Researchers show that undernourishment is not a problem of agricultural production capacity but of the current economic and political system and that, if equity of food distribution is accompanied by a reduction in over-consumption and food waste, undernutrition could be eradicated while at the same time reducing agricultural production.   Read more »

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have shown that well-established agricultural management practices such as planting cover crops, optimizing grazing and sowing legumes on rangelands, could capture enough carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil to make a significant contribution to international global warming targets.  Read more »

Engineers at the University of Maryland’s School of Engineering have investigated ways of using energy from the sun and a block of wood smaller than an adult’s hand to heat water to produce steam point which can be condensed to provide purified water in an efficient, easily accessible, environmentally friendly, biodegradable way and at an extremely low cost.  Read more »

It is often estimated that about a third of the food produced for human consumption globally is lost or wasted. But an even bigger waste, which is not included in this estimate, may be through dietary choices that result in the squandering of environmental resources.   Read more »

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that the pattern of streets in a city can have a big effect on the strength of the local heat island effect which causes cities to be hotter than their surroundings.  Read more »

Modifying the properties of the land surface in highly populated areas and in agricultural areas could reduce extreme temperatures in those regions by up to 2 to 3°C.  Read more »

Phil Renforth, a scientist at Cardiff University, is preparing to test the feasibility of using iron and steel slag deposits to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  Read more »

Researchers at the Sydney Institute of Marine Science and the University of Sydney School of Geosciences are exploring the possibility of making low-lying clouds off the northeastern coast of Australia more reflective in order to cool the waters surrounding the Great Barrier Reef.  Read more »

An EU project, which is investigating the possibility of storing very large amounts of energy in underground caverns, has proposed a technique which could almost double the efficiency of storing energy of such systems.  Read more »

A university study has shown that thermal comfort, perceived air quality and symptoms of sick building syndrome are reported to be equal or better at 26°C and at 29°C, rather than at the common “set point” of 23°C, if a personally controlled fan is used.  Read more »