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Ever since M. King Hubbert in the 1950s convinced a lot of people with his "peak oil" theory that production would collapse and we'd eventually exhaust our crude supplies, the clock has been running. And running. And it will continue to run for some time, as technology and new discoveries show that there's still an ocean of oil under our feet.Engineering and Technology Magazine reported this week that BP — the company that once wanted to be known as "Beyond Petroleum" rather than "British Petroleum" — is saying "the world is no longer at risk of running out of resources.""Thanks...

Hydrocarbons bubble up from the mid-Atlantic's Lost City. Deep-sea vents could offer a non-biological source of oil and gas.D. KELLEY & M. ELEND, UNIV. WASHINGTON INST. FOR EXPLORATION/URI-IAO/NOAA/THE LOST CITY SCIENCE TEAM Undersea thermal vents can yield unexpected bounty: natural gas and the building blocks of oil products. In a new analysis of Lost City, a hydrothermal field in the mid-Atlantic, researchers have found that these organic molecules are being created through inorganic processes, rather than the more typical decomposition of once-living material. Most of the planet's oil and natural gas deposits were created when decomposing biological matter is 'cooked'...

PARIS (AFP) - Genetic material from outer space found in a meteorite in Australia may well have played a key role in the origin of life on Earth, according to a study to be published Sunday. European and US scientists have proved for the first time that two bits of genetic coding, called nucleobases, contained in the meteor fragment, are truly extraterrestrial. Previous studies had suggested that the space rocks, which hit Earth some 40 years ago, might have been contaminated upon impact. Both of the molecules identified, uracil and xanthine, "are present in our DNA and RNA," said lead...