If an influenza pandemic is declared, investigations by New Scientist suggest that global preparedness for a pandemic is extremely patchy.

A new process converts carbon dioxide into methanol, without the need for extreme temperatures and pressures.

A growing number of conservationists are questioning the scientific quality of the Red List, a hugely influential barometer of extinction risk.

Global warming is likely to push cold-blooded animals to the limit of their ability to regulate their temperature, a model suggests.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126964.800-lizards-will-roast-in...

An online trading system might forecast the availability of water more accurately than the best computer models used by environmental scientists, say its developers.

It is a grim dilemma: spend years more on a kidney transplant waiting list, and possibly die before you ever reach the top, or accept a diseased organ that has been patched up.

The cluster of beige corrugated-iron sheds and silos don't look like much, but this unassuming factory in a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, represents a potential revolution in greenhouse gas emissions. It's the first commercial enterprise in the world dedicated to transforming waste from power stations and blast furnaces into geopolymer concrete, a particularly promising green concrete.

One way to cut greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere may be to exploit a particular talent some plants have of locking away carbon. All we need to do is choose the right strains of crops to grow, and they will sequester carbon for us for millennia. That's the idea of two agricultural scientists in Australia, who say the trick is to grow grasses such as wheat and sorghum, which lock up large amounts of carbon in so-called plantstones, also known as phytoliths.