"A new discovery from a chemist at the University of Texas at Austin may allow photovoltaic solar cells to double their efficiency, thus providing loads more electrical power from regular sunlight."
A mysterious kidney disease is killing hundreds of men yearly in Central America. The men are all sugar cane workers. Dehydration and heat stress from strenuous work are key contributing causes, but researchers suspect that exposure to an unknown toxic substance may be an important triggering factor also.
Sasha Chavkin and Ronnie Greene report for iWatch News (Center for Public Integrity) December 12, 2011.
"America smashed the record for billion-dollar weather disasters this year with a deadly dozen – and counting."
"U.S. EPA [Friday] released a reworked package of proposed rules to tackle toxic emissions from 201,000 of the largest boilers and incinerators nationwide, hoping to clear up complaints from manufacturing groups as the agency clamps down on the industrial boilers that are one of the largest U.S. sources of harmful air pollution."
A special joint investigation by National Public Radio, the Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News, the Investigative News Network, and others shows that hundreds of U.S. facilities have been violating their Clean Air Act permits for years without running into federal or state enforcement. In many cases, the pollution has made people sick, and sometimes local communities have taken up the job that federal and state agencies have failed at.
NPR Series Portal
"The Obama administration, under sharp pressure from officials in Nebraska and restive environmental activists, announced Thursday that it would review the route of the disputed Keystone XL oil pipeline, effectively delaying any decision about its fate until after the 2012 election."
"LAUREL, Mont. — State workers on Tuesday set fire to an oil-tainted logjam on an island along the Yellowstone River, the last of dozens of debris piles smeared with crude from an Exxon Mobil pipeline break that dumped 42,000 gallons of oil into the waterway."
"A county Circuit judge in Virginia has sided with the University of Virginia's effort to restrict the release of personal emails from one of its former faculty members."
"NEW TOWN, N.D. — Across western North Dakota, hundreds of fires rise above fields of wheat and sunflowers and bales of hay. At night, they illuminate the prairie skies like giant fireflies."
"More than 30 million people were displaced last year by environmental and weather-related disasters across Asia, experts have warned, and the problem is only likely to grow worse as climate change exacerbates such problems."
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