Earth

Earth

How to make your new house a sustainable one

People might falsely believe that when they are building a house incorporating any sustainable solutions require additional costs and effort. It is actually the opposite. Some of the sustainable solutions require very little in any financing with comparison to the costs that need to be incurred anyways in a newly constructed building. Moreover, while an initial cost might be a bit higher as for purchasing, for example a sustainable heating system, there is a fast return on investment as utility bills are much lowers with sustainable heating than a standard one. It is possible to save around 30% on the use of energy and water in a sustainable house. That is a case with any other sustainable solution, when it pays off to invest in environment friendly solution in every case.Below there is list of sustainable solutions that can be applied in every house.Heat recovery system for the ventilation, heating and cooling.The use of geothermal heat pump for heating the house, allows for great savings on heating costs.It is common to use only floor heating as a heating option in energy efficient houses (no radiators). Use of low energy doors and windows (recommended triple glazed windows).

Earth

Why Spiderman can’t exist: Geckos are ‘size limit’ for sticking to walls

Latest research reveals why geckos are the largest animals able to scale smooth vertical walls — even larger climbers would require unmanageably large sticky footpads. Scientists estimate that a human would need adhesive pads covering 40 percent of their body surface in order to walk up a wall like Spiderman, and believe their insights have implications for the feasibility of large-scale, gecko-like adhesives.

Earth

SpaceX launches Jason-3 satellite to monitor sea levels

Jason-3, a U.S.-European oceanography satellite mission with NASA participation that will continue a nearly quarter-century record of tracking global sea level rise, lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California Sunday at 10:42 a.m. PST (1:42 p.m. EST) aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.Jason-3 is an international mission led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in partnership with NASA, the French space agency CNES, and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites.”Jason-3 will take the pulse of our changing planet by gathering environmental intelligence from the world's oceans,” said Stephen Volz, assistant administrator for NOAA's Satellite and Information Service. 

Earth

Trying to quit smoking using eCigs? Might actually make it harder!

Electronic cigarettes are widely promoted and used to help smokers quit traditional cigarettes, but a new analysis from UC San Francisco found that adult smokers who use e-cigarettes are actually 28 percent less likely to stop smoking cigarettes.The study — a systematic review and meta-analysis of published data — is the largest to quantify whether e-cigarettes assist smokers in quitting cigarettes.The findings will be published online January 14 in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.“As currently being used, e-cigarettes are associated with significantly less quitting among smokers,” concluded first author Sara Kalkhoran, MD who was a clinical fellow at the UCSF School of Medicine when the research was conducted. She is now at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. 

Earth

Deadly amphibian fungus may decline, study finds

A new study offers a glimmer of hope for some amphibian populations decimated by the deadly chytrid fungus: climate change may make environmental conditions for the fungus unsuitable in some regions and potentially stave off the spread of disease in African amphibian populations struggling to adapt to changes brought about by global warming.