3-D Food Printer

NASA has given a six month grant to Systems & Materials Research Corp. to help develop a 3-D food printer that will turn proteins, carbs, and sugars into edible food products, an innovation the company believes could end world hunger. Most of the nutrients will be stored in powder form and mixed with oil and water as it is needed and cooked as it prints. Some alternative food sources that can be used with the printer include algae, grass, duckweed, and insects.

22-May-2013

Scottish Renewables

As Scotland discusses voting for independence from the UK, Ed Davey, the UK energy secretary, warns that Scotland could lose billions of pounds in subsidies for renewable energy products, threatening their green revolution. Davey said there had been pledges of £13 billion (USD$19.6 billion) worth of investments that could generate over 9,000 new jobs in Scottish renewables that would be lost if the nation were to secede.

22-May-2013

Farm Wasteland

A team of UK researchers has conducted a study which found that the unkempt area of farms are actually important for supporting wildlife. The areas around the edges of farms and the areas where machinery has broken down and left to rust away that people tend to consider eye sores actually contain an abundance of food sources for many insects and animals.

22-May-2013

Tropical Lizards

A new study from Dartmouth College, US, finds that anthropogenic climate change may have little impact on tropical lizard species, contradicting several previous studies that predict their widespread extinction. This new study found that past studies based their predictions on global scale measurements of environmental temperatures, but failed to take into account the more fine scale temperature variations animals' face on the ground.

21-May-2013

Forest Coverage Data Set

Researchers from the University of Maryland, US, have developed a new and more accurate forest cover data set that can better help track deforestation. The data set is based on combining data from two satellite sensor systems, the 250-meter resolution Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectrometer and 30-meter Landsat imagery. The result is a 30-meter resolution data set that is more accurate than the industry standard for global forest measurement.

21-May-2013

Aquaculture Stewardess Council

Marine Harvest, one of the world's largest fish farming companies, has voluntarily agreed to join the Aquaculture Stewardess council, a new accreditation scheme by the WWF. The company plans to have all of their UK farms ASC accredited by the end of the decade, which involves much tougher limits on the farms pesticide use and seal killing, a precautionary measure taken to protect the salmon, as well as only using fishfeed from Marine Council accredited fish stock.

21-May-2013

World's Largest Hydropower

The Democratic Republic of Congo's government has consulted with several other nations and has announced plans to continue building dams at Inga Falls on the Congo River to join the two that are already there. The first of which, is set to begin construction in October 2015 to generate an additional 4,800 megawatts. Several consecutive stages are being talked over which could eventually generate up to 40,000 MW, the equivalent of 20 nuclear power stations.

21-May-2013

Great Crane Reintroduced in Britain

The first common crane egg laid in western Britain in more than 400 years has been given a full time guard. The cranes, once widespread throughout Britain, were driven to extinction by hunting and habitat loss in the 1600s. The nesting pair of cranes was reintroduced through the Great Crane Project, which has been rearing cranes in captivity and releasing them back into the wild since 2010.

20-May-2013

Climate Change on Ecosystems

According to a new study by researchers at Durham University, UK, during the last ice age warm spells were so brief that trees were unable to establish themselves before the temperature plummeted again. At the end of the frozen period, about 10,000 years ago, whole ecosystem patterns changed, trees became established and some species went extinct. This research could give us clues to the effects of the current climate change on ecosystems.

20-May-2013

Permafrost Carbon

Researchers from the University of California, US, have studied the melting of permafrost in the Alaskan tundra for two decades, and have discovered that as the permafrost melts, the soil kept most its stored carbon. The team set up greenhouses on plots of tundra to allow them to control the air temperature. The results suggest that in the warmer air, decomposition slowed in surface soil, but sped up deeper underground, but carbon release was unaffected.

20-May-2013

Ancient Isolated Water Pockets

A UK-Canadian team of scientists has discovered pockets of water that have been trapped underground for billions of years and contain abundant chemicals known to support life, such as hydrogen and methane. The team hopes to find microbes in the water that evolved independently of the surface world. This discovery could change where we look for life on other planets, or even on our own planet.

20-May-2013

Immaculately Conceived Anteater

Staffers at a zoological conservation center in Connecticut, US, are dumbfounded because their female anteater has recently given birth, without contact from another male anteater. In August of 2012, Armani gave birth, at which time the father was removed from the habitat as male anteaters have been known to commit infanticide. Then, in April, with a gestation period of only six months and no contact from the male, Armani gave birth to another offspring.

17-May-2013

World's Tallest Dam

Chinese environmental authorities have approved plans to build what may be the world's tallest dam along the Dadu River in the Sichuan province. The 314 m (1,030 ft) tall dam will have a total installed capacity of 2 gigawatts and produce nearly eight billion kilowatt-hours of energy annually. However, this comes with a price, as the dam will affect the spawning and movement of rare species of fish, as well as the growth of some endangered plants.

17-May-2013

Insect Rich Diet

According to a new report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, one of the easiest ways to combat rising food needs, environmental degradation, and climate change is to increase the amount of insects we eat. Large scale insect farming would produce less greenhouse gas emissions than typical livestock, as only a few species of insects produce methane gas, and insect farming would not require the clearing of additional lands.

