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Scientists working at Monash University in Melbourne have developed the most energy-efficient ‘artificial photosynthesis’ method to date. The process relies on running an electrical current through water to separate it into oxygen and hydrogen, and the team behind it say it could be used to power our home on the cheap in just a few years.
Glaciers covering Asia's Tian Shan mountains have lost a quarter of their mass over the past 50 years, at a rate four times higher than the global average due to the particularly dry climate of the area. At this rate, by 2050 half of the remaining ice that covers the 2,500 kilometers long mountain rage could melt, threatening the water supply and affecting millions of people. If left unchecked, the situation might even turn into a conflict for the most basic resources (water and food).
We all know that pollution and smog in China is pretty bad, but China has only recently published their air quality data - so we get to know just how bad it is. According to a new study published by Berkeley Earth, smog alone kills 4,000 people in China every day; that's 17% of all premature fatalities.
Two of the biggest pension funds in California have lost $5 billion in assets last year by sticking to their fossil fuel investments. The report released by Trillium Asset Management suggests that the loss was due to the huge dip in oil and coal prices registered between July 2014 and June 2015.
Most people have an outdated belief that solar energy is too expensive. For most people living in the United States, this isn't true for some time and Google just released a new project to make a point of this. Called Project Sunroof, the tool uses extensive satellite imagery from Google Maps and superimposes sunlight energy flux data over them.
Every year, over 30,000 elephants are murdered, slaughtered for their tusks. Ivory is an extremely valuable commodity, and many people will stop at nothing to get it and sell it. With this in mind, investigative journalist Bryan Christy set out to see what the smuggling route is, so he commissioned a taxidermist to create two fake ivory […]
Investment in the renewable project is estimated to reach £650m ($1bn), which will be partly funded through aids from the European Commission, and construction works would create around 1,100 jobs. Environmental technology firm Abengoa, based in Spain, along with Japanese industry giant Toshiba will be leading the project for their client, MGT Teesside, subsidiary to the British utility MGT Power.
A state of emergency has been declared this Saturday by Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa. The measure was taken as a precaution given the recent increase in volcanic activity of the Cotopaxi stratovolcano, allowing the government greater freedom to allocate financial resources and critical personnel in the event of an eruption.
The food industry has become much more efficient in the last few decades as a result of globalization, but also a lot more vulnerable to shocks. Climate change will lead not only to increased temperatures, but the extreme weather it causes in North, South America and Asia are likely to also lead to global food shortages.
This is the day that humanity's consumption exceeds the amount of resources than our planet can supply in that year. Overshoot day comes sooner each year; we hit that day on August 19 in 2014. This year it was August 13, a full six days earlier.
Maybe the most amazing of social insects, ants use complex cues of pheromones to determine to which cast in the colony each individual ant belongs to. A team at University of California at Riverside found ants do this by sniffing out hydrocarbon chemicals present on their cuticles (outer shell). These cues are extremely subtle, but the ants can sense them with great sensitivity due to the way they're hardwired. It's enough to notice that ants have more olfactory receptor proteins in their genome than we humans have. Amazing!
The buzzing racket of quadcopters and drones may be stressing wildlife, a new study shows. Drones have long ceased to be the provision of the military, and are now extensively been used for civilian purposes. Amazon, for instance, wants one day to deliver all its goods with unmanned aerial vehicles. In research, drones have proven to be particularly useful in observing wildlife. But these aren't as unobtrusive as some might believe and future research should take into account that flying drones overhead should be done carefully so as to not disturb the wildlife.
Some conservationists are considering introducing the Tasmanian devil, currently only found in Australia's island state of Tasmania, back to the mainland. The devil went extinct on the mainland some 3,000 years ago, and scientists hope the predator might restore balance to the local ecosystem, currently destabilized by too many cats and foxes.
Shower heads are generally not very different one from another. Sure, you can get a different pressure, a different type of water jet, some have temperature control, but all in all, they’re the same thing. But now, a San Francisco start-up wants to change that: they’ve developed a new shower head that consumes 70% less […]
Every five years for more than a century, National Geographic releases an atlas of the world complete with the latest geographic and geologic cartographic representations. The latest edition of Atlas of the World can be quite terrifying if you move up north, in the Arctic, for it shows just how dramatic ice loss has been in the past decades. For comparison, the GIF above stitches three edition (7th and 10th) from 2000 to 2015. The latest caption shows the Arctic as it had been in 2012, during its record low ice extent.
