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Apparently, the best car in the world is now electric. Tesla's new Model S P85D, a fully electric Sedan, is so good that the world's largest independent product-tester, Consumer Reports, had to change its score system because they gave the car 103/100.
Seahorses are a unique oddity seeing how males, not females, carry the pregnancy and deliver the young.
A new studied explore the possibility of unprecedented catastrophic storms – storms so bad that there’s no recorded precedent in the past 10,000 years. According to the study, the chance for such an extremely rare event to occur in this century are drastically increased by climate change. ‘Black swans’ is an umbrella term for every event that […]
Today, the Earth has approximately 3 trillion trees left standing - about 422 per person - but we've already cut 46% of them.
Right now the coal business is arguably living through its most dire days ever. Nearly 300 mines have closed in the past five years, 200 coal-powered plants have been scheduled for closure, and coal corporations are basically ruined. For instance Peabody Energy, the world's biggest coal company, sold stocks below $1 when it used to be $72 in 2011. And it could get worse. Alpha Natural Resources, the second biggest coal company in the US, filled for bankruptcy along with other smaller firms. Basically, investors wouldn't touch coal nowadays not even with a ten foot pole. Winter is coming, but apparently coal companies execs aren't all that stressed. While their employees have had their pays cut and thousands fired, managers and CEO have actually substantially increased their salaries. When the ship sinks, might as well grab what you can, I guess.
Recently, I’ve become quite a fan of vertical farms. The principle is simple: instead of growing things in fields, you cultivate plant life within a skyscraper greenhouse or on vertically inclined surfaces. There are several advantages to this: they’re more productive for the space they use (about 100 times more productive), take 40% less power, 80% less food waste and […]
According to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), there's now a mature El Niño present in the Pacific Ocean. As is the case with such events, the biggest sign of an El Niño shaping up is rising surface water temperatures. Right now, the east-central tropical Pacific Ocean waters are likely to exceed 2° Celsius above average, which suggests this could be one of the strongest since 1950, placing it along similar events like 1972-73, 1982-83 or 1997-98.
Thousands upon thousands of Pacific walrus were captured by photographer Gary Braasch as they came ashore on the northwest coast of Alaska last week, in an event believed to be triggered by global warming.
Littered with over 150 trees and boasting a stunning asymmetrical architecture, 25 Verde - an apartment complex in Turin, Italy - is not your typical residence. Though its roots may be made of steel and concrete, this apartment building rises like a forest or urban oasis.
One of the largest banks in the world says choosing not to invest in renewable energy and divest from fossil fuel might come at a significant financial cost. Up to $1.8 trillion through 2040 or $44 trillion by 2060, when compared to the business-as-usual model.
Researchers studying the plastic problem our ocean is facing predict that by 2050 nearly every single maritime bird species will have plastic pieces inside their digestive systems. The grim prediction is based on a new study showing that about 90 percent of seabirds today have plastic in their bodies.
India is one of the most polluted countries in the world, but for what it's worth local authorities acknowledge this and are trying to balance their energy mix, currently heavily reliant on fossil fuel. More than 90% of India's energy needs are met by coal, oil and gas. In all this ocean of dirt, particles and toxic fumes, the Cochin International Airport (CIAL) shines like jewel - the first international airport in the world that is 100% served by solar energy.
The Dutch want clean energy, and they’ve made that abundantly clear when 886 citizens sued their government to reduce CO2 emissions; as a result of that, something completely unprecedented (and very exciting) happened: a court in Hague ordered the government to reduce its emissions by at least 25% over the next five years. But then, things […]
Aaah, the ocean. The true final frontier. Full of wonderful and exciting things, such as strange fish, stranger crustaceans, beautiful hydrothermal vents, and lovely, ever-growing garbage patches.
Big Sur, California will see the newest installment of the Big Brother franchise, but with a twist. A team of wildlife conservationists have installed live-streaming web cameras on condor nests in the area, allowing scientists and enthusiastic bird watchers the world over to take a peek into the lives of Gymnogyps californianus.
