articles

It started with a trip to the basement of the American Museum of Natural History in New York to inspect preserved animal hides. Later, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers built a wind tunnel about 2 feet tall, complete with a makeshift eye. By putting both steps together, the team discovered that 22 species of mammals – from humans, to hedgehogs, to giraffes ­– are the same: their eyelash length is one-third the width of their eye. Anything shorter or longer, including the fake eyelashes that are popular in Hollywood and make-up aisles, increases airflow around the eye and leads to more dust hitting the surface.

Las plantas de energía solar pronto entregarán la energía más barata disponible en muchas partes del mundo en una década, según un nuevo análisis del costo de la electricidad (LCOE).

Para el 2025, el costo de producción de energía solar en el Reino Unido se habrá reducido a entre 4,2 y 10,3 peniques por kilovatio hora (p/ kWh), y en 2050 hasta un mínimo de 2,0 a 7,4 p/ kWh, según un estudio realizado por la Instituto Fraunhofer para Sistemas de Energía Solar encargados por Agora Energiewende. (Un penique es la centésima parte de una libra esterlina, NT)

The Bureau of Land Management’s proposal to offer new oil and gas leases on 89,000 acres in northwestern Wyoming would have devastating effects on greater sage grouse, including allowing industrial operations in some of the birds’ most important nesting and rearing habitat, according to comments submitted to the agency this week by the Center for Biological Diversity. Even though sage grouse have declined 60 percent over six years in Wyoming, the plan repeatedly ignores federal scientists’ recommendations for protecting these prairie birds from fossil fuel development.

“Rather than protecting these vanishing birds, the BLM is proposing to hand over some of their last remaining habitat to the oil and gas industry,” said Michael Saul, an attorney with the Center. “A few companies may squeeze some short-term profits out of it, but the long-term effect will be pushing these great prairie birds toward extinction.”

Solar energy plants will soon deliver the most inexpensive power available in many parts of the world within a decade, according to a new analysis of the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). By 2025, the cost of producing solar power in the UK will have declined to between 4.2 and 10.3 pence per kilowatt hour (p/kWh), and by 2050 to as low as 2.0 to 7.4 p/kWh, according to a study by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems commissioned by Agora Energiewende. 

Researchers in Australia have found that corals commonly found on the Great Barrier Reef will eat micro-plastic pollution. “Corals are non-selective feeders and our results show that they can consume microplastics when the plastics are present in seawater,” says Dr Mia Hoogenboom, a Chief Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.