Hydro-energy is clean, cheap and reliable – in many ways, it’s every man’s dream: you get the reliability of fossil fuels with the eco-friendliness of wind and solar. But hydro also comes at a price, one that we are only recently discovering: it threatens biodiversity and encourages erosion. The removal of a dam on the Elwha […]
A female gray wolf and a male brown bear were spotted every day for ten consecutive days, spending time together, playing and even sharing food. “It’s very unusual to see a bear and a wolf getting on like this” says Finnish photographer Lassi Rautiainen, 56, who took these surprising photos. From what I could find, […]
Faced with the worst drought in recorded history, officials in California are turning to all sorts of creative methods to curb the rising water shortage. Most recently, 96 million black plastic balls were thrown in the LA Reservoir, which is filled with enough water to last the whole city of four million for weeks. Together, the millions of plastic balls act as a cover, shielding the water inside the reservoir from the sun's rays, especially the UV frequencies. This way, less water becomes evaporated or degraded through chemical means - about 300 million gallons of it.
A new report presented by United Nations officials at the American Statistical Association meeting in Seattle estimates that by 2100 the world's population will reach 11.2 billion people. Another less conservative scenario, however, estimates a numbers of 13 billion. Right now, there are 7.3 billion living in the world or around 80 million people more than last year.
Vidal Mendoza, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologic technician, has been spending his past Tuesday scanning the upper Guadalupe River, looking for the right spot to measure the flow of the water. Perhaps more accurately, Mendoza has been spending his past Tuesday on a hot, mostly dry riverbed searching where the river should have been.
In the latest in a long string of lawsuits filled against fracking operations, a Texas family is claiming damages after the water well on their property exploded. The family's ranch is located just 1000 yards away from two fracking drills, which likely leaked methane to the groundwater according to the lawyer representing the family. The explosion left Cody Murray, the 38-year-old husband of the family of four, with severe burns on his arms, upper back, neck, forehead and nose along with “significant neurological damage.” He is now permanently disfigured, disabled and cannot work. He is now asking the court for retribution.
The chemical reactions used to make methanol from carbon dioxide rely on a catalyst to speed up the conversion, and scientists identified a new material that could fill this role. With its unique structure, this catalyst can capture and convert carbon dioxide in a way that ultimately saves energy.
Advances in magnet technology have allowed MIT scientists to design a cheaper, more compact, modular and highly efficient fusion reactor that is efficient enough to use commercially. The era of clean, practically inexhaustible energy may be upon us in as little as a decade, scientists report.
A new highly infectious diseases has been observed in tadpoles from three continents, threatening global populations. The disease, which was identified and described by British scientists, is a distant relative of an oyster disease. “Phylogenetic analyses revealed that this infectious agent was affiliated with the Perkinsea: a parasitic group within the alveolates exemplified by Perkinsus […]
Smoking is bad. We’re way past the point of discussing that one; it’s bad for your health, it’s bad for the ones around you, and it’s bad for the environment. Cigarette filters are made from thousands of polymer chains of cellulose acetate; once discarded into the environment, these filters create a huge waste problem. Cigarette […]
It's a tough year for salmon all around the world - now, a new health advisory issued by the U.S. Geological Survey, Bureau of Reclamation and PacifiCorp raises concerns about the future of salmon in the Klamath river in Oregon and California.
This is an article by Kristin Drexler, faculty member, Human Ecology and Forestry, School of Science, technology, Engineering, and Math at American Public University. The active participation of local communities is a critical component to the conservation of protected areas like national parks and preserves. Ironically, while these areas are most often thought of in […]
Sea animals are dying off in huge numbers off the Pacific coast from Baja, Mexico - all the way to Alaska; there's a good chance we can't really do anything about it.
Central America is home to one of the greatest biodiversity on the planet. It's here among its rainforests that you can still find large swaths of land where there aren't any humans living nearby. But being sparsely populated also makes the region an attractive route to smuggle drugs and other logistical operations. In Honduras and Guatemala, particularly, all law and order seems to cede in the face of the narco-cartels who are razing forests to build airfields, roads and even ranches right in the middle of protected national parks. It's all a nasty business, and the greatest victims are those who play the least part in it all: the wildlife.
In June, we were telling you about the Dutch city of Utrecht, which will start a new social and economic experiment: basic income: a new concept that could revolutionize society as we know it. Basic income is a type of social security in which all residents receive an unconditional sum of money, regardless of whether or not they have another source of income. Now, more Dutch cities announced their interest in participating in the initial trials.
Solar-aided power plants could mean less CO2 for a fraction of the costs of solar-only, paving the way for a full-renewable power supply.
According to a new study conducted by German researchers, even somehow magically removing massive amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere won't solve our climate problems - we need to find ways to stop emitting.
Value Farm is not necessarily a new concept, but manages to bring a stunning innovation; its scale and effectiveness and a crowded and polluted urban environment is a breath of fresh air in Shenzen, one of China’s largest cities. Value Farm is a collective effort farming effort developed by Thomas Chung, together with Tris Kee and […]
A $13.8 bn railway project funded by China linking Nairobi to Mombasa will pass right through the Nairobi National Park. Although the park hosts a huge amount of tourism and boasts a very sensitive wildlife, authorities are adamant in seeing the railway built.
Nabire was a 31-year-old Northern White Rhino from the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic. She suffered from uterine cysts, which made it impossible for her to breed naturally, and ultimately, one of those cysts brought her demise. She was also one of the last 5 white rhinos on the Earth.
