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Hydroponics and new, high-tech urban agricultural techniques are now growing fresh food in the middle of Manhattan and other large metropolitan centers globally. People are catching onto the taste and business opportunities of urban agriculture: find it growing in Middle Eastern cities such as Cairo, Egypt too!

Urban farming in midwestern American cities like Chicago has had its limitations due to adverse winter weather conditions at least 9 months a year. New indoor farming techniques use vertical farming, special indoor LED lighting and hydroponic systems that pump soybean and kelp-infused water through a temperature and humidity-controlled system, nearly 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Portugal just did something pretty amazing. In fact, it’s historic — something no other nation has ever done. Portugal just powered its entire country’s electricity needs for four consecutive days using nothing but renewable energy.

Using a combination of solar panels, wind turbines, biofuels, geothermal heat and hydroelectric power, Portugal powered everything requiring electricity for 107 hours between Saturday morning, May 7, 2016, and Wednesday evening, May 11, 2016. The country’s ZERO System Sustainable Land Association, in collaboration with the Portuguese Renewable Energy Association, released information about this impressive achievement on its website.

Los investigadores del Centro RIKEN de Ciencia sobre Recursos Sustentables en Japón, han demostrado que la biomasa torrefactada (biomasa que ha sido calentada en ausencia de oxígeno, NT) puede mejorar la calidad de los suelos pobres que se encuentran en regiones áridas. Publicado en informes científicos, el estudio mostró que la adición de biomasa torrefactada al suelo pobre de Botsuana aumenta la retención de agua en el suelo, así como el crecimiento de las plantas.

A new way of recycling millions of tons of plastic garbage into liquid fuel has been devised by researchers from the University of California, Irvine and the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC) in China.

"Synthetic plastics are a fundamental part of modern life, but our use of them in large volume has created serious environmental problems," said UCI chemist Zhibin Guan. "Our goal through this research was to address the issue of plastic pollution as well as achieving a beneficial outcome of creating a new source of liquid fuel."

Hemos alcanzado un hito triste: El cambio climático se ha cobrado sus primeras especies de mamíferos. Los científicos nos han advertido que un gran porcentaje de las especies estarán amenazadas de extinción debido al calentamiento global antropogénico, y el futuro está por desgracia, aquí.