Frankincense tree facing uncertain future
Frankincense – a traditional staple of the Christmas story – faces an uncertain future, according to researchers. Ecologists have warned that the production of the fragrant resin could decline by half over the next 15 years. The festive fragrance is produced by tapping the gum of trees in the Boswellia genus. The findings, based on a study More...
Car Battery (Lead) Mystery
Most people just accept that a car battery works. However, to a chemist it is a perplexing mystery because the prime ingredient (lead oxide) should be an insulator. Chemists have solved the 150 year-old mystery More...
Study finds link between air pollution and increase in DNA damage
A study in the Czech Republic has found a link between exposure to certain air pollutants and an increase in DNA damage for people exposed to high levels of the pollution. They found that breathing small quantities More...
Challenges to Wine-making in a Warming World
Perhaps the largest impact of global climate change will be on agriculture, and there is no crop more sensitive to changes in climate than wine grapes. As temperatures rise and average precipitation levels change, More...
Soyuz launches sharp-eyed Pleiades satellite
A Russian Soyuz rocket has launched from French Guiana – only the second such vehicle to fly out of the territory’s new Sinnamary spaceport. The Soyuz put six satellites in orbit, including France’s More...
Russia oil rig capsizes off Sakhalin, dozens missing
At least two people have died and more than 50 are missing after an oil drilling rig sank in freezing seas in the Russian far east. The Kolskaya rig was being towed some 200km (125 miles) off Sakhalin island when More...
Can we afford eco-cities?
Making cities greener “actually makes a lot of sense” in spite of the economic crisis, says former Irish President, Mary Robinson. “You save money,” she said, adding that the real challenge More...
Global carbon emissions up 50 percent
Contributions to such emissions growth in 2010 were largest from China, the US, India, the Russian Federation and the European Union. The new analysis by the Global Carbon Project, undertaken by the University of More...
A cheaper, simpler way to tap solar energy
The new device has been described in a report in the journal Nanoscale Research Letters by Peter Bermel and other researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). One of the traditional methods for More...
