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Silkworms: an environmentally friendly delicacy?
According to legend, 5,000 years ago Chinese Empress Xi Ling-Shi discovered silk when a silkworm cocoon fell into her hot cup of tea. She unraveled the strange cocoon and, wrapping the thread around her finger, soon realized what an exquisite cloth it would make. Thus the history of one of the world's most coveted fabrics began.
If this is true, the silkworm that haplessly fell into the empress' cup on that fateful day met a fate very similar to that of modern day silkworms. When they exit the cocoon after metamorphosis, silkmoths must bore a hole through the cocoon wall, which ruins the precious thread. Therefore, silk factories drop the cocoons in hot water before the moth can leave. This unravels the thread well, but it boils down to bad news for the silkworms.
Continue reading...Scientists discover tree fungus that could provide green fuel for transport
A tree fungus could provide green fuel that can be pumped directly into tanks, scientists say. The organism, found in the Patagonian rainforest, naturally produces a mixture of chemicals that is remarkably similar to diesel.
"This is the only organism that has ever been shown to produce such an important combination of fuel substances," said Gary Strobel, a plant scientist from Montana State University who led the work. "We were totally surprised to learn that it was making a plethora of hydrocarbons."
Continue reading...Meltdown in the Arctic is speeding up
Ice at the North Pole melted at an unprecedented rate last week, with leading scientists warning that the Arctic could be ice-free in summer by 2013.
Satellite images show that ice caps started to disintegrate dramatically several days ago as storms over Alaska's Beaufort Sea began sucking streams of warm air into the Arctic.
Continue reading...Andrew Simms: We have only 100 months to avoid irreversible environmental disaster
If you shout "fire" in a crowded theatre, when there is none, you understand that you might be arrested for irresponsible behaviour and breach of the peace. But from today, I smell smoke, I see flames and I think it is time to shout. I don't want you to panic, but I do think it would be a good idea to form an orderly queue to leave the building.
Because in just 100 months' time, if we are lucky, and based on a quite conservative estimate, we could reach a tipping point for the beginnings of runaway climate change. That said, among people working on global warming, there are countless models, scenarios, and different iterations of all those models and scenarios. So, let us be clear from the outset about exactly what we mean.
Continue reading...Giant carnivorous mice threaten world's greatest seabird colony
Whalers who visited remote Gough Island in the South Atlantic 150 years ago described a prelapsarian world where millions of birds lived without predators and where a man could barely walk because he would trip over their nests. Today the British-owned island, described as the most important seabird colony in the world, still hosts 22 breeding bird species and is a world heritage site.
But Gough is the stage for one of nature's greatest horror shows. One of those whaling boats, probably from Britain, carried a few house mice stowaways who jumped ship on Gough. Now there are 700,000 or more of them on the island, which is the size of Guernsey.
Continue reading...Iceland's energy answer comes naturally
For tourists relaxing in the hot springs of Iceland's famous Blue Lagoon, just outside the capital Reykjavik, the issues of climate change and energy security are not likely to be occupying most bathers' minds. But what many visitors may be surprised to know is that the hot water they are sitting in is part of a remarkable journey by one country from oil dependence to a world leader in harnessing renewable energy.
Iceland's stunning scenery, with its bare, lava-strewn flats, snow-capped mountain ranges, glaciers, volcanoes and hot springs, is due to its location on one of the earth's major fault lines, the mid-Atlantic ridge. While this landscape is attracting an increasing number of tourists each year, the country's geographical peculiarities also mean that Iceland is the only country in the world that can claim to obtain 100% of its electricity and heat from renewable sources.
Continue reading...Mystery over who hired mole to dig dirt on Plane Stupid's environment activists
· BAA refused involvement in 'James Bond' tactics
When former Oxford student "Ken Tobias" volunteered in July to help anti-aviation group Plane Stupid, he was accepted with only a few reservations. He seemed committed to the cause of reducing aviation emissions, but as members of the group which occupied the roof of parliament last month recalled yesterday: "There was something not quite right about him."
In retrospect, it is easy to see why. Tobias was yesterday exposed as Toby Kendall, a corporate spy who works as "an analyst" for C2-i International, the UK's premier "special risk management" and investigation company. He was also accused of acting as an agent provocateur, and planting stories to discredit activists.
Continue reading...How the myth of food miles hurts the planet
Mike Small and his wife, Karen, sat down last Thursday to a dinner of smoked fish pie crusted with mashed potato and served with purple-sprouting broccoli, an unremarkable family meal except for one key factor: every ingredient came from sources close to their home in Burntisland, Fife. 'The fish was Fife-landed, while the potatoes and broccoli were grown on nearby farms,' he says.
Nor was this a one-off culinary event. For the past six months Mike and Karen and their two children, Sorley and Alex, have consumed only food and drink bought in their home district.
Continue reading...How do I make a sandbag?
Quickly would be a good idea, if you need one. "Some local authorities provide sandbags in an emergency," explains Paul Gainey in the Environment Agency's southwest office, the area currently most at risk of flooding, "but they have limited supply, so it's probably best to get your own."
The simplest way, of course, is to take your credit card down to the nearest DIY store that stocks them - but not all do, and transport can be difficult. Alternatively, if you have a lot of empty bags, you can also order a sack of builder's sand online from any of the major DIY chains. "Last year when there was flooding we did see people buying those," says a B&Q spokeswoman.
