop damage.

The first annual BioMass conference, attended by biofuels researchers, manufacturers, equipment suppliers, and farmers, is underway here at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

Prime on the agenda in the opening session this morning was a question lately blaring from headlines, for instance in a story in today's New York Times: can we grow crops for converting into fuel without catastrophically upsetting the world's food supply?

If you live in a major metropolitan city, you've perhaps noticed that the sidewalks are covered with black dots the size of quarters. I remember it took me a few months after moving to New York City to figure out that was gum. After it's spit out, it gets stepped on and flattened to the concrete. In no time at all it accumulates the ebony patina of city grime. Sprinkling the sidewalks is easy. Removing the tarred, synthetic rubber is the hard part. If you're talking about one chewed stick in a school hallway, it's a can of solvent and a putty knife away from coming off the floor.

If we don't get our act together in time and we push this planet past its limits, to the point where things get disaster-movie bad, at the very least we can take solace in the fact that we've been there once before. According to new research out of Stanford University, the human species was on the brink of extinction 70,000 years ago due to an extended drought. It shrunk the human population to a number perhaps as low as 2,000.

Mass transit systems across the country are experiencing surges in ridership, pushing many of them to the brink of capacity for the first time. As the price of oil continues its inexorable climb—now past $125 a barrel—some metropolitan areas have seen an increase in use as large as 15% over this past year. While cities with integral systems, like New York, have reported a small bump, it is municipalities in which car transport has been the norm which are now overflowing with new subway, light rail, and bus riders.