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Bryan Nelson has been making up for lost time since finishing his graduate degree in Philosophy by traveling and working to change the world. He has worked with groups like The Sierra Club, Environment America & U.S. PIRG, Environment Oregon & OSPIRG, and Progressive Future on local and national political campaigns. His environmental journalism can be found throughout the web, which also includes regular contributions to MNN.com. Between adventure and activism, he currently can be found doing freelance writing from his home in Portland, Oregon.
A team of researchers at MIT are engineering a strain of bacteria, which is similar to the type that causes tuberculosis, to produce biofuel. The researchers say that the bacteria are useful because they are hungry for a number of sugars and toxic compounds and produce lipids that can be converted to biodiesel.
Herbs and spices like thyme, rosemary and mint, usually used to flavor food, can also offer a green alternative to synthetic pesticides. Research has shown that oils derived from the herbs interfere with insect nervous systems, causing them to spasm haphazardly until they die. Best of all, these all-natural pesticides are inexpensive to produce.
Austrian scientists are putting the ‘fun’ in ‘fungus’ by forcing organisms which are usually asexual to have sex instead. The hope is that the fungus would then be easier to breed, which would allow researchers to create organisms that are more efficient at degrading cellulose for the purpose of making biofuel.
A team of engineers have invented a breakthrough device that will make more accurate weather forecasts and give more advanced projections of climate change. The high performance electronic device, known as a dual-polarized Frequency Selective Surface filter, can detect thermal emissions in the Earth’s atmosphere in ways never done before.
A professor and student team have designed a network of modular floating docks to harness clean energy for New York City. The eco-docks would generate the energy by harnessing tidal power from the city’s rivers; they should also help to add much needed green space above the dirty waters.
Researchers at the University of Huelva have proven that high-oleic sunflower oil has the efficiency it takes to be an environmentally-friendly base for industrial lubricant. The study found that the biolubricant shared similar characteristics to traditional lubricants, only sunflower oil has a lower volatility and is entirely biodegradable. Using the sunflower oil as an alternative [...]
A Spanish company called Turtle Airships is working on plans to build a luxurious solar-powered blimp which can take passengers from New York to Paris. Perhaps the only thing cooler than being powered by lightweight photovoltaic cells, this airship is also designed to rest on land or water. The first blimp prototype will be propelled [...]
Researchers have discovered that using electrolyzed water in the pretreatment of ethanol waste products can create a clean and effective acetone-butanol-ethanol fuel mix. Previously a similar method aimed at deriving biofuel from ethanol waste products required the use of harsh chemicals like sulfuric acid, which aside from being a pollutant also had ill-effects that made [...]
