Month: July 2010

  • British report clears climate scientists of exaggeration

    Leading climate scientists on Thursday welcomed a British report that cleared researchers of exaggerating the effects of global warming and said they hoped it would restore faith in the fight against climate change. The University of East Anglia, in eastern England, launched an inquiry after more than 1,000 emails hacked from its climate research unit…

  • Really High Pressures

    Deep down in the earth are tremendously high pressures. What happens under high pressure is not the same as what happens at lower pressures. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory physicists are using an ultra fast laser based technique they dubbed nanoshocks for something entirely different. In fact, the nanoshocks have such a small spatial scale that…

  • India’s Poor Risk ‘Slow Death’ Recycling E-Waste

    Young rag-pickers sifting through rubbish are a common image of India’s chronic poverty, but destitute children face new hazards picking apart old computers as part of the growing “e-waste” industry. Asif, aged seven, spends his days dismantling electronic equipment in a tiny, dimly-lit unit in east Delhi along with six other boys.

  • Russia to create new national parks and reserves nearly size of Switzerland

    Polar bears, walruses, sea otters, and other endangered species are all set to benefit from a Russian decision to boost its national protected areas to nearly 3 percent of its territory by 2020, a move which helps the country to meet its international obligations to protect biodiversity. The Russian government’s decision establishes 9 new nature…

  • BP boss in MidEast talks as relief well advances

    BP’s boss met officials from an Abu Dhabi state fund on Wednesday as hopes for fresh investment and progress toward closing a leaking U.S. oil well lifted the company’s battered shares. A United Arab Emirates official said Chief Executive Tony Hayward had met officials from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) during a routine visit. He…

  • Mammoth End

    Over 10,000 years ago in the Americas, there were many more large mammals than today epitomized by the mammoth. The extinction of woolly mammoths and other large mammals more than 10,000 years ago may be explained by the same type of cascade of ecosystem disruption that is being caused today by the global decline of…

  • Understanding Carbon Offsetting

    Most of us know about carbon emissions and understand the idea of our own individual “carbon footprint,” but here is a new concept that seems to be catching on: carbon offsetting. Carbon offsetting seems to be an indirect way to “reduce” one’s carbon footprint – by paying someone else to support eco-friendly projects. Below is…

  • Houston Rockets’ Stadium Wins LEED Certification

    The Houston Toyota Center, home of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, recently earned certification through the US Green Building Council’s LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance Program. The Center becomes the first such venue in Texas to be certified, and joins the Portland Rose Garden, Miami’s American Airlines Arena, and Atlanta’s Philips Arena as the…

  • Kellogg Cereal Recall Highlights a New Concern: Chemicals Leaching from Food Packaging

    Kellogg is recalling as many as 28 million boxes of cereal because a chemical is leaching from the food packaging into the cereal. The Food and Drug Administration states the reason for the recall as “uncharacteristic off-flavor and smell coming from the liner in the package.” Other sources call it a wax-like substance, and parents…

  • BP shares rise as company says no plan to issue stock

    Stock in BP rose on Tuesday as the British oil major ruled out a share issue and talk persisted of sovereign wealth fund interest, while its Gulf of Mexico oil slick spread to the Texas coast. BP shares were up 3.7 percent after hitting their highest in two weeks. They at one stage had lost…