Global climate change is “very likely” to have a human cause, an influential group of scientists has concluded.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said temperatures were probably going to increase by 1.8-4C (3.2-7.2F) by the end of the century.
It also projected that sea levels were most likely to rise by 28-43cm, and [...]
WASHINGTON: The fourth report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which labelled human activities “the prime cause of global warming,” has been named the topmost revelation of the year.
Scientists behind the report warned that unhindered emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide might lead to catastrophic and unstoppable changes, including droughts, [...]
ROCHESTER: Catching his breath at a fitness club, Matt McHugh took a gulp of water from his trusty, hard-plastic Nalgene bottle and pondered the idea of switching to an alternative made of glass, stainless steel or another kind of plastic.
Worries about a hormone-mimicking chemical used in the trendy sports accessory led a major Canadian [...]
WASHINGTON: A solution of white vinegar and water is the best natural way to clean computers, according to a report. Experts recommend the cleaning of computers on monthly basis, but many people just do not known from where to begin.
While there are a variety of measures to clean out old files from the hard [...]
WASHINGTON: Scientists at the University of Arkansas have signalled the end of future clean energy woes by exploring supercritical methanol as a method of converting chicken fat into biodiesel fuel.
The researchers say that the findings may develop commercially viable fuel out of plentiful, accessible and low-cost feedstocks and other agricultural by-products. R E Babcock, [...]
British farmers can meet the nation’s demand for both food and fuel crops, argues Peter Kendall, president of the National Farmers’ Union. In this week’s Green Room, he says UK agriculture already has enough capacity to fill fuel tanks and dining tables.
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Fields of gold: Farmers can grow food and fuel crops, Mr Kendall says
Farmers [...]
The Nanosolar company is working to build the world’s largest solar cell factory in California (slated to be in full production in 2008), and the world’s largest panel-assembly factory in Germany.
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They have successfully created a solar coating that is as thin as a layer of paint, while at the same time reducing the cost of [...]
SAN FRANCISCO: Nasa’s Voyager 2 spacecraft has found that our solar system is not round but is “dented†by the local interstellar magnetic field of deep space, space experts said on Monday.
The data was gathered by the craft on its 30-year journey into the edge of the solar system when it crossed into a [...]
BALI: More than 3,000 flying foxes dropped dead, falling from trees in Australia. Giant squid migrated north to commercial fishing grounds off California, gobbling anchovy and hake. Butterflies have gone extinct in the Alps.
While humans debate at UN climate change talks in Bali, global warming is already wreaking havoc with nature. Most plants and [...]
WASHINGTON: With arid zones expanding worldwide, scientists have created transgenic plants able to survive extreme drought and thrive on far less water in an encouraging potential boon to food production, new research showed on Monday.
The discovery could have important implications for food production and maintaining yields amid adverse conditions. “We hypothesized that it is [...]
It’s the tale of good intentions paving the way to hell, of the protector turning killer. Emory University in an effort to “go green” decided on an environmentally friendly design, which included the structure being largely glass. But there was an unintended consequence: It kills birds.
The soaring glass windows in Emory’s Mathematics and Science [...]
NEW DELHI: A group of European scientists are launching an Arctic probe to study the ice-cap melt and predict the date for a complete meltdown at the North Pole.
The survey comes in the backdrop of the melting of snow in the polar region that led to an ice-free north-west passage for the first time [...]
LONDON: It may be a threat to humans’ long-term future on the planet, but climate change has helped bring us into being in the first place.
International scientists have carried out a study and found that millions of years ago, the evolution of the earliest human ancestors was driven by wild swings in eastern Africa’s [...]
CHICAGO: US researchers have developed a method of producing hydrogen gas from biodegradable organic material, potentially providing an abundant source of this clean-burning fuel, according to a study released Monday.
The technology offers a way to cheaply and efficiently generate hydrogen gas from readily available and renewable biomass such as cellulose or glucose, and could [...]
DUBENDORF (SWITZERLAND): A prototype of the “Solar Impulse†round-the-world solar plane should make its first piloted flight in autumn 2008, the Swiss project leaders said on Monday.
The reduced-size model of the aircraft — which will have a wingspan of 61 metres, the equivalent of an Airbus
A340 airliner — is currently being built in northern [...]