Continue reading...MasterChef success opens kitchen doors
Nathan, 34, who plans to open his own restaurant - 'going from a career that made people miserable to one that makes people happy' - has found inspiration in the good fortune enjoyed by his forerunners.
Since her 2005 win, Thomasina Miers, 31, has written a cookery book, fronted her own cookery-cum-survival series The Wild Gourmets, is starring in another, A Cook's Tour of Spain, which begins on Channel 4 on 20 March, writes a national newspaper column and has opened her own Mexican restaurant, Wahaca, in Covent Garden, London.
Continue reading...Passage to India curtailed in Calais as language barrier trips campaigner
He set off on the first leg of his epic journey with a fanfare of publicity, not to mention an appropriately alternative farewell pre-dawn party on Bristol docks featuring drummers and someone playing a conch shell.
Mark Boyle's idea was to walk to Mahatma Gandhi's birthplace without a penny in his pocket, relying on the kindness of strangers for food and shelter to prove that a better world without money really was possible.
Continue reading...Why is hemp off the biofuel menu?
Why has hemp been ignored as a biofuel? Photograph: Corbis
The Royal Society, the European Commission and the UK government have all managed, in the last few days, to take the wind out of the sails of the biofuel industry, publishing reports that suggest biofuels could be causing more harm than good, the crops not being as environmentally friendly as first thought, with the Commons environmental audit committee calling for a moratorium on biofuel targets until more research can be done.
Continue reading...Developer trumped by fisherman in row over golf complex
· Man who stuck out hopes Trump has got message
In one corner, a world-famous property developer with serious dollars to spend and some of the most prestigious real estate in places such as New York, Chicago and Dubai. In the other, a rag tag of staunch Aberdonian conservationists and a salmon fisherman who has become a local celebrity by refusing to sell his unkempt nine hectares (23 acres) to make way for "the world's greatest golf course".
The billionaire is not used to losing, but he got a bloody nose yesterday. In a surprise decision, Donald Trump's plan to build a £1bn golf resort on a rare and vulnerable stretch of sand dunes on the coast north of Aberdeen was thrown out by councillors.
Continue reading...The Yangtze river dolphin
Yangtze river dolphin driven to extinction
The Yangtze river dolphin, until recently one of the most endangered species on the planet, has been declared officially extinct following an intensive survey of its natural habitat.
The freshwater marine mammal, which could grow to eight feet long and weigh up to a quarter of a tonne, is the first large vertebrate forced to extinction by human activity in 50 years, and only the fourth time an entire evolutionary line of mammals has vanished from the face of the Earth since the year 1500.
Continue reading...Sheryl Crow's view on toilet paper: one sheet a visit
Poll: what's your optimal sheet number?
"All I wanna do is have some fun," sang Sheryl Crow once, but it appears her desires have since changed. Now all she wants to do is limit the use of toilet paper to one sheet per visit.
The singer made her declaration in an article for the Huffington Post to help promote her Stop Global Warming College Tour, an 11-date tour explaining the perils of global warming to Americans. Accompanied by Laurie David, activist and wife of comedian Larry David, the pair have been criss-crossing the country in a biodiesel-powered bus spreading the word on the bathroom hygiene of the future.
Continue reading...Obituary: Jim Cronin
Jim Cronin, campaigner against the illegal trade in primates and founder of the animal sanctuary Monkey World, in Dorset, has died aged 55 of liver cancer. Working with primates has a long history of producing strong, even iconoclastic, personalities - from Jane Goodall to Diane Fosse and Karl Amman - and Cronin, an irascible, headstrong and passionate man, was no exception.
Born of Irish-Italian parents, he was brought up on the banks of the Hudson river in Yonkers, near New York. After graduating from St Denis school and Lincoln high school, he took odd jobs as a lift constructor and a removals man before, quite literally, falling into primatology. An accident while moving a grand piano left him with his leg in traction, and when he recovered he took a job looking after the primates at the Bronx zoo.
Continue reading...The Observer profile: Yvon Chouinard
'I've been a businessman for almost 50 years. It's as difficult for me to say those words as it is for someone to admit being an alcoholic or a lawyer.' That's how Yvon Chouinard, entrepreneurial maverick and pioneer of environmental activism, began his business manual, Let My People Go Surfing, published last year. For a reluctant businessman, Chouinard, founder and owner of outdoor clothing company Patagonia, isn't doing badly. In fact, while little known in Britain, he is revered in America among progressive entrepreneurs. His company employs 1,300 people and last year had a turnover of $267m; its innovative clothing is known as the 'Gucci of the outdoors'.
He has been offered up to $500m for his company and has always refused to give it up. But you won't find the 68-year-old behind a desk in the California headquarters. He'd rather be surfing, climbing or fly-fishing. Next weekend, he is giving a keynote talk at the Fort William Mountain Festival, one of the world's leading celebrations of mountain culture, a homecoming of sorts because, in some ways, the eco-activist and entrepreneur owes Patagonia's success to Britain.
Continue reading...If you go down to the beach today ... you're bound to find something to steal
· BMW bikes among cargo lost from stricken ship
Jane and Mary huffed and puffed as they rolled the oak wine cask across the shingle towards the Sea Shanty car park. "Honestly, we just came for a walk and a chat", said Mary, a retired teacher, "but then we saw all this stuff here and the police told us we could help ourselves. So we did."
They were not the only ones.
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