Environmental News Network

Solar Impulse going around the world on sunshine

After 13 years of planning, the Solar Impulse SI2 took off last night from Al-Bateen Executive Airport in Abu Dhabi at 7:12 a.m. local time. This initiated the first leg of its historic attempt to be the first solar-powered airplane to fly around the world. If all goes well, the plane will return to Al-Bateen in June or July. As reported here in January, the first leg was a short 12-hour “shakedown cruise” to Muscat, Oman, piloted by Andre Borschberg. The plane landed safely in Muscat, more or less on schedule, at 12:14 p.m. Eastern time.

Of the two pilots who will take turns behind the wheel, Borschberg is the engineer and former fighter pilot who is intimately familiar with every detail of the plane’s design and construction.

CO2 increase may intensify future droughts in tropics

A new study suggests that increases in atmospheric CO2 could intensify extreme droughts in tropical and subtropical regions -- such as Australia, the southwest and central United States, and southern Amazonia -- at much a faster rate than previously anticipated, explains University of Texas at Austin professor Rong Fu in a commentary in the March 9 edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Good news! We're eating healthier!

The big news from the 2015 Natural Products Expo West was that the American consumer is buying healthy foods at volumes never seen before. Health and wellness products are achieving three times the sales growth as conventional food products.

A survey conducted by SuperMarket News found that 80 percent of surveyed food-industry wholesalers and retailers had sales growth in health and wellness products. A third of survey respondents reported an astounding 20 percent increase in annual sales!

Gluten- and allergen-free is now top wellness trend

Â¿Por quÃ© tenemos el horario de verano?

Perdimos una hora esta mañana, despertando ya a un cielo soleado. Algunos pueden sentir que les han robado una hora de su día. ¿Entonces, por qué tenemos el horario de verano?

Hasta cierto punto, es posible que tengamos que agradecer a Benjamín Franklin.

Franklin, quien escribió el proverbio "Temprano a la cama y levantarse temprano, hace a un hombre sano, rico y sabio", fue uno de los primeros en sugerir la idea. En un ensayo de 1784, escribió que el ajuste de los relojes en la primavera podría ser una buena manera de ahorrar en velas.

Tobacco smoke impacts the unborn too

A fetus exposed to tobacco smoke may be at increased risk for diabetes in adulthood, a new study of adult daughters finds. The results will be presented in a poster Saturday, March 7, at ENDO 2015, the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society in San Diego.

Women whose parents smoked during pregnancy had increased risk of diabetes mellitus independent of known risk factors, adding to the evidence that prenatal environmental chemical exposures can contribute to adult diabetes mellitus.