| Tree Electricity Runs Nano-Gadget [ The following is an exact transcript of this podcast. ]If scientists have their way, we may someday be tapping maples--not for pancake fixin’s, but for power. Because researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle have found there’s enough electricity flowing in trees to run an electronic circuit. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Getting Those Varmints to Vamoose without Lethal Measures Dear EarthTalk: What would you recommend as a non-toxic/non-lethal way to keep squirrels, gophers and groundhogs away? --Faye Gillette, Coarsegold, CA [More] rss.sciam.com |
City Dwellers Drive Deforestation in 21st Century Globally, roughly 13 million hectares of forest fall to the blade or fire each year. Such deforestation has long been driven by farmers eking out a slash-and-burn living or loggers using new roads to cut inroads into pristine forest. But now new data appears to show that, at least for the first five years of the 21st century, big block clearings that reflect industrial deforestation have come to dominate, rather than smaller-scale efforts that leave behind long, narrow swaths of cleared land. [More] rss.sciam.com |
BP Suffers Multiple Lapses in Years Leading to Oil Spills BP, the global oil giant responsible for the fast-spreading spill in the Gulf of Mexico that will soon make landfall, is no stranger to major accidents.In fact, the company has found itself at the center of several of the nation's worst oil and gas–related disasters in the last five years. [More] Oil spill - Gulf of Mexico - BP - Energy - Business rss.sciam.com |
Origami Observatory: Behind the Scene with the Webb Space Telescope (preview) The mirror, a perfect hexagon of gunmetal gray, stands vertically on a low platform. It is about two inches thick and more than four feet wide, a precisely carved slab of beryllium that gleams in the low light of this optics laboratory near San Francisco Bay. My guide, chief engineer Jay Daniel, watches my footing as I step gingerly in front of the mirror to see my reflection. “It’s like your bathroom mirror,” Daniel says, chuckling.The other side of this looking glass, though, is nothing like a household vanity. The slab of metal is mostly hollow, drilled out by machinists to leave an intricate triangular scaffold of narrow ribs. It is beautiful in its geometric precision, and I resist the urge to touch one of the knifelike edges. The polished front layer that remains, Daniel says, is a mere 2.5 millimeters thick. From its starting weight of 250 kilograms, the entire mirror now weighs just 21 kilos. That is light enough for a rocket to hoist 18 of them deep into space, where the curved mirrors will join as one to form the heart of the most audacious space observatory ever launched. [More] Mirror - Space observatory - Origami - Paper - Crafts rss.sciam.com |