Raw sewage may become a new source of energy for the world. That’s right—electricity from poop.
Economy
Way up north, another kind of oil controversy
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Not many people have heard of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, nor the Athabaskan Tar Sands. Not these days, anyway, with the Deepwater Horizon disaster spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico. But in Fort Chipewyan, the ongoing effects of bitumen oil extraction continue as the top news of the day.
Economy
U.S., Viet ‘Catfish Wars’ heat up (again)
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The so-called “Catfish Wars,” pitting U.S. catfish farmers against Asian producers since 2002, is heating up.
Economy
Urban planning in the Brazilian rainforest
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A vast experiment in urban planning is underway in Brazil’s urban jungle metropolis of Manaus. At the center of the urban expansion is the construction of a 2.2-mile bridge that is to connect the city to industrial cities and towns across the Rio Negro—the largest left tributary of the Amazon.
Economy
Yosemite’s Range of Light goes solar
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Yosemite National Park, the gemstone of John Muir’s “Range of Light” in California’s Sierra Nevada, has agreed to a $4.4 million solar panel installation at its El Portal entrance.
Environment
Cul-de-sac communities increase air pollution, health risks
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Studies show higher emissions of greenhouse gases and higher obesity rates in poorly interconnected communities.
Environment
Wow this is one BIG beaver dam!
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It’s hard to imagine that a dam that is twice the length of Hoover Dam and is visible by satellite imagery would go unnoticed for 35 years. But then again, there aren’t that many visitors to Canada’s remote “Beaver Belt.”
Environment
Humongous telescope set for Chile’s Atacama Desert
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It is an astonishing instrument by any measure—by far the largest such telescope on earth and capable of spotting rocky, earth-like planets up to 100 million million miles away.
Economy
Costa Rica ecotourism in trouble on Pacific Coast
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Hotel construction projects and a boom of vacation homes along Costa Rica’s Pacific coast is threatening the country’s famed bio-diversity and its ecotourism model, a newly published research project says.
Economy
Save the African forests; be a butterfly farmer
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People in the Kakamega Forest in western Kenya have found a way to save their shrinking woodlands and make a living at the same time, all on the wings of a butterfly. Literally.
Economy
Beijing stinks! Deodorant cannons to the rescue
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“At night we all wake up coughing. Even when you are sleeping soundly, you can wake up coughing. Everyone opens their windows in the summer and there is that smell.”