A look at our changing environment.
A new sensor technology developed at Washington State University may eventually make expiration dates on milk a thing of the past. The sensor essentially can ‘smell’ whether milk is still good or has gone bad. The sensor consists of chemically coated nanoparticles that react to the gas produced when bacterial growth on milk has taken […]
A new study from Stanford University looked at the benefits of installing solar panels on the rooftops of schools. According to the study, taking advantage of all the viable space for solar panels could allow schools to meet up to 75% of their electricity needs and reduce the education sector’s carbon footprint by as much […]
The Gulf of Mexico dead zone occurs every summer, and is considered one of the largest dead zones in the world. This cyclical event occurs where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico, just off the coast of Louisiana and Texas. This annual dead zone is primarily caused by excess nutrient pollution from […]
Highway accidents involving animals are a big problem for both people and animals. About 200 people die every year in the U.S. as a result of collisions with animals. In total, one to two million large animals are killed by motorists every year. And these crashes are expensive: deer-car collisions cost an average of more […]
A group of 145 expert authors from 50 countries has produced a report based upon a review of 15,000 scientific and government sources that is the first comprehensive look at the state of the planet’s biodiversity in 15 years. The conclusions are alarming. Thanks to human pressures, one million species may be pushed to extinction […]
Energy consumption in the United States set a record high in 2018. Overall, energy consumption reached 101.2 quadrillion BTUs or quads last year, breaking the previous record of 101.0 set in 2007. Most of us are not too familiar with quadrillions of anything, nor with BTUs for that matter. If it is any more illuminating, […]
Researchers at the University of Southampton have forecast a global shift towards smaller birds and mammals over the next century. According to the research team, small, fast-lived, highly fertile, and insect-eating animals, which can thrive in all sorts of habitats, will predominate in the future. Rodents and songbirds are examples of the so-called ‘winners.’ Less […]
Meal kit services have become extremely popular in recent years. These are companies that deliver a box of pre-portioned ingredients and a chef-created recipe to your door to make home-cooked meals easy and practical for busy people. Leading companies like Blue Apron, HelloFresh, and Plated have been joined by dozens of others competing in the […]
Mass timber is a type of construction typically characterized by the use of large solid wood panels for wall, floor, and roof construction. Large structural panels, posts, and beams glued under pressure or nailed together in layers, with the wood’s grain stacked perpendicular for extra strength – are prized as innovative building materials, superior to […]
Like many other places around the world, India has a big problem with plastic waste. Its 1.3 billion people each use an average of 24 pounds of plastic per year and much of it ends up in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. Fishermen in India’s southern state of Kerala have taken on the battle […]
Antibiotics make their way into the environment in many ways. Sources of antibiotic pollution include the waste from large-scale animal farms and the wastewater from hospitals, municipalities, and antibiotic manufacturing. A new study has discovered concentrations of antibiotics in some of the world’s rivers exceed safe levels by up to 300 times. In the project, […]
The Nanticoke Generating Station in Ontario, Canada was the largest coal-fired power plant in North America. It was commissioned in 1972 and was capable of providing nearly 4,000 megawatts of electrical power into the southern Ontario power grid. At peak, the plant consumed nearly 40,000 tons of coal per day. The government of Ontario eventually […]
There has much talk about plastic straws and their harmful effects on the environment. But much like the straws, plastic six-pack rings are also enemies of the ocean. While straws and six-pack rings account for only a tiny fraction of all the plastic trash in the ocean, images of marine animals tangled up in the […]
A new study by Stanford University looked at the effects of climate change on global economic inequality. The study found that the gap between the economic output of the world’s richest and poorest countries is larger today than it would have been without global warming. The warming climate has enriched cooler countries like Norway and […]
Mount Everest is the highest mountain above sea level with an elevation over 29,000 feet. As such, it is a prime attraction for mountain climbers seeking that ultimate achievement. The summit was first reached in 1953 and for a long time, only major expeditions by the best mountaineers sought to repeat the feat. In recent […]
A couple of years ago, the number of American roofs covered with solar panels passed the one million mark and the numbers keep growing. But nearly half of U.S. households – accounting for more than 154 million people – aren’t able to host their own solar arrays because they lack suitable rooftop space, or they […]
Pollinators, such as bees and bats, are vital for global food production. They provide an ecological service that’s necessary for the reproduction of nearly 75% of the world’s flowering plants, including more than two-thirds of the world’s food crops. Bumblebees are among the most important plant pollinators. They pollinate many food crops, including apples, tomatoes, […]
A potentially transformative utility-scale energy storage technology has won a 2019 “World Changing Idea” award from Fast Company magazine. Known as the Energy Vault, the technology seeks to be the successor to the granddaddy of grid energy storage: pumped hydro. Shifting water between higher and lower reservoirs is still basis of the vast majority of […]
We don’t think of heatwaves as something that affects the ocean, but increasingly, as the planet warms, there have been instances where ocean water temperatures become much higher than normal for extended periods of time. There has been much discussion of this phenomenon with regard to coral reefs where the catastrophic rise in coral bleaching […]
Many homeowners are installing solar energy systems with battery backup. Energy stored in the battery can be used when the sun isn’t shining. As battery prices come down, utility-scale solar installations are also turning to battery-based energy storage. Florida Power & Light has announced plans to build the world’s largest solar-storage combination facility in Manatee […]