powering he future using a termites gut
Did you know that termite damage to wood power poles(other things not included) in Australia alone costs around $20 million each year!!
But everything about termites is not bad.The tiny microbes that live inside termites may one day help cure the world’s energy woes, according to scientists.Probably the most efficient digester of cellulose in the world is [...]
The most remote place on earth
This study by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy, and the World Bank.
The study identified “remoteness” based on, as Michael Robinson points out in Time to Eat the Dogs, “information on terrain and access to road, rail and river networks. It also consider[ed] how factors like altitude, steepness of terrain and hold-ups like border crossings slow travel.” It didn’t necessarily take into account access to cell phone networks (now available on the summit of Everest) or other technological advances that may limit aspects of remoteness.”
Read more...UN seals climate deal, but few are impressed
Copenhagen: UN climate talks avoided a total collapse on Saturday by skirting bitter opposition from several nations to a deal championed by the US President Barack Obama and five emerging economies including China.“Finally we sealed a deal,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. “The ‘Copenhagen Accord’ may not be everything everyone had hoped for, but this [...]
Read more...Two Google searches ‘produce same CO2 as boiling a kettle’
A typical search through the online giant’s website is thought to generate about 7g of carbon dioxide. Boiling a kettle produces about 15g.
The emissions are caused both by the electricity required to power a user’s computer and send their request to servers around the world.
The discovery comes amid increasing warnings about the little-known environmental impact of computer and internet use.
According to Gartner, an American research firm, IT now causes about two per cent of global CO2 emissions and its carbon footprint exceeded that of the world’s aviation industry for the first time in 2007.
Dr Alex Wissner-Gross, a physicist from Harvard University who is leading research into the subject, has estimated that browsing a basic website generates about 0.02g of CO2 for every second it is viewed.
Websites with complex video can be responsible for up to 0.2 g per second, he believes.
Read more...Google wants to help watch over world’s forests
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Google on Thursday unveiled a tool that lets scientists and defenders of the environment use the Internet to keep an eye on what is left of the Earth’s forests.
“We hope this technology will help stop the destruction of the world’s rapidly-disappearing forests,” Rebecca Moore and Amy Luers of the US Internet [...]
Two meter sea level rise unstoppable-experts
A rise of at least two meters in the world’s sea levels is now almost unstoppable, experts told a climate conference at Oxford University on Tuesday.
“The crux of the sea level issue is that it starts very slowly but once it gets going it is practically unstoppable,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, a scientist at Germany’s [...]
photosynthesis around the world
{mov}seawifs_biosphere{/mov}
This animation show where and when photosynthesis happens around the world as the seasons come and go. The land in the Northern Hemisphere gets greener each spring and summer, an indication of high rates of photosynthesis, and yellow during autumn as most plants become dormant and the amount of photosynthesis decreases. In tropical rainforest areas, [...]
Milano Santa Monica: An Eco-City Within a City
Long famed for its legendary fashion houses, Milan soon hopes to be known as a cutting-edge leader in yet another area of design: green communities. Come 2013, the bustling metropolitan area will be home to Milano Santa Monica, a two million square metre green space that will feature 2,000 apartments alongside schools, shops and sporting [...]
Read more...Interesting facts 2
The Pacific ocean is the largest ocean, it is more than twice as big as the Atlantic ocean.
Almost 1/3 of the earth land surface is covered with desert. The Sahara desert is just slightly smaller than the entire land area of the United States.
The lowest point on the earth surface is the Mariana trench, it [...]
