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BBC News - Science & Environment
The latest stories from the Science & Environment section of the BBC News web site.

BBC News - Science & Environment
  • Parasite may aid cattle TB spread
    The spread of an animal parasite across the UK may be hampering moves to curb cattle tuberculosis, research suggests.

  • Rewritable DNA memory shown off
    Researchers demonstrate a means to use sections of DNA as rewritable "bits" to store data in living cells.

  • Nasa chief hails new era in space
    The head of Nasa has hailed a "new era" in exploration after the launch of the first cargo delivery to the space station by a private company.

  • TV remote control inventor dies
    The inventor of the television remote control, Eugene Polley, dies of natural causes, aged 96, in a Chicago hospital.

  • Backing for nuclear waste store
    The search for a storage site for the UK's high-level nuclear waste is likely to go ahead in Cumbria after an opinion poll shows residents are in favour.

  • Redefine drought, agency urges
    Policy makers should drop the word "drought" as a blanket term and move to a sliding scale to describe dry conditions, the Environment Agency says.

  • Secret egrets nest for first time
    Great white egrets are nesting in the UK for the first time at the Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve in Somerset.

  • Modified wheat trial vandalised
    A man has been charged with criminal damage following a break-in at the Rothamsted Research centre where a trial of GM wheat is being held.

  • Offshore gas leak plug 'success'
    The operation to plug the gas leak on the Elgin Platform in the North Sea has been a success, oil firm Total says.

  • Row dogs dinosaur skeleton sale
    A row breaks out over the sale of a rare dinosaur skeleton sold at auction in the US, with Mongolia's president saying it was smuggled out.

  • Two patients get eye stem cells
    Two people in Scotland have stem cells transplanted into their eyes as part of a clinical trial to restore their sight.

  • Chemical weapon 'risk' at Kinloss
    RAF Kinloss authorities knew the public could be at risk from chemical weapons buried near the base, according to documents obtained by BBC Scotland.

  • DNA to shed light on yeti claims
    A UK-Swiss team is to use genetic testing to investigate the origins of remains claimed to have come from "yetis" and "bigfoot".

  • Chinese fakes 'used in US planes'
    Vast numbers of counterfeit Chinese electronic parts are being used in US military equipment, a key Senate committee investigation finds.

  • 'Cursing stone' found on island
    A stone discovered by chance on the Isle of Canna is Scotland's first known example of a bullaun "cursing stone", experts reveal.


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Green Facts

  • Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.

  • For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.

  • Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.

  • Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.

  • You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.

  • Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.

  • A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.

  • A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.

  • Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.

  • You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.

  • Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.

  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.

  • States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.

  • Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.

  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.

  • The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.

  • 82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.

  • Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.

  • In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.

  • Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.

  • Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

  • American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.

  • Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.

  • Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

  • It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

  • Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months

  • You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.

  • A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  • In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.

  • Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

  • Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

  • Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.

  • 77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.

  • An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!

  • If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.

  • One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.

  • Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.

  • Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.

  • Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.