Nine countries are pouring research dollars into the charcoal-like substance to see if biochar can sequester carbon, improve the soil and produce biofuels all at once—on an economically competitive scale.

Fringe's tenth episode, "Safe," opens with a team of burglars who rob banks by walking through walls. We talked to experts about the real quantum mechanical phenomenon of tunneling to find out just how unlikely the scenario is.

"The Equation" may have had a killer ending (we'll debunk humans' potential to walk through walls in a later installment), but the overall plot was what proved interesting. PM takes a closer look at the correlation between math and music.

It's solar's new dawn. For five decades solar technologies have delivered more promises than power. Now, new Breakthrough Award–winning innovations are exiting the lab and plugging into the grid>turning sunlight into serious energy. (Published in the November 2008 issue)

In her acceptance speech, appropriate design innovator Amy B. Smith showed how she and her team took a simple machine for making charcoal briquettes and refined it to be faster, easier to use and more affordable for those that use it.