Nov 23 2011

Silk Versus Synthetic Fibers

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Scientists at Oxford University and The University of Sheffield have demonstrated that natural silks are a thousand times more efficient than common plastics when it comes to forming fibers. A report of the research is published this week in the journal Advanced Materials. The finding comes from comparing silk from the Chinese silkworm to molten high density polyethylene (HDPE) - a material from which the strongest synthetic fibers are made. The researchers used polarized light shining through a disk rotating over a plate to study how the fibers are formed as the two materials are spun.
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Nov 23 2011

Sustainability Culture Saves Billions for DuPont

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Davide Vassallo is a global practices leader for DuPont's Sustainable Solutions Group. As environmental stewards for a company that is the owner and operator of more than 150 production facilities around the world, his group has found that energy efficiency improvements can often be achieved for little or no cost. After running a large number of workshops on the subject, he has found that moving personnel from a culture of consumption to a culture of conservation is key to significant savings.
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Nov 23 2011

Bathtub-sized marine sponge rediscovered after a century of extinction

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Not found alive for over a century the evocatively named Neptune's cup sponge (Cliona patera) has been rediscovered off the shores of Singapore. Researchers with the environmental consulting DHI Group found the species during a routine dive. Although the specimen they found was small, the goblet-shaped sponge can reach nearly 5 feet (1.5 meters) high and the same in diameter.
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Nov 23 2011

Can Soup and BPA

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Bisphenol A (BPA) is an organic compound with two phenol functional groups. It is used to make polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins, along with other applications. As it has been known to be estrogenic since the mid 1930s, concerns about the use of bisphenol A in consumer products were regularly reported in the news media in 2008, after several governments issued reports questioning its safety, prompting some retailers to remove products containing it from their shelves. A new study from researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has found that a group of volunteers who consumed a serving of canned soup each day for five days had a more than 1,000% increase in urinary bisphenol A (BPA) concentrations compared with when the same individuals consumed fresh soup daily for five days. The study is one of the first to quantify BPA levels in humans after ingestion of canned foods.
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Nov 23 2011

UN Climate Chief warns Science, not politics must drive Durban climate talks

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Global climate talks need to focus on the growing threat from extreme weather and shift away from political squabbles that hobble progress toward a tougher pact to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, the head of the U.N. climate panel said. Negotiators from nearly 200 countries meet in Durban, South Africa, on Monday for two-week talks, with minimal expectations of major progress toward an agreement that will eventually bind all major economies to emissions caps. Rajendra Pachauri warned the latest round of talks risked being bogged down by "short-term and narrow political considerations." "It is absolutely essential that the negotiators get a continuous and repeated exposure to the science of climate change," Pachauri told Reuters in an interview late on Tuesday. "If we were to do that it will definitely have an impact on the quality and outcome of the negotiations, after all these are human beings, they have families, they are people also worried about what is going to happen to the next generations."
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Nov 18 2011

London Bridge Will Soon Be All Lit Up With LEDs!

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London Bridge hasn’t fallen down–yet. But any 117-year old bridge is bound to need a few updates here and there. The latest round of improvements will help cut the amount of energy required to light the landmark by 40 percent. There’s no denying that London Bridge is an icon–a song praising its usefulness in times of conflict is sung to children before they can walk. But in recent iterations, the bridge has incorporated inefficient technologies that mar its noble history.
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Nov 18 2011

Date and Rate of Earth’s Most Extreme Extinction Pinpointed: Results Stem from Largest Ever Examination of Fossil Marine Species

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ScienceDaily (Nov. 17, 2011) — It's well known that Earth's most severe mass extinction occurred about 250 million years ago. What's not well known is the specific time when the extinctions occurred. A team of researchers from North America and China have published a paper in Science which explicitly provides the date and rate of extinction.
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Nov 18 2011

Snack on that! Are insects the future of food?

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With seven billion people to feed, agriculture is feeling the strain. So are creepie crawlies the solution? Gavin Haines takes a closer look
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Nov 18 2011

Galactic Process

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New observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are expanding astronomers' understanding of the ways in which galaxies continuously recycle immense volumes of hydrogen gas and heavy elements. This process allows galaxies to build successive generations of stars stretching over billions of years. This ongoing recycling keeps some galaxies from emptying their fuel tanks of interstellar gas and stretches their star-forming epoch to over 10 billion years.
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Nov 18 2011

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson: EPA to propose utility carbon rules next year

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The top U.S. environmental regulator will propose early next year twice-delayed rules on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, she told the energyNOW television show. "I can't tell you what the regulations say right now, but what we are planning to do is release them early next calendar year," Lisa Jackson, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, told the program in a segment seen by Reuters that is to be broadcast over the weekend. The EPA in June delayed the proposed rules on power plants, which are the largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, saying it needed more time after talking with businesses, states and green groups. It delayed them again in September. Republicans in the House of Representatives have waged a war on EPA clean-air regulations, saying such rules will kill jobs and add costs to businesses suffering in a battered economy. In September, President Barack Obama directed the EPA to delay a major rule on smog-forming pollutants until 2013, forcing Jackson to embrace a George W. Bush-era smog rule she previously described as legally indefensible. The move led some environmentalists and health groups to worry the administration would subject other clean-air rules to long delays.
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