May 9th, 2012 | Alternative Energy, Food, Health, Science & Technology, Solar Energy | No Comments
By Gretchen Cuda Kroen (NPR) Pouring water into clear plastic bottles and placing them in the sun can kill disease causing organisms in about six hours. It’s a simple and cheap method that’s been around forever, and it helps. (Who says sun tea isn’t safe?)
But there’s a hitch – the water has to be clear enough for the sun’s rays to penetrate – and much of the world’s water supply is murky from the clay soils in riverbeds and lake bottoms that mix with the water. Enter the scientists.
“Basically, you need to be able to read a newspaper through it. That means it’s clear enough for the UV radiation to penetrate and kill the pathogens. If you can’t see through it, it just won’t work,” explains Joshua Pierce, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Michigan Tech.
Pierce and his colleagues discovered that by adding a little table salt to this murky water, they could get the particles of clay to stick together and settle to the bottom, making the water clear enough to purify using the solar disinfection method. They also found that the addition of salt works best for certain kinds of clay soils, namely bentonite, and not so well with others. But when they added a little bentonite along with salt to water that contained other types of clay soils, it worked just as well.
via Recipe For Safer Drinking Water? Add Sun, Salt And Lime : The Salt : NPR.
May 8th, 2012 | Architecture, Economy, Helping the Environment, Innovation | No Comments
By Steve Hargreaves (CNN) The Empire State Building is on an energy diet.The hulking building, a symbol of American power and, to some, excess, has cut its energy use by 20%.And thats just due to changes to the buildings exterior. Once retrofits are made to tenant spaces on the inside, the second tallest building in Manhattan will be nearly 40% more efficient.
The retrofits will cost $20 million once theyre complete, and are expected to save the owners $4.4 million in annual energy costs.”After one year, we have proven that investing in energy efficiency gives building owners a dollars-and-cents advantage,” said Dave Myers, a president at Johnson Controls, which conducted the retrofit.
The changes to the Empire State include:
- Filling the existing windows with an energy saving gas and adding an additional plastic pane.
- Upgrading the buildings cooling system.
- Using computerized “smart” energy management technology that can adjust temperatures floor by floor.
- Provide tenants with detailed energy use in their space.
- Automatically shut off lights in unused areas.
via Empire State Building cuts energy use 20% – May. 7, 2012.
Mar 5th, 2012 | Agriculture, Food, Helping the Environment | No Comments
(PhysOrg) Organic cultivation methods not only benefit biodiversity; they also appear to have a positive effect on the ecosystem service pollination. In a study of strawberry plants in Skåne, the proportion of fully pollinated flowers was significantly higher on organic farms. This is shown in new research from Lund University in Sweden.
The study is based on studies of strawberry plants on twelve farms in the county of Skåne, Sweden. On the farms with KRAV organic certification, where neither pesticides nor non-organic fertiliser are used, 45 per cent of the strawberry flowers were fully pollinated. On the conventional farms, the corresponding figure was 17 per cent.
“The results show that the pollination service is benefited by organic cultivation methods, which is an important factor in the development of sustainable agriculture”, says Georg Andersson, a doctoral student in environmental science at Lund University.
The research also shows that the positive effects of organic cultivation are evident within 2-4 years of the farm receiving KRAV certification.The research results have been published in the scientific journal PLoS ONE: http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0031599
via Organic strawberries better pollinated.
Feb 14th, 2012 | Today's News | No Comments
Bright idea: Soraa's MR16 LED matches the output of a 50-watt halogen.
LED lightbulbs promise a highly efficient, nontoxic, long-lasting alternative to today’s incandescent and halogen lightbulbs. Lighting entire rooms using LEDs has, however, proved both technically challenging and expensive.
Soraa, a startup based in Fremont, California, has developed a new type of LED that it says generates 10 times more light from the same quantity of active material used in other LEDs. The company’s first product is a 12-watt bulb that uses 75 percent less energy than a similarly illuminating 50-watt halogen bulb. Company officials would not disclose the cost of the bulb, but say it will pay for itself in less than one year through energy savings.
LEDs contain a semiconducting material that lights up when current passes through it, and are commonly used for low-light applications such as illuminating computer screens.
via LEDs that Burn 10 Times Brighter – Technology Review.
Feb 9th, 2012 | Today's News | No Comments
Participate in the Arizona Scitech Festival
What do baseballs, robots; telescopes and chocolate have in common? They are part of a short roster of what Arizona’s first annual science and technology festival will bring people of all ages for family fun using science, technology and innovation. The nearly six-week-long ARIZONA SCITECH festival, taking place from late January through March 14, 2012, will showcase over 300 colorful events, demonstrations, tours, games, activities and workshops across the state featuring the career opportunities of the future and the latest technologies right here within our state’s borders.
