Environment

U.S. Forest Service scientists believe an Oregon State University graduate student working on a cooperative project with the agency’s Pacific Southwest Research station on the Tahoe National Forest has photographed a wolverine, an animal whose presence has ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 7 2008 - 4:28pm

The Army Gets Greener, Can Still Blow Stuff Up

A new coating system to paint aircraft and other equipment is, ironically, safer to human health and the environment. The breakthrough comes after two years of research and testing on trivalent chromium-based primers and sealers. Chromium has long been use ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 4 2008 - 10:17pm

Ethical Clothing- Blouses, Blankets And Bamboo

Want ethical clothing? You have to go with bamboo, people say. There hasn't been this much enthusiasm for a renewable product since ethanol in the 1990s. If you follow the hype, bamboo fabric is soft, durable and elastic. It hangs as gracefully as sil ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 6 2008 - 10:02pm

Great Green Idea- Use CO2 From Factories To Make DVDs

Carbon dioxide removed from smokestack emissions in order to slow global warming could be used as a valuable raw material for the production of DVDs, beverage bottles and other products made from polycarbonate plastics, chemists are reporting. In separate ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 8 2008 - 3:11pm

Atmospheric CO2 Boosting Ocean Plankton Calcification

Increased carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is causing microscopic ocean plants to produce greater amounts of calcium carbonate (chalk)- with potentially wide ranging implications for predicting the cycling of carbon in the oceans and climate m ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 18 2008 - 9:25am

World's Rarest Great Ape Gets A New Home

The government of Cameroon has created the Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary, the world’s first sanctuary exclusively for the Cross River gorilla, the world’s rarest kind of great ape. “The creation of this sanctuary is the fruit of many years of work in helping t ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 21 2008 - 12:21am

Crops Genetically Modified For Herbicide Tolerance Can Improve Water Quality

The residual herbicides commonly used in the production of corn and soybean are frequently detected in rivers, streams, and reservoirs at concentrations that exceed drinking water standards in areas where these crops are extensively grown. When these bodie ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 22 2008 - 9:36am

Wakame: Good To Eat But Is It Also Nature's Bioremediation For Polluted Oceans?

As marine pollution continues to rise, various interesting solutions have been proposed to remove toxic contaminants. Various species of seaweed are able to extract toxic compounds from seawater, says Shinichi Nagata of the Environmental Biochemistry Group ...

Article - News Staff - May 1 2008 - 10:27am

Amazon Under Threat From Cleaner Air

You wouldn't think that clean air would be bad for the Amazon rainforest but UK and Brazilian climate scientists writing in Nature say just that. Reduced sulphur dioxide emissions from less burning coal and increased sea surface temperatures in the tr ...

Article - News Staff - May 7 2008 - 2:18pm

Distiller's Grains Get Another Look As Texas Animal Feed

Distiller’s grains are a by-product of ethanol processing that can be used for animal feed. There’s been some skepticism about using distiller’s grains in Texas but one scientist says the type of grain used makes all the difference. Dr. Jim MacDonald, Agri ...

Article - News Staff - May 8 2008 - 10:40pm