In just a couple of weeks the price of oil, and commodity in general, have plunged. This Friday, oil was trading on the international market for $47 a barrel, while the American benchmark is currently sitting at $41.5. The low pricing - the lowest in six years - is driving a lot of companies bankrupt, while large companies like Exxon and Shell have been forced to cut down on their losses firing employees and shutting down exploration and exploitation projects.
In 2014, Dutch teenager Boyan Slat made headlines when he came up with the so-called “Ocean Cleanup Array”—a floating barrier designed to cut down the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by 42 percent within 10 years. Since this was a revolutionary way to deal with the global marine pollution problem, Slat naturally drew a lot of […]
It's hard to believe anything can be alive thousands of feet below the Indian Ocean where thermal vents effectively boil the water. Yet even in the most inhospitable conditions, life has a way of creeping in. Such is the case of chrysomallon squamiferum, a snail-like creature which may very well sport the best armor in the animal kingdom.
The Department of the Navy (DON) announced it will make the largest investment in renewable energy by an federal entity. Its plan is to install a huge 210 megawatt (MW) solar facility - enough to power 80,000 Californian homes - in the Arizona desert, which would serve electricity to 14 US Navy installations. The agreement was signed last month and marks the latest in a slew of measures meant to make the Department of Defense less dependent on oil - not just by the navy, but also the military or air force.
U.S. Geological Survey scientists report the Grand Canyon's food webs are contaminated with dangerously high levels of mercury and selenium. The source of the runoff pollution can be tracked down hundreds of miles upstream, coming from coal-burning electrical plants and other human sources. This shows that "remote ecosystems are vulnerable to long-range transport and subsequent bioaccumulation of contaminants," the researchers write.
North America boasted about half a million eagles before Europeans colonized the territory. They took the influx of Old World-ers quite harshly: the loss of habitat, the strains put on them by hunting activities and the spreading of pesticides among many others resulted in a steep decline of their population in the US. In 1997, the state of Virginia reported to have only about 50 bald eagle nests occupied by the avian predators. Thankfully, their numbers are slowly increasing at present, with more than 1,000 sightings of active nests throughout the Commonwealth.
Peter Ward might be the luckiest biologist ever. In 1984, he and colleague Bruce Saunders were among the first to identify a new nautilus species called Allonautilus scrobiculatus. Since then, the spiral shelled creature was only spotted once then disappeared for nearly three decades. This year, Ward returned to Papua New Guinea to survey nautilus populations and found the rare nautilus species once again!
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. In a bid to curb global emissions, the carbon credit scheme was introduced by the UN as an annex to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Apparently, this honestly good idea has backfired after some participants in the scheme, most notably from Russian and Ukraine, took advantage. Lack of international oversight means a couple of factories have turned in a huge profit while emissions have actually gone up to support the scheme. A classic case of perverse incentive or good idea gone bad. This time, at the global climate's expense.
Scientists from the Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) have discovered a way to give antibodies the ability to fight a wide range of influenza subtypes. Their work has great potential to one day eliminate the need for repeated seasonal flu shots.
The revolutionary wave that swept Arab nations beginning with 2011 displaced millions and cost the lives of hundreds of thousands. On the bright side, the dampened economic activity caused a significant lapse in greenhouse emissions. In some extreme cases, nitrogen dioxide values have decreased by 40 to 50% over Damascus and Aleppo, according to a new study published by the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry.
The officials of Lake Havasu have taken a laudable measure: they’re offering free mussel decontamination for boats, in an attempt to stop the spread of a very dangerous species, the quagga mussel. The quagga mussel (Dreissena bugensis) is a species of freshwater mussel named after the quagga, an extinct subspecies of African zebra. A rather interesting […]
The fact that the greatest biodiversity of large mammals we know of today is recorded in Africa is a legacy of past human activity, not climate or environmental phenomena, new study reveals. The paper theorizes at how the world today would look if Homo sapiens had never existed. In a previous analysis, the researchers from Aarhus Univeristy, Denmark, they showed how the mass extinction of large mammals during the last Ice Age and the subsequent millennia, most notably the late-Quaternary megafauna extinction, is largely explainable by the expansion of modern humans across the world.
