It is always amazing to watch birds in flight because they often behave as if they respond to unseen commands when they turn in unison. Pigeons have been recently studied by Oxford University and Eötvös University (Hungary) to see who is command in a given flock. Pigeon flocks (they concluded) are guided by a flexible…

A newly discovered asteroid, 2010 GA6, will safely fly by Earth April 8th at 4:06 p.m. Pacific (23:06 U.T.C.). At the time of the closest approach 2010 GA6 will be about 223,000 miles away from Earth – about 9/10ths the distance to the moon. The asteroid, approximately 71 feet wide, was discovered by the Catalina…

Ships are responsible for 2.7% of world carbon dioxide emissions. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) estimates that these emissions could increase by 150-250% by the year 2050 in line with the expected continued growth in international seaborne trade. So how does one reduce such emissions since ships are international in nature and there are over…

It is a new age of geological time or so some say called the Anthropocene Epoch. This is noted in the in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. (web issue March 29; print issue April 1). This is because of the dramatic recent or potential changes in the world such as climate warming and species…

Once upon a time a trip around the world made major headlines. Nowadays it is common place and a convenient way to measure air quality around the world by plane. A plane outfitted to measure greenhouse gases has taken off from Colorado on the first leg of a 24 day mission that will take it…

A new species of dinosaur, a relative of the famous Velociraptor, has been discovered in Inner Mongolia by two PhD students. The exceptionally well preserved dinosaur, named Linheraptor exquisitus, is the first near complete skeleton of its kind to be found in the Gobi desert since 1972, and will help scientists work out the appearance…

Alpha Centauri is the closet star to our solar system and is 4.3 light years away. If it disappeared it would take 4.3 years for us humans to notice the difference, Looking up into the sky is looking at a what happened long, long ago. Theoretically one can look all the way back to the…

Process improvements can reduce Carbon Dioxide (CO2) air emissions. When that is done there can be left over permitted CO2 air emissions that can be sold to other users. In doing so a certain percentage of the original CO2 emissions are eliminated and cannot be sold. Hence a reduction in permitted CO2 air emissions overall.…

Plastic bags are everywhere. Many years ago the only bags at the grocery store were paper ones. Now you have a choice of paper, plastic or bring your bag. Where have all the bags gone after they are used? Plastic bag and film recycling in the U.S. reached a record high in 2008, recovering about…

An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet outside the Solar System. There are billions of stars in our galaxy and a significant percentage of these stars are likely to have planets orbiting them. There are also planets orbiting brown dwarfs and free floating planets between the stars. As of March 2010, over 400 extrasolar…