Month: July 2015

  • How reusable bags change shopping decisions

    Taking reusable bags to the supermarket can help identify the environmentally friendly shopper but a new study has now discovered the products they are more likely to buy. New research in the Journal of Marketing reveals unsurprisingly that shoppers who take their own bags are more likely to purchase organic food – and more surprisingly, junk…

  • Why some Badgers age faster than others

    Male badgers that spend their youth fighting tend to age more quickly than their passive counterparts according to new research from the University of Exeter.The 35-year study revealed that male badgers living alongside a high density of other males grow old more quickly than those living with lower densities of males.

  • Are kangaroos left-handed?

    President Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Bill Gates are all lefties, and now they have unusual colleagues: kangaroos. According to a new study, some wild kangaroos tend to favor their left hands during common tasks like grooming and feeding. Yegor Malashichev, a Russian zoologist from Saint Petersburg State University and a co-author of the study, traveled to Australia…

  • How rain can enhance food safety

    To protect consumers from foodborne illness, produce farmers should wait 24 hours after a rain or irrigating their fields to harvest crops, according to new research published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.Rain or irrigation creates soil conditions that are more hospitable to Listeria monocytogenes, which when ingested may cause the human illness Listeriosis.…

  • Transgenderism in Black Sea Bass

    Rutgers marine researchers and New Jersey fishermen are piecing together the details of the strange, gender-bending sex lives of black sea bass – a study that could improve understanding of the bass population and help the beleaguered recreational fishing industry.Scientists have long known black sea bass are “protogynous hermaphrodites,” a species in which fish that…

  • Walk to improve your health

    Wearable devices that monitor physical well-being and fitness are incredibly popular. The number sold is expected to increase from 17.7 million in 2014 to more than 40 million this year.1Personally, I use the Jawbone UP24 and have found it very useful for keeping track of my daily steps and sleep patterns. Most of these devices…

  • Greece's economic problems linked to its coal-based energy policies

    As Greece prepares for its referendum, Takis Grigoriou takes Greece to task for its highly polluting lignite power sector, its ditching of a successful solar program in favour of more coal, the minimal insulation in its buildings that locks in high fuel bills, and Syriza's failure to tackle these issues. The good news? Greece's latest…

  • Advertising coming to EV charging stations?

    While many electric vehicle owners will find it irritating and annoying to be hit with adverts when charging their vehicles, is this a sign of the times? The fact that many larger companies are willing and prepared to pay for advertising space on “free” charging devices seems to indicate that the marketing industry believes the…

  • New data on distant galaxy numbers

    There may be far fewer galaxies further out in the Universe then might be expected, suggests a new study based on simulations conducted using the Blue Waters supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, with resulting data transferred to SDSC Cloud at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego,…

  • Can we grow plants in space?

    A Purdue University study shows that targeting plants with red and blue LEDs provides energy-efficient lighting in contained environments, a finding that could advance the development of crop-growth modules for space exploration.