Petra University

While roofs across the world sport photovoltaic solar panels to convert sunlight into electricity, an engineer believes a novel hybrid system can wring even more useful energy out of the sun's rays. Instead of systems based on standard solar panels, an engineer proposes a hybrid option in which sunlight heats a combination of water and methanol in a maze of glass tubes on a rooftop. After two catalytic reactions, the system produces hydrogen much more efficiently than current technology without significant impurities. The resulting hydrogen can be stored and used on demand in fuel cells.

Scientists just discovered a new eruption of Axial Seamount, an undersea volcano located about 250 miles off the Oregon coast -- and one of the most active and intensely studied seamounts in the world. The event is intriguing because the scientists had forecast the eruption starting five years ago -- the first successful forecast of an undersea volcano.

A relatively simple combination of naturally occurring sugars and amino acids offers a plausible route to the building blocks of life, according to a new article. The study shows how the precursors to RNA could have formed on Earth before any life existed.

Global population is expected to hit 7 billion later this year, up from 6 billion in 1999. Between now and 2050, an estimated 2.3 billion more people will be added -- nearly as many as inhabited the planet as recently as 1950. New estimates from the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations also project that the population will reach 10.1 billion in 2100.