Results tagged “environment”

Andy Coglan, reporter








(Image: Paul Hebert, University of Guelph)

The humble water flea might be diminutive in size but it packs a big genetic punch.  

Just a few millimetres across, Daphnia pulex is the first crustacean to have its genome sequenced. With 30,907 genes, it has more than any other species sequenced so far, including nearly 5000 more than humans. 

Many of the genes are newly evolved to help the water fleas survive climatic changes and exposure to pollutants.  

Journal reference: Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1197761)

Janelle Weaver, contributor

Pigeons are famous for navigating long distances of unfamiliar territory to find their way home. Recent studies suggest they're led by the nose - and now, researchers have confirmed that it's the right nostril that does all the work.

Biologist Anna Gagliardo of the University of Pisa in Italy and her collaborators have previously shown that pigeons may rely on odours carried on the wind - and not the Earth's magnetic field - to find their way home.

Now Gagliardo's team has discovered that the two nostrils are not equally useful. They crammed a rubbery paste into the left nostril of ten homing pigeons, and similarly bunged up the right nostril of another nine birds.

Djuke Veldhuis, reporter

(Image: Luke Marsden/Newspix/Rex Features)

Over 100 baby bats riddled with maggots and fly eggs have been found scratching for survival on the Gold Coast, Australia. The bats left their perches to feed and were then unable to fly back up.

"They're coming down to feed on the ground. That makes them vulnerable. It's not a natural occurrence and shows there is trouble in the environment," says Trish Wimberley, director of the Australian Bat Clinic and Wildlife Trauma Centre, which is caring for the four week old orphans.

"Bats are a barometer to what is going on in the environment. They're our canaries down the coal mine," she adds.

The survivors are being bottle fed and will be kept hanging on clothes lines until they are ready to fly again in approximately four weeks time.

 

Phil McKenna, contributor

While world governments dither on climate negotiations, a non-governmental organization (NGO) hopes to spur emission reductions in the shipping industry by publishing the carbon footprints of the world's large oceangoing vessels.

Starting today shippingefficiency.org  will index the emissions of 60,000 container ships, tankers, cargo ships, cruise ships and ferries. Each ship will receive an energy efficiency rating ranging from A to G, based on data from the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), that is similar to the energy ratings commonly seen on household appliances.

Carbon War Room, the group that launched the website, hopes it will serve as a catalyst to clean up the shipping industry by steering exporters and importers to cleaner ships and by shaming the owners of less efficient ships.

Emissions from ships have soared in recent decades as global trade increased. According to the IMO, the industry contributes as much as 3.9 per cent of all manmade carbon dioxide emissions, more than is emitted by aviation.

Helen Knight, technology reporter

Cleaning up oil spills from the shoreline could soon be as simple as vacuuming the carpet, thanks to a device that sucks up slicks.

The device, developed by engineering students at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, uses a combination of rotating brushes and suction to remove oil from the shore (some whimsical images on the project's website give you an idea of how the device works).

Cleaning up oil spills currently involves volunteers spreading a material such as bark, peat moss, or a chemical absorbent over the affected area, to soak up the oil. This oil-soaked material is then removed by hand, and any oil left on the rocks is cleaned off, also by hand.

To take the hard grind out of this process, the vacuum cleaner-like device sprays bark or a synthetic absorbent material onto the oil.

"Britain has more potential kinetic energy for capture than any other landscape in Europe", says London photographer Toby Smith. His latest project, Renewables, looks at the infrastructure and people involved with sustainable energy, beginning with the hydroelectric dams and associated landscapes found in the Scottish glens.

This giddying view is staring down Turbine Shaft 1 of the 305-megawatt Foyers hydroelectric power station, located at the south-eastern end of Loch Ness. The plant's two generators use a "spinning reserve" system: they spin freely until peak usage hits. This allows the generators to meet increased consumer demand within 30 seconds, rather than 2 minutes from a standing start.

The Renewables project is on display at the Printspace in London until 1 September.

(Image: Toby Smith)

See more: Pictures of the day

Shanta Barley, reporter

Europeans bid farewell to the 100 watt bulbs today. From now on, Edison's brainchild can no longer be legally made in or imported into the European Union, thanks to a Union-wide ban which kicks off today.

Shed a tear, but don't let your sentimentality tempt you into smuggling one into the EU under your jumper: you'll be hit with a £5000 fine, according to The Daily Telegraph. That's the price for individuals caught transgressing the ban. Companies will face unlimited fines.

The EU hopes that the ban on incandescent light bulbs will force businesses and consumers to invest in low-carbon Light Emitting Diodes and Compact Fluorescent Lamps, which use up to 80 per cent less energy.