In a path-breaking development, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and others, are soon going to be in a position where they play God with the weather.
So-called hurricane modifiers aim to steer dangerous weather patterns off course and to weaken hurricanes in the hope of preventing disasters like Hurricane Katrina. Scientists have [...]
WYOMING: Scientists say a new bacteria species, discovered in Yellowstones thermal pools, could improve the use of bacteria to produce ethanol.
Researchers found the bacteria in Octopus and Mushroom springs as well as in Green Finger Pool. The bacteria thrive in hot water, growing best between 120 and 150 degrees.
The discovery is rare because [...]
A plastic tweaked to mimic cellular membranes can separate carbon dioxide from natural gas and could help reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, scientists say.
The technology, detailed in the Oct issue of the journal Science, might also be modified to isolate natural gas from decomposing garbage or filter impurities from water, the researchers say. [...]
WASHINGTON: Economic growth has made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increase much faster than expected, as trees and oceans struggle to absorb the greenhouse gas, scientists said in a study published on Monday.
“Atmospheric carbon dioxide growth has increased 35 percent faster than expected since 2000,” said a statement from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), [...]
CHICAGO: Scientists have figured out a way to trick plants into doing the dirty work of environmental cleanup, US and British researchers reported on Monday.
Researchers at the University of Washington have genetically altered poplar trees to pull toxins out of contaminated ground water, offering a cost-effective way of cleaning up environmental pollutants. A group [...]
WASHINGTON: Two research engineers are claiming to have developed prototypes of energy-efficient roofs and attics.
These `Green’ roofs could keep you warm in winter and cool in summer.
“From seasonal simulations that I’ve been able to do, it could mean up to an eight percent reduction on a cooling bill,” said research engineer William Miller. [...]
White LEDs may not be too far away, as an Indian scientist has shown. T.V. Jayan reports.
LEDs are brighter, longer-lasting and more energy efficient than conventional light
The utterly inefficient light bulb that ruled interior lighting for more than a century may soon be extinguished if a Calcutta researcher has his way. Dipankar Das Sarma, a [...]
SYDNEY: The global economic boom has accelerated greenhouse gas emissions to a dangerous threshold not expected for a decade and could potentially cause irreversible climate change, said one of Australia’s leading scientists.
Tim Flannery, a world recognised climate change scientist and Australian of the Year in 2007, said a UN international climate change report due in [...]
TRIENT VALLEY(Switzerland): The Trient glacier looming ahead of me on a trek through the Alps this summer looked very different to the frosty heights that once provided ice for pastis drinkers in France.
Now the bare, eroded rock is testament to the ice’s retreat under the warming effects of climate change. In the 19th [...]
HONG KONG: The Earth is too small to accommodate all the biofuel projects envisioned for the globe, and this raises doubts whether green fuels will ever play a big role in weaning the world off crude oil.
The idea of producing an endless supply of inexpensive fuel from what sprouts from the soil seemed almost [...]
LONDON: A series of giant pipes in the oceans to mix surface and deeper water could be an emergency fix for the Earth’s damaged climate system, the scientist behind the Gaia theory said on Wednesday.
James Lovelock, whose Gaia hypothesis that Earth is a living entity has fuelled controversy for three decades, thinks the stakes [...]
LONDON: The European Commission has given approval to an EU nuclear fusion project that aims at providing a limitless and clean source of energy to end reliance on fossil fuels that aid global warming.
The consortium, led by Mike Dunne of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxford, UK, hopes to develop commercial nuclear fusion using [...]
LONDON: Water needed to wash clothes might soon be reduced thanks to researches who have made a soap whose bubbles collapse once garments are clean.
The soap is the brainchild of boffins at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.
The researchers have made a “pepfactant”, which only forms bubbles under mildly alkaline conditions.
Normal [...]
TOKYO: Self-cooling clothes may seem like the stuff of science fiction, but for one Japanese company they are not only good business but a way to help the environment.
Shirts and jackets made by Kuchou-fuku — literally air-conditioned clothes — keep the wearer comfortable even in sweltering heat while using one-50th of the energy of [...]
By tracing the expansion of the universe back in time, one can try to understand the physical conditions that would have existed in the past. Such an exercise leads to a very fascinating picture about the early universe.
The most important effect of expansion is the decrease in the density of matter and radiation present [...]