While corn ethanol was always a bad idea, biofuels themselves have a potential.

Perennial biofuel crops miscanthus, switchgrass, and mixed prairie species have shown high yields in producing ethanol, and a 4-year University of Illinois study has found another beneficial characteristic – the ability to reduce the escape of nitrogen in the environment.

The study compared miscanthus, switchgrass, and mixed prairie species to typical corn-corn-soybean rotations and each of the perennial crops were highly efficient at reducing nitrogen losses, with miscanthus having the greatest yield. 

Harvested biomass and nitrogen, nitrous oxide emissions, and nitrate leaching in the mid-soil profile and through tile drainage lines were all measured.

During an earthquake, waves emitted when the two sides of a fault move—or slip—rapidly past each other, create ground motion, with an average relative speed of about three feet per second.

Not all fault segments move so quickly. Some slip slowly, through a process called creep, and are considered to be "stable," or not capable of hosting rapid earthquake-producing slip. 

One common hypothesis suggests that such creeping fault behavior is persistent over time, with currently stable segments acting as barriers to fast-slipping, shake-producing earthquake ruptures. 

When people talk about sustainable food in 2013, they really mean something with an 'organic' label that they can attribute all kinds of other ethical and environmental traits to - sustainable food the way those people mean it is not sustainable at all, there is no way organic food can feed anyone except the rich 1% (the economically rich and the food gentry lucky enough to be born into agriculturally rich lands) but if food enthusiasts mired in such first world guilt really want to try sustainable food there is a new solution published in PLoS One.

Our Earth observation capacity is growing. Not only are star satellite data providers such as NASA and ESA improving their high quality products, new economies such as China and Brazil invest parts of their new won wealth in remote sensing as well.

These days Sweden is better known for its design exports than its blonde bombshells. IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer, has developed a brand using a business philosophy that incorporates economics, society and the environment. Through mass production, delivering disassembled products in flatpacks, eliminating the middleman, locating stores in industrial areas with low overhead costs; IKEA can pass their savings on to consumers. Using recycled and renewable products makes IKEA an eco-friendly company.

Reconstructions of atmospheric CO2 concentrations and sea level over the past 40 million years show that greenhouse gas concentrations similar to the present (nearly 400 parts per million) were associated with sea levels at least nine meters above current levels. 

They determined the 'natural equilibrium' sea level for CO2 concentrations ranging between ice-age values of 180 parts per million and ice-free values of more than 1,000 parts per million.  Of course, it takes centuries for equilibrium to be reached so they don't try to predict any sea level value for the coming century but it can help illustrate what sea level might be expected if climate were stabilized at a certain CO2 level for several centuries. 

Galactan is a polymer of galactose, a six-carbon sugar that can be readily fermented by yeast into ethanol and is a target of interest for those researching advanced biofuels produced from cellulosic biomass.

Galactans are polysaccharide components of pectin, the sticky sugar substance that binds together the individual cells in plant cell walls (and is used to make delicious jellies and jams). The β-1,4-galactan component of pectin is especially abundant in the “tension wood” that forms in cell walls in response to mechanical stress from wind or snowfall. An international collaboration has identified the first enzyme capable of substantially boosting the amount of galactan in plant cell walls.

This is not a rainforest!

A story wherein I reveal resistant and deliberate ignorance.

In 1991, the Pinatubo volcano eruption was a disaster for the Philippines and the effects were noticed across the world - it threw tons of ash and other particles into the atmosphere, which caused less sunlight to reach the Earth's surface. Global temperatures dropped by half a degree for years after that.

Clearly, volcanic eruptions can have a strong short-term impact on climate but a group of researchers are delighting doomsday believers by contending climate change will have an impact on volcanic eruptions. The researchers from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and Harvard University say they have strong evidence by using models of major volcanic eruptions around the Pacific Ocean over the past 1 million years.