The sea, which is actually a lake, is well known for being 10 times as salty as the ocean and for boasting the lowest exposed strip of land on Earth. The climate and unique water and swimming conditions made the Dead Sea a popular tourism spot. In the last few decades, however, it's shores have become better known for their sinkholes rather than tanning spots.
When it comes to vaccines, the young bees don't really have a choice - they're naturally immunized against specific diseases commonly found in their environment. For the first time, researchers have figured out just how they do it.
On Wednesday, the Department of Defense issued a report in which it highlights the global security implications of climate change. In the report, the authors note that climate change will exacerbate current world problems like " poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership and weak political institutions that threaten stability in a number of countries."
Boy, was this year a scorcher! Well, what can I say, apart from get ready for more. According to an exclusive info ran by New Scientist, all but one main tracker of global surface temperature will report that this year will mark the first full degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels. I remind you that the International Panel on Climate Change warns that a two degree Celsius warming should be avoided on all costs if irreversible consequences like sea level rise, habitat loss and cataclysmic events are to be averted. This means that we're already halfway there, and the two degree mark might be reached by 2050. A four degree warming might end civilization as we know it.
A geological survey found Washington DC and the surrounding Chesapeake Bay region is gradually sinking. By the end of the century, the Chesapeake bay would be six inches lower than it is today. This is due to a natural phenomenon, not man-made global warming. But when the two add up, it could put the nation's capital a couple of feet under water, significantly affecting the lives of local residents and the city at large.
Different ant species employ various tactics to forage food and keep the colony in tip top shape. Most often scouts will scour for food, and when a source is deemed fit a trail of pheromones guide worker ants to pick up the crumbs, leftover pizza or cheerios. Ants aren't very picky, you know. What they are is very strong. It's common knowledge that ants carry loads multiple times heavier than their own weight. Some species, like longhorn crazy ants are able to carry some of the biggest loads among ants by working together, joining in a band to perform the lifting. It's a curios matter, one you might have often noticed in your very own backyard.
Chinese researchers sampled water from an underground aquifer in the Tarim Basin and found these store vast quantities of carbon dioxide as a result of human activities. If the same holds true for all the desert aquifers around the world, the trapped carbon would amount to about a quarter more than the amount stored in living plants on land. Previously, the carbon trapped in aquifers was thought to be negligible. Clearly, this isn't the case and these should not be disturbed so that the carbon doesn't wash up into the atmosphere.
A team of students from the University of Stuttgart just designed, built and raced what could be the fastest accelerating electric vehicle in the world.
If you’re thinking about the future days when robots will replace humans, well… those days are already here. The Henn-na Hotel (“Strange Hotel”) is staffed entirely by robots, including a dinosaur receptionist. They also have no room keys and a remarkable energy efficiency. ‘What we have strove to achieve with Henn-na Hotel is “The Ultimate […]
Democrat Hillary Clinton is maybe the first presidential candidate to make tackling climate change a central point. Now we actually have specifics after Clinton released on Sunday a fact sheet detailing her plan for action. Her proposals are bold, for sure. For instance, if she's elected, Hilary promises that clean renewable energy will power every home in America within a decade. To achieve this goal, she plans on bringing the total number of solar panels installed nationwide to more than half a billion before the end of her first term. Should we believe her?
New research shows that wastewater discharged from wastewater treatment plants in the Grand River watershed of southern Ontario has the potential to contaminate sources of drinking water with drugs such as cocaine, morphine and oxycodone.
After a twitter user and photographer from a city 110 km from Fukushima posted photos of mutated flowers, people started to freak out all over the internet that these plants suffered mutations due to the devastating nuclear incident from 2011 in Fukushima, Japan. According to the photographer @san_kaido, the radiation level near the daisies was measured […]
Scientists rely on a method called radiocarbon dating to determine the age of fossils or artifacts. With little or no other information available, the widely used method can accurately determine how old a sample is. This makes it one of the most powerful tools archaeologists, anthropologists and paleontologists have at their disposal. Rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere are, however, artificially aging the atmosphere and this might drastically interfere with the accuracy of radiocarbon dating. According to a new paper published by a team at the Imperial College London, "by 2050 a new T-shirt would have the same radiocarbon date as a robe worn by William the Conqueror a thousand years earlier."
Dolphins in European waters are struggling to reproduce because of the chemical pollution that lingers in their bodies for a very long time - even for their entire lifetime. Scientists were surprised to find polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in their bodies, as PCBs have been banned 30 years ago.
In a first of its kind experiment, biologists found out to everyone's surprise that boa constrictors kill prey by cutting the blood supply from the heart. It was long thought that suffocation is the snakes' modus operandi. This makes sense though, according to evolutionary biologists involved in the study. Cutting the blood supply kills prey much faster than limiting oxygen intake. This comes at an evolutionary advantage since this minimizes risks faced from predators.
