• Toilet Challenge, 1: Caltech’s solar-powered toilet wins Reinvent Toilet Challenge

    The World Health Organization reports that 2.5 billion people around the globe are without access to sanitary toilets, which results in the spread of deadly diseases; every year, 1.5 million people, mostly those under the age of five, die from diarrhea; Caltech scientist awarded grant to develop solar-powered sanitation system

  • Toilet Challenge, 2: Loughborough’s hydrocarbonization design wins second Reinvent the Toilet Challenge prize

    Researchers from Loughborough University, located in Leicestershire, United Kingdom , won second prize in the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge; their toilet uses a process called Continuous Thermal Hydrocarbonization which kills all pathogens to create safe to handle, valuable material and uses power from heat generated during processing

  • Toilet Challenge, 3: U Toronto wins toilet challenge third place for sand filter and UV-ray design

    The U of T solution is novel in its simplicity. It uses a sand filter and UV-ray disinfecting chamber to process liquid waste and a smolder chamber, similar to a charcoal barbeque, to incinerate solid waste that has been flattened and dried in a roller/belt assembly

  • Climatic impacts of megapolitan expansion

    Arizona’s Sun Corridor is the most rapidly-growing megapolitan area in the United States. Nestled in a semi-arid environment, it is composed of four metropolitan areas: Phoenix, Tucson, Prescott, and Nogales. With a population projection expected to exceed 9 million people by 2040; a first study of its kind, attempting to quantify the impact of rapidly expanding megapolitan areas on regional climate, showed that local maximum summertime warming resulting from projected expansion of the urban Sun Corridor could approach 4 degrees Celsius

  • Canadian company offers the first treatment to neutralize red mud

    Red mud is the most significant waste product of the traditional Bayer process for aluminum production; the industry produces more than 100 million tons of red mud a year, of which less than 5 percent is be reused; the rest is stored in ponds and reservoirs, posing serious environmental and economic risk; on 4 October 2010, for example, a flood of toxic red mud devastated Hungary after a retaining dyke ruptured, causing an ecological disaster; Canadian company Orbite Aluminae offers a technology to tackle the aluminum industry’s most serious problem

  • Forget blizzards and hurricanes, heat waves are deadliest

    Tornadoes, blizzards, and hurricanes get most of our attention because their destructive power makes for imagery the media cannot ignore; for sheer killing power, however, heat waves do in far more people than even the most devastating hurricane; Hurricane Katrina and its floods, which devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005, exacted a death toll of 1,836 people; the heat wave which enveloped Europe during the course of three excruciating weeks in August 2003 of that year, killed an estimated 70,000 people

  • Examination of Finnish lakes reveals radiation secrets

    A new study casts doubt over the validity of models used to assess the impact of radiation on human health; an examination of the affects of radioactive fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl accident on two Finnish lakes sows that the transfer of the radioactive compounds is non-linear, and that the levels of radioactive compounds appear to be three times higher in fish-eating species (piscivores) than in non-fish-eating species

  • Science group: storing spent nuclear fuel in dry casks significantly safer then wet pools storage

    An NRC report on the lessons of the Fukushima disaster says that storing spent nuclear fuel in wet pools is “adequate” to protect the public; a science groups says there is a significantly safer way to store the 55,000 tons of radioactive waste currently stored by the 104 nuclear power plants operating in the United States: transferring the spent fuel to dry casks

  • Deadly E. coli strain decoded

    The secret to the deadly 2011 E. coli outbreak in Germany has been decoded; the deadliest E. coli outbreak ever, which caused fifty-four deaths and sickened more than 3,800 people, was traced to a particularly virulent strain that researchers had never seen in an outbreak before

  • Calculating the global health consequences of the Fukushima nuclear disaster

    Radiation from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster may eventually cause approximately 130 deaths and 180 cases of cancer, mostly in Japan; researchers have calculated; the estimates have large uncertainty ranges, but contrast with previous claims that the radioactive release would likely cause no severe health effects

  • Students and scientists gather in Singapore to discuss water problem

    International university students and water experts have converged at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) to foster an intellectual and research community on a scarce natural resource — water

  • Viewing terrorist attacks on TV increases pain intensity

    A new study finds that exposure to media coverage of terrorist missile attacks increases pain levels in people already suffering from chronic pain

  • New sensors detect contaminants in water

    Many organic contaminants in the air and in drinking water need to be detected at very low-level concentrations; researchers have investigated the use of graphene oxide films in which the semiconductor titanium dioxide (TiO2) and metal nanoparticles are deposited on opposite sides of the graphene surface

  • Tasers do not cause cardiac complications: study

    Tasers are commonly used by law enforcement personnel worldwide as an intermediate-force option to subdue and apprehend potentially dangerous or combative suspects; tasers function by delivering a series of very brief high-voltage, low-current electric pulses that result in pain, muscle contraction and inhibition of voluntary movement; taser shots to the chest are no more dangerous than those delivered to other body locations, according to a new study

  • Loo turns poo into power

    Researchers have invented a new toilet system that will turn human waste into electricity and fertilizers and also reduce the amount of water needed for flushing by up to 90 percent compared to current toilet systems