17-May-2013

Change in Seabird Diets

A team of US researchers has studied the isotopes of 250 Hawaiian petrels to reconstruct the birds' diets over the last 3,000 years. The team compared the ratio of nitrogen-15 and nitrogen-14, the bigger the ratio the bigger the prey, and found that up until about 100 years ago, the birds preferred larger prey. The dietary change coincides with the beginning of large, modern fisheries, which suggests that industrial fishing has impacted non-target species.

17-May-2013

Ruins Found in Honduran Forest

Archeologists from the University of Houston, US, have discovered ruins in Honduras, which some believe to be of Ciudad Blanca, or “The White City,” a never confirmed city sought after by the conquistadors for its supposed gold deposits. Whether or not it is Ciudad Blanca, the images presented by the archeologists seem to feature ancient ruins, including roads, building foundations, and canals.

16-May-2013

Ocean Cleanup Results

During the Ocean Conservancy's 2012 International Coastal Cleanup Day, volunteers removed and chronicled millions of pounds of garbage from the world's beaches and oceans. The number one item picked up was cigarette butts, with a count of 2,117,931. Food wrappers and containers (1,140,222), beverage bottles (1,065,171), plastic bags (1,019,902) and bottle caps (958,893) rounded out the top five of items removed.

16-May-2013

Everest Glaciers Shrinking

Researchers from the University of Milan, Italy, have reconstructed the glacial history of the Mt. Everest region, and found that glaciers in the region have shrunk by 13% and the snow line has retreated 180 m (590 ft) up the mountain over the last 50 years. The team believe this is due to warming temperatures, a 0.6°C or 1.1°F rise, and declining snowfall, a 100 mm or 3.9 in decrease, since the early 1990s.

16-May-2013

Mussel Filters

Last spring, scientists from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began an experiment at the mouth of New York City's Bronx River in which mussel colonies were attached to a raft and left to see if they could survive and help filter the water. When researchers recently began to remove the mussels to study, they found that they had thrived in the water and could be a plausible filter for areas with degraded water.

16-May-2013

UK Flood Defenses

Ice2Sea, a project that brings scientists from around Europe together in order to improve predictions of sea level rise, has predicted that sea level rise could send floods generated by storm surges over London's Thames Barrier regularly by the end of the century if nothing is done to bolster the UK's flood defenses. This is based on their predictions that melting ice will increase sea levels between 3.5 cm (1.4 in) to 36.8 cm (14.5 in) by 2100.

15-May-2013

Tracking Mosquitoes

Vestergaard Frandsen, a Swiss company that produces disease control products, and the KERMI/CDC research and public health collaboration in Kenya have recently launched an online mapping tool for tracking insecticide resistant, malaria-carrying mosquitoes. The interactive map contains historical and current data, and identifies places in more than 50 malaria endemic countries where mosquitoes have become resistant to insecticides.

15-May-2013

EC Tax on Chinese Solar Panels

The European Commission has agreed to impose an import tax on solar panels from China believing that they are of inferior quality to solar panels made in other European nations. The tax will be levied on June 6th, and will be reconsidered in December, where a decision will be made to drop it or continue the tax for five years. The Chinese ambassador to the World Trade Organization responded cautiously and hoped to reach an agreement before December.

15-May-2013

Worms Protect Plants from Slugs

Researchers from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Austria, have discovered that earthworms may help limit the damage done by invasive slug species. Using large incubators so the team could control biodiversity and the introduction of worms and slugs, the team found that the presence of worms increased nitrogen in the plants and reduced slug damage by 60%.

15-May-2013

LED Scottish Streetlamps

The Scottish government has unveiled proposals to replace all of Scotland's streetlamps with low-energy LED bulbs. The UK green investment bank has offered to help fund the project with 11 investments totaling £635m (USD$975m), with a total value of £2.3b (USD$3.5b) including private investments. Preliminary estimates suggest the switch could pay off in seven to nine years; however, the project is still in the early stages and these numbers could change.

14-May-2013

DVD Medical Kit

Researchers from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, has turned everyday DVDs into a workable medical device that can test for HIV. Blood samples are fed into channels on a modified, semi-transparent disc and scanned by a DVD reader adapted to detect light transmitted through the disc. The images can then be uploaded to a computer allowing for blood cells, DNA, RNA, and proteins to be analyzed.

14-May-2013

Brazilian Atlantis

A Japanese manned submersible has discovered a large mass of granite 900 mi (1,500 km) off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Granite is typically found on land, not in the seabed, which has led scientists to believe this is a long lost continent that was swallowed by the sea tens of millions of years ago. The land mass, already dubbed Brazilian Atlantis, is speculated to be the link between South America and Africa that split from the two during plate movement.

14-May-2013

Earth and Moon Water Origin

According to researchers from Brown University, water deep inside the earth and the moon may come from the same source: ancient meteors. The findings hint that water may have existed on Earth prior to the impact that created the moon. To make this discovery, the team analyzed crystals and glass beads from the Apollo 15 and 17 missions to the moon, and found that the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen is similar to that seen on Earth.

14-May-2013

Atmospheric CO2 Poised to Exceed 400 PPM

Posted May 06, 2013, by Bob Petz
Chances are that in the next few days, the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere will exceed 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in about 4 million years. Recently, Mauna Loa Observatory on the big island of Hawaii has been regularly recording daily CO2 levels above 399 ppm, with several hours already exceeding 400. Atmospheric CO2 as recorded last week at Mauna Loa Observatory. Source: Scripts Institution of Oceanography. Considering that carbon levels tend to peak...
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