The author of Gorgeously Green: 8 Simple Steps to an Earth-Friendly Life talks about the Prius vs. Smart Car debate, ecofriendly yoga poses, and her one green sin.

As far as we know, no dog can compose music, no dolphin can speak in rhymes, and no parrot can solve equations with two unknowns. Only humans can perform such intellectual feats, presumably because we are smarter than all other animal species--at least by our own definition of intelligence.

Computer viruses--the scourge of technology on Earth--have now become a problem in space, too. NASA has confirmed that laptops infected with the Gammima.AG virus were  ferried to the International Space Station last month. The possible source, according to SpaceRef.com: a software download, a personal flash card or USB storage device. The site also reports that some laptops used in the ISS  lack virus protection and detection software. [More]

[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.] 

SAUDI ARABIA IS one of the last places on earth one would expect to find an art therapy course for convicted terrorists. The kingdom, after all, is known for an unforgiving approach to criminal justice: thieves risk having their hands amputated, "sexual deviance" is punishable by flogging, and drug dealers are beheaded.

THE EARTH'S UNCERTAIN oil reserves and dwindling freshwater supply may get all the attention, but modern society is also overtaxing the ground itself.

For $1 billion over the next 40 years, the U.S. could develop 100 gigawatts (a gigawatt equals one billion watts) of electricity generation that emits no air pollution and pumps out power to the grid even more reliably than coal-fired power plants, according to scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Now Google.org--the charitable wing of the search engine giant--has chipped in nearly $11 million for this renewable resource: so-called geothermal power, or tapping the Earth's heat to make electricity.