Thursday 21 February 2013

CLIMATE ACTION


The featherweight battery that packs a heavyweight punch

Battery 

  By Nick St Clair 
for 
climateactionprogramme.org
in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme

      While the search for sustainable energy solutions has gone global, some scientists are thinking small.
Imagine a battery just a few millimetres in size, yet so powerful that it could power a smartphone for weeks without recharging or even jump-start a flat car battery.

       Once again the world of science fiction has become reality, thanks to a team from University of Illinois which has developed a new type of battery that is set to revolutionise the way we power electronics and vehicles; the creation of microbatteries that are many times smaller than currently commercially available, yet many times more powerful...




Hey! why can't I read the full text here?
Duplication of a site’s content has a negative effect on its popularity with Search Engines. So in the drive to provide my clients with unique, original (and entertaining) content, even though I wrote this I don't even reproduce it fully myself.

Climate Action Programme 

In partnership with UNEP

Image courtesy of Ale Paiva

Tuesday 1 January 2013

TOAD RIP


 The Golden Toad/Sapo Dorado R.I.P.
      A mission to discover whether any of 100 amphibian species believed to be extinct are still alive has ended with few successes to report.The five-month project took researchers to 21 countries; but only four of the targeted 100 were found. Researchers describe these as "glimmers of hope" in a group of animals severely threatened by changing land use, disease, pollution and climate change.
      Particularly galling was the failure to find the golden toad of Costa Rica, which was once so prevalent in Montverde. This beautiful and iconic animal is believed to have been killed off by the fungal disease chytridiomycosis and hasn't been seen for over 20 years.
       So I guess it's fair to say that it has probably croaked.