New experiments find that cell phone signals don't just confuse bees, they off them.
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Feed SubscriptionLetter To The Editor: Spoofed Coal Company Making Up Facts
After being the victim of a fake website, coal giant Peabody Energy responded with some "interesting" stats about the benefits of energy use. Yesterday the world's largest privately held coal company, Peabody Coal , was hoaxed by Coal Cares , a Yes Men -sponsored website that promised free inhalers for children with asthma from coal plants. As has become typical with these things, the hoax was revealed and the company issued a statement denying any connection to the satirical site.
Read More »3 Office Fixes That Will Increase Employee Productivity
If you're looking for an excuse for your poor work performance, tell your boss it's the office's fault. Here are the three worst environmental productivity killers--and how to cure them. If you're looking for an excuse for poor productivity, tell your boss it's the office's fault.
Read More »Monsanto Will Soon Be Allowed To Police Itself
Monsanto, enemy of organic farmers and anti-GMO advocates alike, will now be allowed to conduct its own environmental studies as part of a two-year USDA experiment. But there is no good that can possibly come of an experiment where the company behind nearly every genetically modified crop in our daily diets is allowed to decide whether its products are causing any environmental harm.
Read More »Wind Farms Often Don’t Produce as Much Energy as Advertised: Report
A new study from the John Muir Trust--not the sorts who would attack wind farms just for the fun of it--debunks five important industry claims. As interest in renewable energy grows, wind power companies are rushing to build giant installations; it sometimes seems that a new "biggest wind farm ever" arrives every month (the most recent one is in Germany, to replace all their scary nuclear power). But wind farms of all sizes may not produce as much energy as advertised, according to a new report ( PDF ) from the John Muir Trust.
Read More »Forget the Environment, High-Speed Rail Is Good for Business
Since the elections in November, newly elected Republican governors have been falling over themselves to return federal funding earmarked for high-speed rail.
Read More »Convofy: A New Collaboration Tool
Scrybe Labs has launched Convofy , a new private social network for companies.
Read More »Genetically Modified Showdown: Monsanto Sued by Organic Farmers
Imagine if Apple tried to charge you every time you accidentally glanced at an iPhone on the street. That's basically the policy that Monsanto, an agriculture giant whose patented genes are in 95% of all soybeans and 80% of all corn grown in the U.S, enforces. The company is notorious for suing farmers that the company suspects of violating patents in even inadvertent manners
Read More »The Patience Method: Sitting Longer at the Gate Could Cut Airplane CO2 Emissions
We may not yet be able to power large airplanes sustainably with biofuels, but there are still ways that the airline industry can easily cut down on its fuel use and CO2 emissions. One ultra-simple solution: Keep planes at the gate longer with their engines turned off instead of having them idle on the runway. The idea comes courtesy of Hamsa Balakrishnan , an MIT professor specializing in airspace efficiency, in a paper published in the MIT Technical Report ( PDF )
Read More »Battle of the Eco-Labels: Controversial Forest Certification Standard Dropped by Aetna, Allstate, Office Depot
Forest certification is a program that ensures that the trees responsible for your paper are treated responsibly. Buy some certified paper and you can rest assured that the trees it came from weren't clear cut and that there are responsible plans for continuing the growth of the forest. But could it be that the world's largest forest certification program-- Sustainable Forestry Initiative- -is a scam
Read More »Google Science Fair Deadline Approaching!
Students, parents, teachers : the Google Science Fair ’s deadline is April 4. Scientific American is a media partner, and I am a judge.
Read More »Picks from Amazon’s New Appstore
This week, Amazon unveiled an Appstore for mobile devices that run on the Android operating system. Here are three business-friendly offerings currently available in the store: Scan2PDF Mobile 2.0 Using this app, you can scan multiple documents with your phone's camera and turn them into a single PDF that you can store on your phone and e-mail to your main computer. Cost: $4.99 SwiftKey This app replaces your standard Android keyboard, and accurately predicts the next word you are most likely to type based on what you've already written
Read More »How Resource-Strained Cities Can Save Water
Los Angeles, Houston, and Phoenix are three of the biggest cities in the U.S, and also the most water-constrained.
Read More »Want to Quit Smoking? There’s an App for That
University-backed research inspires a game where users crush virtual cigarettes--and, in turn, their own bad habit.
Read More »Extending resonant diffraction to very high energies for structural studies of complex materials
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers utilizing the U.S.
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