Jul 02 2013

Texas A&M University plans huge solar project

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The proposed "Center for Solar Energy" at Texas A&M University's Central Texas branch will make the school the world's first all-solar university. The university has come up with this innovative project to save power costs and reduce its carbon footprint. It will utilize nearby unused land for the world's biggest solar test farm. The solar farm will be developed exclusively for solar prototyping and R&D, and not as a commercial farm. As a test farm, it will host hundreds of solar cell designs from various manufacturers. The university hopes to have more than a hundred solar technology manufacturers and other players on board for the project. The project is expected to draw in very large investments in solar technology research and development over the next five to six years.
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Jul 01 2013

New forensic method tells the difference between poached and legal ivory

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Forensic-dating could end a major loophole in the current global ban on ivory, according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Scientists have developed a method to determine the age of ivory, allowing traders to tell the difference between ivory taken before the ban in 1989, which is still legal, and recently-poached ivory. Elephants across Africa are being slaughtered in record numbers for their tusks—the most recent estimate put it at 3,000 annually—due to rising demand for ivory in East Asia. Various loopholes have exacerbated the crisis.
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Jul 01 2013

Plants Under Attack Release VOCs, Attract Herbivore Predators and Caterpillars

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Did you know that plants emit airborne distress signals when they are getting eaten? When damaged, plants release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and according to a new study, these compounds can serve two functions, one to attract enemies that might attack the herbivorous insects eating the plant, and two, to ward off the herbivorous insects, which avoid the herbivore-induced VOCs. A team of researchers has found that the odor released by maize plants under attack by insects attract not only parasitic wasps, which prey on herbivorous insects, but it also attracts caterpillars of the Egyptian cotton leafworm moth Spodoptera littoralis, a species that feeds on maize leaves.
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Jul 01 2013

Don’t turn a blind eye to what’s in your food- it could be killing elephants

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Palm oil is a key ingredient in everything from cereal, biscuits and margarine to shampoo, lipstick and toothpaste. Unless we curb our desire for it critical forests and wildlife habitat will be gone forever, says Dan Bucknell. From the minute we have breakfast to the moment we brush our teeth and go to bed, the vast majority of us will be consuming palm oil without even realizing it, or realizing the damage to the natural world that this is doing. Palm oil is a key ingredient in everything from cereal, biscuits and margarine to shampoo, lipstick and toothpaste. Our insatiable demand for these products is ripping the heart out of Asia's forests and driving critically endangered animals to extinction.
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Jul 01 2013

Croatian fishermen worry about EU rules

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An English-language sign at the fishermen's pier in the Croatian town of Umag reads: "This fishing port was rebuilt with the support of the European Union". But most of the 3,700 fishermen who ply their trade in Croatia's eastern Adriatic fear that the country's accession to the EU on 1 July, and strict new laws and regulations that come with it, may be the end of their jobs. "I'm afraid we're in for a lot of unpleasant surprises," said Danilo Latin, whose family have been fishermen for four generations.
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