Did you notice something strange about this July? It was hot! Sure, July is supposed to be hot (at least for most of the world), but even by July standards it was hot. If you too have felt like this, you weren’t imagining things: the NOAA recently announced that this July was the hottest month […]
Though humans might not be as fierce as a lion or white shark, we're definitely the greatest predatory species in the world, ever. The extent of humanity's super-predation was assessed by a team at University of Victoria in British Columbia which compared our hunting abilities to those of both land and marine predators in all the oceans and continents, besides Antarctica. The findings reveal humans lack any real competition preying on adults of other species at rates up to 14 times higher than other predators, especially marine ones.
Possibly the most hyper animal, the hummingbird, feeds by darting its thin tongue 20 times per second inside the flower to extract the precious nectar. Previously, biologists thought the nectar was being collected through capillary motion. However, after analyzing 18 different hummingbird species while they fed using high frame rate cameras, a group at University of Connecticut found that the fast flapping birds use a totally different way to suck food: the tongue employed as a tiny pump.
A team at George Washington University has found a way to hit two birds with one stone: mitigate climate change by pulling CO2 from the atmosphere and make a valuable material at the same time. The solar powered setup reacts a molten lithium carbonate in the presence of heat and an electrical current to produce carbon fibers, recently highly prized in engineering applications from cars and airplanes to wind turbines to tennis rackets.
China - the world's most populous country and the world's top polluter has a lot of responsibility on its shoulders. China gets a lot of well deserved flak for its often unsustainable ways, but according to a new study, at least some of the flak is undeserved. China's emissions have been overestimated, according to a study published in Nature.
For the first time, a group of researchers from Canada showed that the grime on buildings can emit ozone when exposed to light. Ozone is the main compound found in smog, a dangerous mixture to public health. Up until now, grimy urban buildings weren't included in models that assess how polluted an urban area is, but the new findings suggest their contribution is significant. Dirty buildings are thus not only unpleasant to look at, but also detrimental to your health.
Seriously – after making a complex cross-scenario examination, scientists found that given humanity’s current population growth momentum, not even WW3, a global pandemic or stringent fertility restraints will be enough to keep the global population at sustainable levels. In light of these findings, Australian researchers at Univ. of Adelaide’s Environment Institute conclude that lowering our environmental impact through […]
Octopuses are like aliens and there are few creatures weirder than these eight legged critters. They survive freezing waters, perceive light through their skin, are masters of camouflage and can do many other things, some still oblivious to science. One uncanny feature of octopuses is their mating behavior or social order. Most octopus species mate at a distance, with the male using its reproductive arm to reach the female's mantle. They have to do this to avoid being cannibalized by the female. Either way, once the job is done, the male dies while females only lives a little longer, just enough to lay the eggs. That's the peak of both the octopus' sex and social life. Besides a few instances, octopuses live their lives in isolation, alone in some shell or barren rock. However, there's one octopus that seems to be totally different, even human-like: the Larger Pacific Striped Octopus.
Scientists working at Monash University in Melbourne have developed the most energy-efficient ‘artificial photosynthesis’ method to date. The process relies on running an electrical current through water to separate it into oxygen and hydrogen, and the team behind it say it could be used to power our home on the cheap in just a few years.
Glaciers covering Asia's Tian Shan mountains have lost a quarter of their mass over the past 50 years, at a rate four times higher than the global average due to the particularly dry climate of the area. At this rate, by 2050 half of the remaining ice that covers the 2,500 kilometers long mountain rage could melt, threatening the water supply and affecting millions of people. If left unchecked, the situation might even turn into a conflict for the most basic resources (water and food).
