Dutch scientists have used stem cells to create strips of muscle tissue with the aim of producing the first lab-grown hamburger later this year. The goal of the research is to develop a more efficient way of producing meat than rearing animals. At a major science meeting in Canada, Professor Mark Post said synthetic meat…
Limited access to clean sources of energy, known as energy poverty, makes nearly half the world’s population reliant on burning wood, animal waste, coal or charcoal to cook. This leads to severe respiratory diseases that kill roughly two million people worldwide each year. It is often women and children who suffer the most from indoor…
Half a billion children could grow up physically and mentally stunted over the next 15 years because they do not have enough to eat, according to a new report from the charity Save the Children. The survey covered families in India, Bangladesh, Peru, Pakistan and Nigeria where, the agency says, half the world’s malnourished children…
It turns out that the use of electric vehicles may not be that clean after all, particularly in the world’s most populated country, China. In a recent study, Christopher Cherry, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at University of Tennessee, and his colleagues found that in terms of air pollution, electric vehicles were…
When an oncoming hurricane curves offshore — as most do — we usually breathe a sigh of relief. But soon, those offshore storms might give us something more to worry about. Offshore hurricanes could demolish half the turbines in proposed wind farms just off the USA’s coastlines, according to a recent study in the Proceedings…
When US government scientists began sampling the air from a tower north of Denver, Colorado, they expected urban smog–but not strong whiffs of what looked like natural gas. They eventually linked the mysterious pollution to a nearby natural-gas field, and their investigation has now produced the first hard evidence that the cleanest-burning fossil fuel might…
There are many tribes at Davos: business leaders (who pay for the rest), journalists, politicians, representatives of NGOs, bankers (I thought they all looked a bit defensive), faith leaders, and my own tribe, the academics. I left the conference full of admiration. Was I seduced by the glitter? Every second person seemed to be the…
The National Football League and the Indianapolis Super Bowl XLVI Host Committee are going green. They have selected Green Mountain Energy to provide renewable energy credits (RECs) equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions produced by the electricity to power the event. Green Mountain will provide 15,000 megawatt hours worth of RECs generated at wind farms…
In a study just released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, economists Nathan Nunn and Nancy Qian find that our well-meaning helping hand has often had the unintended consequence of aggravating conflict. Focusing on U.S. food aid windfalls that were triggered by bumper crops in the Midwest, they find that unexpected increases in wheat…
As the world’s population looks set to grow to nearly 9 billion by 2040 from 7 billion now, and the number of middle-class consumers increases by 3 billion over the next 20 years, the demand for resources will rise exponentially. Even by 2030, the world will need at least 50 percent more food, 45 percent…