Fuel from water? A form of Alchemy? Researchers have been trying for years to find a limitless, environmentally benign source of fuel. Now a University of Colorado Boulder team has developed a radically new technique that uses the power of sunlight to efficiently split water into its components of hydrogen and oxygen, paving the way…

Iraq’s Council of Ministers has approved the designation of the country’s first national park, in the Mesopotamian Marshes of southern Iraq. Once the third largest wetland in the world, the Mesopotamian Marshes are widely thought to be the original ‘Garden of Eden’. However, they were nearly destroyed during the Gulf War in the 1990s, when…

Conservationist’s faced a crushing blow last month as two butterfly species native to Florida were declared extinct. “Occasionally, these types of butterflies disappear for long periods of time but are rediscovered in another location,” said Larry Williams, U.S. Fish and Wildlife state supervisor for ecological services. We think it’s apparent now these two species are…

Solar and wind continue to dominate investment in new renewable capacity. Global use of solar and wind energy grew significantly in 2012. Solar power consumption increased by 58 percent, to 93 terrawatt-hours (TWh), while wind power increased by 18.1 percent, to 521.3 TWh. Global investment in solar energy in 2012 was $140.4 billion, an 11…

Further investment in agricultural research is essential if we are to avert a global famine caused by inadequate crop yields and a growing population in the coming decades, according to the director of the Global Wheat Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. Women have a key role to play in reducing food…

This week a new sailing barge was launched on Lake Champlain that its backers hope will soon be in the vanguard of a new carbon-neutral shipping alternative. The 39-foot Ceres — built by volunteers from the Vermont Sail Freight Project and farmer Erik Andrus — is an update on the type of cargo vessels that…

In 1917, Joel Asaph Allen examined an innocuous species of shrew from the Congo Basin and made a remarkable discovery: the shrew’s spine was unlike any seen before. Interlocking lumbar vertebrae made the species’ spine four times strong than any other vertebrate on Earth adjusted for its size. The small mammal had been discovered only…

Last week, the journal Nature published a new paper warning of a $60 trillion price tag for a potential 50 Gigatonne methane pulse from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) over 10-50 years this century. The paper, however, prompted many to suggest that its core scenario – as Arctic permafrost thaws it could increasingly unleash…

An inconvenient truth is not what most people want to hear before they’ve had their first cup of coffee in the morning. Our coffee break is “me time,” and we want to enjoy it. If the temperature is too high, put some ice in your cup. But for some 26 million people around the world…

Gene banks are missing more than half the wild relatives of the world’s most important food crops — which potentially harbour traits for higher yields, and resistance to disease and climate change — according to a study. Scientists looked at 29 staple crops, including rice, wheat and potato, and found that around 240 of their…