Fungi may be unexpected allies in our efforts to keep hazardous lead under control.
The tiny U.S. territory in the Caribbean has just 110,000 residents, all the beach, surf, wind and sun you'd ever want. The downside to this oasis is energy prices that are four to five times higher than are paid in the continental United States.
No less than one third of a car's fuel consumption is spent in overcoming friction. This friction loss has a direct impact on both fuel consumption and emissions. However, new technology can reduce friction from 10 to 80 percent in various components of a car, according to a joint study by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Argonne National Laboratory in the United States.
Fish parents can pre-condition their offspring to grow fastest at the temperature they experienced, according to research published in the February 2012 edition of Ecology Letters. This pre-conditioning, known as transgenerational plasticity (TGP), occurs whenever environmental cues experienced by either parent prior to fertilization changes how their offspring respond to the environment.
Just outside Seville, in the desert region of Andalucia, Spain, sits an oasis-like sight: a 100-meter-high pillar surrounded by rows of giant mirrors rippling outward. More than 600 of these mirrors, each the size of half a tennis court, track the sun throughout the day, concentrating its rays on the central tower, where the sun’s heat is converted to electricity — enough to power 6,000 homes.
When most people think of clean technology and renewable energy, they think of the two industry stars: solar and wind power. In addition to their promise to replace fossil fuels, they're iconic and aesthetically pleasing. But other clean technology solutions have the potential to shine and make equal, if not greater, contributions to our success in weaning off fossil fuels. One of the most promising of these solutions is biogas.
More than two million dollars will help public and non-profit groups restore and protect high priority wetlands and other natural resources across Maine.
PowerTrekk, a cutting-edge product that uses clean fuel cell technology that efficiently converts hydrogen into electricity.
Satellites showing that nature is responsible for 90 percent of the earth’s atmospheric acidity shocked researchers from the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, whose findings have just been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
A new geospatial application developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development, allows users to easily and accurately map potential renewable energy resources in the United States.
Rifle, Colo., is a small town on the Colorado River, in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, that's big on natural resources. It attracts hunters, fishermen, hikers, rock climbers. Its striking scenery attracted husband-and-wife environmental artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude as well; they stretched the Valley Curtain, a 200,200-square-foot orange sheet of nylon, across 1,250-foot-wide Rifle Gap. The curtain lasted only 28 hours before another of the area's natural resources, wind, began to tear it down.
With recent advances in technology and design, treating municipal wastewater and reusing it for drinking water, irrigation, industry and other applications could significantly increase the nation's total available water resources, particularly in coastal areas facing water shortages, says a new report from the National Research Council.
Clarkson University Biology Professor Michael R. Twiss has been working with colleagues and students from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Ontario, to study Lake Erie over the past five winters during mid-winter, a time when the lake is more than 70 percent covered by ice.
At Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora, Colo., representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) joined the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Trout Unlimited, and ADA Environmental Solutions, Inc. to highlight the benefits of EPA’s newly issued Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, the first national standards to protect American families from power plant emissions of mercury and toxic pollutants such as arsenic, acid gas, nickel, selenium and cyanide.
The owners and manager of 11 housing units at 10 properties in the Holyoke area have agreed to pay a total of $16,000 to resolved claims by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that they violated the federal lead paint disclosure law.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Triad Mining Inc., the owner and operator of 31 surface mines in Appalachia and Indiana, has agreed to pay a penalty and restore affected waterways for failing to obtain the required Clean Water Act (CWA) permit for stream impacts caused by its surface mining operation in Indiana
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ordered Sims Metal Management, located at the Port of Redwood City, Calif., to comply with federal Clean Water Act laws following inspections that found evidence of unlawful discharges of PCBs, mercury, lead, copper and zinc into San Francisco Bay.
Atmospheric deposition of mercury is about four-times higher in lakes near several major U.S. cities compared to lakes in remote areas, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
Climate change in the form of reduced snowfall in mountains is causing powerful and cascading shifts in mountainous plant and bird communities through the increased ability of elk to stay at high elevations over winter and consume plants, according to a groundbreaking study in Nature Climate Change.
Organisms that oxidize ammonia were first discovered in 1890. Although a natural process, a major consequence of the activities of such organisms in soil is the transformation and loss of nitrogen fertilizers used to improve crop production, resulting in groundwater and atmospheric pollution.