We all know that pollution and smog in China is pretty bad, but China has only recently published their air quality data - so we get to know just how bad it is. According to a new study published by Berkeley Earth, smog alone kills 4,000 people in China every day; that's 17% of all premature fatalities.
Two of the biggest pension funds in California have lost $5 billion in assets last year by sticking to their fossil fuel investments. The report released by Trillium Asset Management suggests that the loss was due to the huge dip in oil and coal prices registered between July 2014 and June 2015.
Most people have an outdated belief that solar energy is too expensive. For most people living in the United States, this isn't true for some time and Google just released a new project to make a point of this. Called Project Sunroof, the tool uses extensive satellite imagery from Google Maps and superimposes sunlight energy flux data over them.
Every year, over 30,000 elephants are murdered, slaughtered for their tusks. Ivory is an extremely valuable commodity, and many people will stop at nothing to get it and sell it. With this in mind, investigative journalist Bryan Christy set out to see what the smuggling route is, so he commissioned a taxidermist to create two fake ivory […]
Investment in the renewable project is estimated to reach £650m ($1bn), which will be partly funded through aids from the European Commission, and construction works would create around 1,100 jobs. Environmental technology firm Abengoa, based in Spain, along with Japanese industry giant Toshiba will be leading the project for their client, MGT Teesside, subsidiary to the British utility MGT Power.
A state of emergency has been declared this Saturday by Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa. The measure was taken as a precaution given the recent increase in volcanic activity of the Cotopaxi stratovolcano, allowing the government greater freedom to allocate financial resources and critical personnel in the event of an eruption.
The food industry has become much more efficient in the last few decades as a result of globalization, but also a lot more vulnerable to shocks. Climate change will lead not only to increased temperatures, but the extreme weather it causes in North, South America and Asia are likely to also lead to global food shortages.
This is the day that humanity's consumption exceeds the amount of resources than our planet can supply in that year. Overshoot day comes sooner each year; we hit that day on August 19 in 2014. This year it was August 13, a full six days earlier.
Maybe the most amazing of social insects, ants use complex cues of pheromones to determine to which cast in the colony each individual ant belongs to. A team at University of California at Riverside found ants do this by sniffing out hydrocarbon chemicals present on their cuticles (outer shell). These cues are extremely subtle, but the ants can sense them with great sensitivity due to the way they're hardwired. It's enough to notice that ants have more olfactory receptor proteins in their genome than we humans have. Amazing!
The buzzing racket of quadcopters and drones may be stressing wildlife, a new study shows. Drones have long ceased to be the provision of the military, and are now extensively been used for civilian purposes. Amazon, for instance, wants one day to deliver all its goods with unmanned aerial vehicles. In research, drones have proven to be particularly useful in observing wildlife. But these aren't as unobtrusive as some might believe and future research should take into account that flying drones overhead should be done carefully so as to not disturb the wildlife.
Some conservationists are considering introducing the Tasmanian devil, currently only found in Australia's island state of Tasmania, back to the mainland. The devil went extinct on the mainland some 3,000 years ago, and scientists hope the predator might restore balance to the local ecosystem, currently destabilized by too many cats and foxes.
Shower heads are generally not very different one from another. Sure, you can get a different pressure, a different type of water jet, some have temperature control, but all in all, they’re the same thing. But now, a San Francisco start-up wants to change that: they’ve developed a new shower head that consumes 70% less […]
Every five years for more than a century, National Geographic releases an atlas of the world complete with the latest geographic and geologic cartographic representations. The latest edition of Atlas of the World can be quite terrifying if you move up north, in the Arctic, for it shows just how dramatic ice loss has been in the past decades. For comparison, the GIF above stitches three edition (7th and 10th) from 2000 to 2015. The latest caption shows the Arctic as it had been in 2012, during its record low ice extent.
