As Americans prepare to gobble down 45 million turkeys on Thursday, a factory in Carthage, Missouri, is turning the feathers and innards of the feted bird into a clean-burning fuel oil. The people behind the project believe that turkey and other animal waste can someday go a long way towards reducing U.S. reliance on imported oil.

Not much is known about jaguars, the secretive spotted cats of the Americas. Their elusive nature keeps them out of the scope of even the most persistent biologists. The Wildlife Conservation Society is working with researchers throughout Latin America to better understand the biology of jaguars so that they can ensure the species' survival.

Husband-and-wife team Monique and Chris Fallows photograph giant sharks hurtling through the air to catch seals near the water's surface (includes interview and photo galleries).

National Geographic Traveler geotourism editor Jonathan B. Tourtellot explores two issues on the front lines of the sustainable tourism debate: Florida sprawl and snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park. Plus, an Aspen, Colorado, ski company turns environmentally-friendly.

Catastrophic asteroid impacts are gaining a credible edge over violent volcanic eruptions as the greatest killers Earth has ever seen, according to two pieces of scientific detective work reported in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science.

The Mekong River's giant catfish (Pangasianodon gigas) is on the path to extinction. Today's release of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) updated 2003 Red List of Threatened Species shows that the flagship species of the storied river in Southeast Asia is classified as critically endangered, its numbers further reduced from its classification as endangered in the previous IUCN Red List.

Scientists have come up with a novel defense strategy to fight off alien crabs now invading Britain—they want people to eat them. The crustaceans arrived from Asia in ship ballast water. Zoologists say making a meal of the Chinese mitten crab may be the only way to combat exploding growth of the harmful crustacean.

Divided ecosystems can fatally limit an animal's territory or obstruct migration routes, sending species spiraling towards extinction. Now, scientists studying a common tropical tree in a Tanzanian mountain range found that forest fragmentation may also harm plants and animals in less obvious ways, severing the relationships both need to survive.

When Hurricane Isabel roared onto the Outer Banks of North Carolina two months ago, storm waters washed U.S. Highway 12 out to sea. Now agencies are pumping sand back into "Isabel Inlet" and plan to restore the road by the end of November. But is this an exercise in futility?

Tantalizing new geophysical evidence about the climate, geography, and landscape of Beringia, the land mass that connected Asia and North America during the last Ice Age, has raised questions about how and when the Americas were first populated. Scientists are investigating whether early settlers arrived by boat, as well as by foot.

Dudley Foster holds the record for the most time spent on the deep-ocean floor. A pilot of the Woods Hole submersible Alvin, he has completed 552 dives from the Galápagos' hydrothermal vents to the Titanic. A related story airs tonight on our U.S. cable television program National Geographic On Assignment.

A new study shows that political corruption and bad governance, rather than human population pressures and poverty, may present the greatest threat to wildlife in developing countries. Researchers found elephants and black rhinos declined most rapidly in African countries laden with graft.

Biologists studying the cassowary in the rain forests of Papua New Guinea say the world's largest forest bird may also produce the world's deepest birdcall. The finding could provide important clues to the way dinosaurs communicated, experts say.

In California, United States Forest Service law enforcement officers find themselves in an ongoing battle with Mexican drug cartels that have carved networks of marijuana gardens into backcountry forests. Rising gun violence and billion-dollar harvests highlight a problem out-manned agents say has become a crisis. Full story and photo gallery:

Armed with little more than spoons, flashlights, and cornstarch, spider specialists are scouring the world's urban basements and pristine rain forests to collect 500 species of spider. Researchers will analyze the spiders' genetic makeup with an aim to understanding evolutionary connections on the spider family tree.