Many countries devote substantial public resources to research and development (R&D) for energy-efficient technologies. Energy efficiency, however, depends on both these technologies and the choices of the user. Policies to affect these choices focus on price changes (e.g., subsidies for energy-efficient goods) and information disclosure (e.g., mandated energy-use labels on appliances and autos).
In 1998, a handful of geoscientists breathed new life into a daring idea: that Earth froze over from pole to pole more than a half-billion years ago, threatening life with extinction but perhaps prodding it to greater evolutionary heights. Geoscientists report evidence that the tropics also hosted glaciers more than 100 million years before that supposed global freeze.
Reconstructing sea-level changes during the last deglaciation provides a way of understanding the ice dynamics that can perturb large continental ice sheets.
Europe's food safety watchdog on 25 February issued a scientific mass-verdict on more than 400 so-called health claims, the promises that food producers make on their labels and in advertisements, rejecting purported health benefits of a raft of substances.
On 1 April 1960, the world's first weather satellite, the Television Infrared Observation Satellite 1 (TIROS 1), was launched from
Cape Canaveral, Florida, into a 99-min orbit at an altitude of about
725 km. The cylindrical (1.1-m diameter, 0.48-m tall), 120-kg
spacecraft was spin-stabilized, rotating between 8 and 12 times per
min.
The chemical composition of the ocean is determined by rivers, submarine hot springs, and ocean sediments that add or remove elements to seawater.
Throughout the oceans, the more abundant elements have near constant
ratios to salinity (a measure of total dissolved salts).
Proxies for past seawater chemistry, such as Mg/Ca and Sr/Caratios, provide a record of the dynamic exchanges of elementsbetween the solid Earth, the atmosphere, and the hydrosphereand the evolving influence of life.
Buildings use 40% of the primary energy supplied in the United States, and more than 70% of all generated electricity, primarily for heating, cooling, and lighting. About 20% of the energy used by buildings can potentially be saved by correcting faults, including malfunctions and unnecessary operation.
Africa missed out on the scientific breakthroughs that revolutionized agriculture in Asia. However, with locally developed and locally relevant technologies, a built-up human and institutional capacity, and supportive national policy and leadership, an African Green Revolution can be a reality.
