Global warming's terrifying new math "Meteorologists reported that this spring was the warmest ever recorded (for America) - in fact, it crushed the old record by so much that it represented the 'largest temperature departure from average of any season on record.'" (Bill McKibben)
Syria: Towards the endgame "Syria after Mr Assad will be a danger to its own people and its neighbours. Sectarian bloodletting is one risk, loose chemical weapons another, tides of refugees a third. Syria could become the focus of rivalry between Iran, Turkey and the Arab world. Violence could suck in Israel or spill over into Lebanon."
Record cereal prices stoke fears of global food crisis "While the UK is drowning in rain, the US has suffered one of the worst droughts in more than half a century. The US is crucial to global food markets as the world's largest exporter of corn, soya beans and wheat, accounting for one in every three tonnes of the grains traded on the global market."
Terry McAuliffe and the other green party "In a five-minute span of conversation, McAuliffe distilled for me the extent of his psychological complexity: 1) He pinches himself all the time because he's so lucky. 2) He likes to think out of the box. 3) He swings for the fences every day. 4) At the end of the day, it is what it is. If McAuliffe's trademark is fund-raising, his principal identity is as a Professional Best Friend to Bill Clinton."
Most women say 'I do' to husband's name "Planning on having a baby? Chances are the child will take on dad's name, too. For the first time, new research on last names has been collected - helping to shed light on the way contemporary heterosexual and same-sex parents choose their last names."
This Image is Not Photoshopped "This photo looks like two images stitched together; above is a normal forest, and below, a strange, Martian one. But it's a single image from a single place and time."