Whether it’s the Mad Science of Baseball at Scottsdale’s Spring Training Festival, gazing at far-off stars through some of the world’s most powerful telescopes at Mesa Community College’ Astronomy Night, touring some of Arizona’s premiere technology companies at the Chandler Tech Crawl, meeting Galileo at the Arizona Renaissance Festival, seeing science come to life in Downtown Tucson or witnessing first-hand the illuminated works of art brought together by mixing art and science during Phoenix’ First-Friday Art and Science Fusions, there is something for everyone. Science is everywhere!
→ continue reading
Oct 17th, 2011 | Press Release, Science & Technology, Sustainibility, Today's News | No Comments
Data publishing site Ecodesk has profiled the sustainability strategy of 4,000 of the world’s largest companies and their cost savings making it the largest free, public database of business carbon, energy, waste and water scores in the world. These 4,000 case studies have already realised millions in savings from reporting and analysing their data through Ecodesk. These include DHL and Microsoft among many others.
‘We want to encourage transparency and accuracy in carbon, energy, water and waste reporting.’ —Robert Clarke, CEO of Ecodesk.
The site, which officially launches today and is funded by UK Sterling 1.5m private equity and government grants, has made carbon data scores available for free and comparable for the first time. There are over 17,000 profiles in total. → continue reading
Sep 13th, 2011 | Helping the Environment, Press Release, Science & Technology, Today's News | No Comments
(USGS) Personal interviews with Alaska Natives in the Yukon River Basin provide unique insights on climate change and its impacts, helping develop adaptation strategies for these local communities.
The Village of St. Mary’s, Alaska
The village of St. Mary’s, Alaska where USGS scientists conducted interviews with hunters and elders to document their observations of climate change. The village lies in the Yukon River Basin on the banks of the Andreafsky River, a tributary of the Yukon River.
Photo Credit: School District of St. Mary’s, Alaska. (High resolution image)
The USGS coordinated interviews with Yup’ik hunters and elders in the villages of St. Mary’s and Pitka’s Point, Alaska, to document their observations of climate change. They expressed concerns ranging from safety, such as unpredictable weather patterns and dangerous ice conditions, to changes in plants and animals as well as decreased availability of firewood.
“Many climate change studies are conducted on a large scale, and there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding how climate change will impact specific regions,” said USGS social scientist Nicole Herman-Mercer. “This study helps address that uncertainty and really understand climate change as a socioeconomic issue by talking directly to those with traditional and personal environmental knowledge.”
→ continue reading
Sep 6th, 2011 | Agriculture, Nature | No Comments
By Gabriele Steinhauser (AP) Honey that contains traces of pollen from genetically modified crops needs special authorization before it can be sold in Europe, the European Union’s top court said Tuesday, in a judgment that could have widespread consequences on the bloc’s policy on genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.
The ruling from the European Court of Justice came after several Bavarian beekeepers demanded compensation from their government for honey and food supplements that contained traces of pollen from genetically modified maize.
The beekeepers had their hives close to fields where the Bavarian government was growing Monsanto’s MON 810 maize for research purposes.
via The Associated Press: EU court puts limits on modified honey.
Jul 9th, 2011 | Helping the Environment, Recycling | No Comments
By Matt Hickman (MNN) Here are a few things to keep in mind when you want to make a quick buck off your old gadgets. Don’t bother unloading your e-waste at a pawn shop, where you’ll be left wondering if you’ve gotten a fair deal or not. Companies such as Gazelle, Nextworth and YouRenew will gladly take a variety of old electronics off your hands and offer cash in return — or in some cases gift cards or charitable contributions — based on market data and the condition of whatever you’re trying to part with. If the item in question is in rough shape and cash isn’t an option, they’ll still help you recycle it.
Read the rest Electronics recycling for cash | MNN – Mother Nature Network.
Jun 29th, 2011 | Climate change, Ecocide, Science & Technology, Today's News | No Comments
By John Vidal (Guardian UK) One of the world’s most prominent scientific figures to be sceptical about climate change has admitted to being paid more than $1m in the past decade by major US oil and coal companies.
Dr Willie Soon, an astrophysicist at the Solar, Stellar and Planetary Sciences Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, is known for his view that global warming and the melting of the arctic sea ice is caused by solar variation rather than human-caused CO2 emissions, and that polar bears are not primarily threatened by climate change.
But according to a Greenpeace US investigation, he has been heavily funded by coal and oil industry interests since 2001, receiving money from ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Insitute and Koch Industries along with Southern, one of the world’s largest coal-burning utility companies. Since 2002, it is alleged, every new grant he has received has been from either oil or coal interests.
In addition, freedom of information documents suggest that Soon corresponded in 2003 with other prominent climate sceptics to try to weaken a major assessment of global warming being conducted by the UN’s leading climate science body, the Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Soon, who had previously disclosed corporate funding he received in the 1990s, was today reportely unapologetic, telling Reuters that he agreed that he had received money from all of the groups and companies named in the report but denied that any group would have influenced his studies.
via Climate sceptic Willie Soon received $1m from oil companies, papers show | Environment | guardian.co.uk.
