As oil becomes scarce, the world needs new transportation fuels. As new fuel options develop we need means of assessing which are most effective at replacing petroleum. So far many scientists have used a measure called ‘net energy’.

However, Professor Bruce Dale from Michigan State University claims, “Net energy analysis is simple and has great intuitive appeal, but it is also dead wrong and dangerously misleading – net energy must be eliminated from our discourse.” Dale’s perspective is published in the first edition of Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining.

Instead, Dale recommends comparing fuels by assessing how much petroleum fuel each can replace, or by calculating how much CO2 each produces per km driven.

A new study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) says that ethical consumption is most likely to happen when it is approached as a political or societal goal rather than encouraging individual changes in lifestyle.

Efforts like Live Earth to "raise awareness" may be doing it all wrong, they say.

The research team found that campaigns aimed at getting people to change what they buy often worked on the assumption that individuals lack the necessary information to make educated decisions about the consequences of what they buy and where they buy it from. However the findings from the study suggest that people don't lack information about organic food, environmental sustainability, or third world sweatshops. They lack realistic alternatives.

In a new study appearing in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers at the University of Illinois explore real-life relationship issues by looking at the choices people make in simulated online dating relationships. By standardizing the behavior of the romantic “partner,” the study clarifies how each participant’s outlook influences his or her choices and satisfaction with the romance.

The online study took participants through a series of scenarios about a relationship with a fictional partner.

An expedition led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to a remote corner of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has uncovered unique forests which, so far, have been found to contain six animal species new to science: a bat, a rodent, two shrews, and two frogs.

The forested region—including the Misotshi-Kabogo Forest (formerly Mt. Kabobo)—and nearby Marunga Massif is located just west of Lake Tanganyika and has been off limits to scientists since 1960 as a result of continued instability in the area.

“If we can find six new species in such a short period it makes you wonder what else is out there,” said WCS researcher Dr. Andrew Plumptre, director of the society’s Albertine Rift Program.

A team of Cornell University scientists have discovered that a novel group of E. coli bacteria – containing genes similar to those described in uropathogenic and avian pathogenic E. coli and enteropathogenic bacteria such as salmonella, cholera, bubonic plague – is associated with intestinal inflammation in patients with Crohn’s disease.

Crohn’s disease, an incurable inflammatory disorder of the intestine – most commonly found in the lower part of the small intestine called the ileum – affects 1-in-1,000 people in Europe and North America. Thus far, gut bacteria have long been suspected in playing a pivotal role in the development of Crohn’s disease, but the specific bacterial characteristics that drive the inflammatory response have remained elusive.

‘Second generation’ biorefineries – those making biofuel from lignocellulosic feedstocks like straw, grasses and wood – have long been touted as the successor to today’s grain ethanol plants, but until now the technology has been considered too expensive to compete. However, recent increases in grain prices mean that production costs are now similar for grain ethanol and second generation biofuels, according to a paper published in the first edition of Biofuels, Bioproducts & Biorefining.

The switch to second generation biofuels will reduce competition with grain for food and feed, and allow the utilization of materials like straw which would otherwise go to waste.