The ban could save the EU anywhere from 15 to 53 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, says Matt Prescott, founder of the Ban the Bulb campaign.

And the UK could save 2 to 5 million tonnes of the stuff, he says. Will it make a difference? You decide: the ban will cut Britain's yearly emissions of CO2 by - oh, about 0.643737355 per cent.

Phil McKenna, contributor

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced today how the Department of Energy plans to spend $1.2 billion of the $1.6 billion in funding that Congress approved for its Office of Science as part of the economic stimulus package. (The DoE is still working out how to spend the remaining $371 million.)

The funding, which was detailed today at Brookhaven National Laboratory, will spur the development of clean energy research in the nation's national laboratories.

Two notable points from Obama's address to Congress yesterday: he devoted a considerable chunk of his speech to energy, and called for Congress to put the turbo jet on cap-and-trade legislation.

"I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America," he said.

Noting that the economic downturn meant government needed to cut some budgets, but boost spending elsewhere Obama said: "It begins with energy." He then went on to acknowledge that other nations, including China, Germany and Japan, are quietly leading the new energy revolution:

Peter Aldhous, San Francisco bureau chief

The effects of climate change may be even more devastating for marine species than for those on land. That is the message from conservation biologists gathered at the AAAS meeting in Chicago.

I'm familiar with dire predictions about the future of biodiversity in a warming world, having reported on the prospects for terrestrial ecosystems from last year's annual meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology.

Still, the latest projections for the world's marine fish, revealed at the AAAS by William Cheung of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, gave me pause for thought. 

All politicians these days talk about the environment. Barack Obama made climate change an important part of his campaign, and as president-elect has assembled a "dream team" of science advisors for his new administration, including physicist and coal-critic Steven Chu as energy chief.

Today's historic inauguration speech, written by the youngest speechwriter on record in the White House - 27-year-old Jon Favreau - is almost certain to mention the environment.

When Obama says the E word, he will become only the third US president to do so. Can you guess who the other two presidents were?

Barely 48 hours have passed since the US election result came in, and now it's as if everyone thinks they've got a rich uncle in the White House.

Yesterday, Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization wrote to Barack Obama pleading with him to make solving the global food crisis a top priority.

Next, Germany's foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Obama had a responsibility to lead the US back into the fold of international climate negotiations.

The latest high-profile figure to knock on Obama's door is Al Gore. His team has pushed out an ad which boldly asks "Now what?" and declares part of the answer must be a new and improved US power grid.

President-elect Barack Obama has short listed firebrand environmental lawyer Robert F Kennedy, Jr as a potential head of the US Environmental Protection Agency according to the Washington Post and Bloomberg.

As a prosecuting attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council and environmental watchdog Riverkeeper, Kennedy - the nephew of former US President John F Kennedy - boasts an impressive track record as protector of the nation's waters, air and open spaces.

One could even argue that he has already served as the de facto EPA head for the last 8 years, as Bush appointees used the Cabinet seat to plunder public lands for oil and gas, gut the Endangered Species Act, and block CO₂ emission regulations.

US environmental law baffles me. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's attempt to green the city's fleet of yellow taxis has hit a stumbling block.

A judge ruled in a court case brought by taxi drivers that Bloomberg could not force them to convert to more fuel-efficient cars.

Sceptics like to say that climate scientists who support the consensus of man-made global warming are like the boy who cried wolf.

They say that in the 1970s, climate scientists claimed that we were headed for a mini ice-age. They then point out that this never happened, and so question the strength of current predictions that the globe will be between 2 and 5 °C warmer by 2100.

Fair enough. But was there ever a consensus over global cooling in the 1970s?

A few climate scientists have now scanned through the research literature of the time. For 1965 to 1979, they found seven articles that predicted cooling, 44 that predicted warming and 20 that were neutral. The results are being published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

This, apparently, is the earliest animal footprint ever found. Look closely and you might see two lines of parallel dots, each about 2 millimetres in diameter. They're 570 million years old and were found in Nevada by Loren Babcock of Ohio State University.

Someone, please, clarify something for me: what happens when a president and his vice-president "agree to disagree"?

At least the George W Bush administration was consistent within itself. But with the new Republican ticket, we are faced with the prospect of a US president who is against drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge paired to a VP who staunchly supports it, and says the two will just have to "agree to disagree".

What does that mean? And will she be equally conciliatory about their opposite views regarding the causes of climate change? It's difficult to follow McCain's mercurial views, but he backs the scientific consensus that industrial activities are causing climate change and has supported cap and trade. Palin, on the other hand acknowledges that global warming is happening, but is "not one who would attribute it to being man-made".