Mat McDermott

North Carolina tries to ban Tesla from selling its electric cars directly

treehugger.com — North Carolina's legislators have proposed a bill that would make it illegal for automakers to sell their cars directly in the state. Of course the bill is supported by the Automobile Dealers Association, and aimed directly at Tesla Motors.

Billion Year Old Water May Contain Life

motherboard.vice.com — The world's oldest water has the properties necessary to support life, a development that scientists think bodes well for the possibility of life on Mars and in other extreme environments. Found seeping out of a borehole from an Ontario mine about a mile and a half below ground, the water is believed to have been isolated for at least 1.5 billion years, according to a study published Wednesday in Nature.

JournalismJobs.com - Job Listing - Web Editor/Producer

journalismjobs.com — Yale Environment 360, an award-winning online magazine based at Yale University, is seeking a Web Editor to oversee the day-to-day operations of the website. The Web Editor's responsibilities include finding and creating photo/multimedia packages and other content; preparing articles and images for the content management system; copy editing articles; promoting the site via social networks and elsewhere; and serving as general operations manager.

Oxford University won't take funding from tobacco companies. But Shell's OK

guardian.co.uk — In 1927 the French philosopher Julien Benda published a piercing attack on the intellectuals of his day. They should, he argued in La Trahison des Clercs (the treason of the scholars), act as a check on popular passions. Civilisation, he claimed, is possible only if intellectuals stand in opposition to the demands of political "realism" by upholding universal principles.

Alaska on the edge: Newtok's residents race to stop village falling into sea

guardian.co.uk — Sabrina Warner keeps having the same nightmare: a huge wave rearing up out of the water and crashing over her home, forcing her to swim for her life with her toddler son. "I dream about the water coming in," she said.

Climate milestone is a moment of symbolic significance on road of idiocy

guardian.co.uk — The data go back 800,000 years: that's the age of the oldest fossil air bubbles extracted from Dome C, an ice-bound summit in the high Antarctic. And throughout that time there has been nothing like this. At no point in the preindustrial record have concentrations of carbon dioxide in the air risen above 300 parts per million (ppm).