Archive for the 'Nature' Category
Here’s the “AIRpod” car on… Air
• April, 2009Here’s the “AIRpod” car on… Air La Cinyc AIRPod is the culmination of MDI studies on pollution and urban mobility. This concept will be the first to leave the production line in spring 2009. MDI will respond to an invitation to tender of the city of Paris, “Autolib’”, and is already the subject of applications for various municipalities. With small size, a tiny price, zero pollution, fun and futuristic design, AIRPod mark a turning point in the range of urban vehicles while renewing the idea…
Global warming? It’s the coldest winter in decades…
• April, 2009Global warming? It’s the coldest winter in decades By Tony Bonnici NEW evidence has cast doubt on claims that the world’s ice-caps are melting, it emerged last night. Satellite data shows that concerns over the levels of sea ice may have been premature. It was feared that the polar caps were vanishing because of the effects of global warming. But figures from the respected US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that almost all the “lost” ice has come back. Ice levels which had shrunk…
Tropical Forests Recover From Clear-Cutting
• March, 2009Tropical Forests Recover From Clear-Cutting Emily Sohn, Discovery News Deforestation is generally considered to be bad news, especially in the tropics. But there may be some hope: In many places, trees are growing back, according to new research, and some of the new forests are nearly as diverse as the old ones were. The work adds to a growing sense that tropical forests are more resilient than scientists previously thought and that second-growth forests are far from worthless.
Macropinna microstoma: A deep-sea fish
• March, 2009Macropinna microstoma: A deep-sea fish with a transparent head and tubular eyes Wiki:: Macropinna microstoma is the only species of fish in the genus Macropinna, belonging to Opisthoproctidae, the barreleye family. It is recognized for a highly unusual transparent, fluid-filled dome on its head, through which the lenses of its eyes can be seen. The eyes have a barrel shape and can be rotated to point either forward or straight up, looking through the fish’s transparent dome. M. microstoma has a tiny mouth and most…
Solar power plant goes hybrid
• March, 2009Solar power plant goes hybrid An Israeli company wants to prove it doesn’t need constant sunshine for a solar power plant to make non-stop electricity to power off-grid communities.
Earth’s Cracks May Contribute to Global Warming
• March, 2009Earth’s Cracks May Contribute to Global Warming Michael Reilly, Discovery News Whether devastating faults, dank caves or mud cracks on a drying desert plain, Earth’s surface is riddled with fractures. Now a new study had found that the cracks exhale large quantities of gas, perhaps enough to affect global warming. Noam Weisbrod of Ben Gurion University of the Negev and a team of researchers monitored a crack about 2 meters long (6.5 feet) and 1 meter (3.3 feet) deep for two years in the Negev…
HIV Mutates to Death With New Drug
• February, 2009HIV Mutates to Death With New Drug Eric Bland, Discovery News Feb 9 2009 HIV is notorious for its ability to mutate and evade drugs designed to destroy it. Now scientists are testing a new drug that actually speeds up that rate of change in the hope that the deadly virus will mutate itself to death. “The HIV virus is so dependent on mutation that it really lives on the edge of existence,” said John Reno, Chief Operating Officer for Koronis Pharmaceuticals, the company developing…
Toyota to launch pure electric car in U.S. by 2012
• February, 2009Toyota to launch pure electric car in U.S. by 2012 By Chang-Ran Kim, Asia autos correspondent DETROIT (Reuters) – Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) said it would launch an all-electric car for city commuting by 2012 in the United States as part of its plan to speed up the introduction of green cars as its global sales falter. The FT-EV concept made its debut at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit Sunday, where the world’s top automaker is also unveiling two new gasoline-electric hybrid…
Google Earth dives under the sea
• February, 2009Google Earth “Beneath the Surface” BBC Google has lifted the lid on its first major upgrade to its global mapping software, Google Earth. Google Ocean expands this map to include large swathes of the ocean floor and abyssal plain. Users can dive beneath a dynamic water surface to explore the 3D sea floor terrain. The map also includes 20 content layers, containing information from the world’s leading scientists, researchers, and ocean explorers. Al Gore was at the launch event in San Francisco which, Google hopes,…
Antarctica’s 15-Million Year-Old Lake -A Living Bio Lab?
• February, 2009Antarctica’s 15-Million Year-Old Lake -A Living Bio Lab? Casey Kazan. Researchers have thawed ice estimated to be perhaps a million years old or more from above Lake Vostok, an ancient lake that lies hidden more than two miles beneath the frozen surface of Antarctica using novel genomic techniques to determine how tiny, living “time capsules” survived the ages in total darkness, in freezing cold, and without food and energy from the sun.
Facts melted by global warming
• January, 2009Facts melted by ‘global warming’ Christopher Booker 31 Dec 2008 Last weekend, that heroically diligent US meteorologist Anthony Watts noticed that something very odd had happened to the daily updated graph on the official Nansen website that shows how much sea-ice there is in the Arctic. Without explanation, as he reported on his Watts Up With That website, half a million square kilometres of ice simply vanished overnight.
Is a sunstorm blowing in?
• January, 2009Is a sunstorm blowing in? By BILL McAULIFFE, Star Tribune Last update: December 8, 2008 – 9:37 AM The long-term space forecast is calling for gusts of charged particles – and possible power disruptions. It’s not the ache in their joints that tells Mark Engebretson and David Murr the weather’s about to change. It’s sunspots. The two Augsburg College physicists say a revival of sunspots after an unusually long lull is a signal that it could get stormy above Earth. Stormy enough to mess with…
“Incredible” Deep-Sea Discoveries Announced
• December, 2008“Incredible” Deep-Sea Discoveries Announced By LiveScience Staff posted: 09 November 2008 01:06 pm ET An astounding batch of new deep-sea discoveries, from strange shark behavior to gigantic bacteria, was announced today by an international group of 2,000 scientists from 82 nations. An astounding batch of new deep-sea discoveries, from strange shark behavior to gigantic bacteria, was announced today by an international group of 2,000 scientists from 82 nations.