Carbon is usually typecast as a villain in terms of the environment but researchers at the University of Warwick have devised a novel way to miniaturise a technology that will make carbon a key material in some extremely green heating products for our homes and in air conditioning equipment for our cars. Most domestic heating and automotive air conditioning requires a lot of energy. Domestic space...

The American health care sector accounts for 8 percent of the country`s carbon dioxide emissions, according to a first-of-its-kind calculation of health care`s carbon footprint. ...

Large blooms of tiny marine plants called phytoplankton are flourishing in areas of open water left exposed by the recent and rapid melting of ice shelves and glaciers around the Antarctic Peninsula. This remarkable colonisation is having a beneficial impact on climate change. As the blooms die back phytoplankton sinks to the sea-bed where it can store carbon for thousands or millions of years. Re...

Evidence for a thin veil of carbon has been found on the neutron star in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. This discovery, made with NASA`s Chandra X-ray Observatory, resolves a ten-year mystery surrounding this object. "The compact star at the center of this famous supernova remnant has been an enigma since its discovery," said Wynn Ho of the University of Southampton and lead author ...

A report examining the impact of a global biofuels program on greenhouse gas emissions during the 21st century has found that carbon loss stemming from the displacement of food crops and pastures for biofuels crops may be twice as much as the CO2 emissions from land dedicated to biofuels production. The study, led by Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) senior scientist Jerry Melillo, also predicts ...

Researchers have overcome a major obstacle in efforts to use tiny structures called carbon nanotubes to create a new class of electronics that would be faster and smaller than conventional silicon-based transistors. Carbon nanotubes, which were discovered in the early 1990s, could make possible more powerful, compact and energy-efficient computers, as well as ultra-thin "nanowires" for e...

In a paper titled "The Boundless Carbon Cycle," published in the September issue of Nature Geoscience, scientists from the University of Vienna, Uppsala University in Sweden, University of Antwerp, and the U.S. based Stroud™ Water Research Center argue that current international strategies to mitigate manmade carbon emissions and address climate change have overlooked a critical pl...

Using a carbon nanotube instead of traditional silicon, Cornell researchers have created the basic elements of a solar cell that hopefully will lead to much more efficient ways of converting light to electricity than now used in calculators and on rooftops. The researchers fabricated, tested and measured a simple solar cell called a photodiode, formed from an individual carbon nanotube. Reported o...

A team of Brown University scientists has pinpointed why carbon nanotubes tend to block a critical signaling pathway in neurons. It’s not the tubes, the team finds, but the metal catalysts used to form the tubes. The discovery means carbon nanotubes without metal catalysts may be useful in treating human neurological disorders. Results appear in Biomaterials. Carbon nanotubes hold many excit...

Exposure to carbon monoxide, even at levels well below national limits, is associated with an increased risk of hospitalization for the elderly with heart problems, according to a study published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. The nationwide study of 126 urban communities, funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Institute of Environmental He...