Tired of waiting for a chance to fly to the moon? The Open Space Movement, a platform for anyone interested in developing and funding aerospace technology to share ideas, is here — and its founders hope to jet us ahead toward the future of aerospace engineering.

Debate continues over how much oil remains in the Gulf from last April's spill — but one thing we do know, thanks to a new study, is that in addition to the oil visible at the surface, the leaking well produced a subsurface plume of oil 1,100 meters deep.

After a hiatus of decades, geoengineering and weather modification are once again hot topics. But is the federal government ready to invest in this research?

Can the carbon dioxide emitted by volcanoes really be considered "missing science" in the climate change debate, as a 2009 bestselling book claimed? No — the real missing science, geologist Terry Gerlach says, is when popular books don't include the most recent or accurate data to support their claims.

Now that the oil spill may at last be capped, what will happen to the oil already in the Gulf? With so many variables, much of its fate is uncertain. But a team of scientists at the University of Hawaii is giving it a try, with a simulation of the likely path of the floating part of the spill through next April.

Last week, the interagency Flow Rate Technical Group led by USGS director Marcia McNutt announced a new estimate of how much oil has been spilled into the Gulf of Mexico: between 54 million to 64 million barrels since the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20. But where all that oil is going is still unclear.

A decades-long drought, the ravages of long-running warfare and shrinking glaciers have exacerbated the ongoing water crisis in Kabul, Afghanistan, heightening concerns for future water availability — and also for security — in one of the harshest environments on Earth.

Iceland, Guatemala, Ecuador: It may seem that there has been an unusual amount of volcanic activity lately. But is it really unusual — and are the eruptions connected? The short answer to both questions: no.

The ashfall from Eyjafjalla volcano has receded, and planes are once again flying over Europe. But scientists are only now piecing together the forces that produced the volcano’s powerful explosive eruption.

You never quite know when a given volcano is going to erupt — but you can bet on it. Recent volcanic eruptions are driving a thriving business at Ireland's largest bookmaker and purveyor of novelty bets, Paddy Power.

National income isn't the only factor that should go into calculating a country's GDP, according to a new EARTH feature - environmental sustainability should be part of the equation, too.

What makes humans human? Many definitions have been proposed — language, using tools, even recreational sex — but none of these are unique to human beings. So energy policy analyst Michael Webber, of the University of Texas at Austin, proposes another option: manipulating energy.

Is every snowflake truly unique? Physicist Kenneth Libbrecht has made a career out of photographing the variety of snowflake shapes, from familiar six-sided forms to more exotic "bullet rosettes" and "capped columns." EARTH's latest slideshow takes you on a visual tour of these delicate ice crystals.

As you would expect, there's been tons of coverage of the earthquake off the coast of Chile and the resulting tsunami in the mainstream media. And yes, some of it has been notoriously poor.

A growing number of industries turning their eyes to the vast real estate in the U.S.' deep offshore waters — a region that may soon become a busy, crowded place. But balancing commercial and environmental interests in those waters may require regulatory oversight that does not yet exist.