Biodiesel Algae Research in Chesapeake Bay Watershed

Norway’s StatoilHydro (NYSE: STO), the largest offshore energy company in the world, is fighting the bad public relations besieging its sector peer BP (NYSE: BP) with $3 million in funding for algae-based biofuel research in the U.S. The College of William and Mary is the oldest American institution of higher learning besides Harvard, and its [...]

Can Kevin Costner’s Centrifuges Help Clean up the Gulf?

What can Kevin Costner do for the oil-soaked Gulf Coast? His company Ocean Therapy Solutions, which he’s backed to the tune of $24 million, can clean water to 99.9 percent purity, and BP has ordered 32 of the company’s centrifuges so far.

Water Spirit: Rover Findings Hint of a Warmer, Wetter Era on Mars

For NASA’s Spirit rover, the days of roaming the Red Planet may now be in the past, but the observations the wheeled bot made in its travels are still paying scientific dividends. A new analysis of geologic data gathered by the rover nearly five years …

Madagascar bird driven to extinction by invasive fish

A bird from the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar called the Alaotra grebe ( Tachybaptus rufolavatus ) has been declared extinct by conservation group BirdLife International. BirdLife contributed to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species with a major update on the world’s bird species, which was released on Wednesday.

The grebe, previously found only on Lake Alaotra in eastern Madagascar, was driven to extinction in part by the introduction of snakehead murrel, a carnivorous fish, to the area. Fishermen’s modern nylon gillnets, which caught and drowned the birds, also contributed to their demise. The bird was incapable of long flights, so it had a limited range and was vulnerable to attack.

[More]

Madagascar – Bird – Lake Alaotra – Indian Ocean – BirdLife International

How Many Cancers Are Caused by the Environment?

Traces of chemicals known to cause human cancer lurk everywhere. But after decades of research, figuring out how many people might contract cancer because of them remains an elusive goal.

[More]

Cancer – Health – Conditions and Diseases – Research – Human

How Many Cancers Are Caused by the Environment?

Traces of chemicals known to cause human cancer lurk everywhere. But after decades of research, figuring out how many people might contract cancer because of them remains an elusive goal. [More]

Cancer – Health – Conditions and…

World’s smallest water lily saved from extinction

Two years ago, the world’s smallest water lily, a plant known as Nymphaea thermarum whose pads reach only one centimeter in diameter, disappeared from its only habitat, a few square meters near a hot spring in Mashyuza, Rwanda. Local agriculture h…

Next Page »