EarthScape

The world must develop different indicators on sustainable development that are not biased against developing countries, a major conference has heard. Bharrat Jagdeo, former president of Guyana, said current assessments and rankings use indicators such as access to potable water and sanitation, or malaria levels, which automatically rank developed countries higher.

The Chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, is the largest species in the pacific (Oncorhynchus) salmon family. Other commonly used names for the species include King salmon, Quinnat salmon, Spring salmon and Tyee salmon. Chinook are an anadromous fish native to the north Pacific Ocean and the river systems of western North America ranging from California to…

The world’s biggest offshore wind farm was officially opened today after record-fast construction in the middle of the Irish Sea. The 102 turbines of the two connected Walney wind farms cover an area of 73 square-kilometres and were formally connected to the National Grid in a ceremony today. With a capacity of 367.2MW, the huge…

Estimates from satellite monitoring suggest the melt rate from the Himalayas and other high-altitude Asian mountains in recent years was much less than what scientists on the ground had estimated, but those monitoring the satellite data warn not to jump to the skeptical conclusion. The region’s ice melt from 2003-2010 was estimated at 4 billion…

Marguerite Bay or Margaret Bay is an extensive bay on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula, which is bounded on the north by Adelaide Island and on the south by Wordie Ice Shelf, George VI Sound and Alexander Island. A new paper reports glacial geological data that provide evidence for the timing of ice-sheet…

A giant among Wisconsin’s inland freshwater fishes, the bottom dwelling lake sturgeon is a living fossil – a relic from the Middle Ages of fish evolution. This ancient species made its first appearance about 100 million years ago in the Upper Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era, just about the time that the dinosaurs made…

Put your hands up and step away from the sugar! No, not really. But one day, sugar may be a regulated substance, on par with alcohol and tobacco. The notion seems draconian at first, but once you look at the reasoning behind it, it begins to make a lot of sense. Researchers from the University…

To help increase the supply of photovoltaic materials and technologies for the growing global market for solar energy, the world’s largest producer of solar panels has signed a strategic agreement with DuPont. The agreement focuses on technology advancements, supply chain optimization cost reduction initiatives, and DuPont™ Tedlar® polyvinyl fluoride film supply.

IDTechEx has been tracking developments in the electric vehicle market for the last eleven years by touring the world’s companies, research institutes and conferences to gain insights into key technology changes and business opportunities in the EV market. They have just published their new 2012 forecast with a 10 year horizon, and whether you like…

Yellow-cedar, a culturally and economically valuable tree in southeastern Alaska and adjacent parts of British Columbia, has been dying off across large expanses of these areas for the past 100 years. But no one could say why. “The cause of tree death, called yellow-cedar decline, is now known to be a form of root freezing…