The image you see above, is the not-too-good-looking pest, Gribble. The marine pest that troubled seafarers by chomping on ships and wooden piers may soon become valued because of its wood-eating capabilities. Researchers from Britain believe that the enzymes produced by the Gribbles and the energy rich sugars that are then produced may lead to the path of energy, with these pests converting wood and straw into biofuels.
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Plastics are evil, big villians in every environment story. They are made from fossil fuels, refuse to biodegrade for centuries, and the modern lifestyle ensures that mountains of plastic are produced every year. Nearly 150 million tons of plastic is produced every year, and 99% of that is made from fossil fuels. There are plant based plastics like PLA out there, and though this one is made from corn, it still requires fossil fuels at various levels, and doesn’t really compost easily. Scientists at Imperial College London appear to have made this wasteful product a bit sweeter.
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The push on green technology has recently resulted in a number of advancements in the field of solar energy. A lot of work is being done to make them more efficient, robust, less intensive, and more cost efficient. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, have found a way to make flexible solar cells with silicon wires.
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Merrill Lynch has just said what has been the writing on the wall for some time now. A research carried out by Bank of America and Merrill Lynch says merely having a “green” tag isn’t going to sell many EVs/ PHEVs unless they get better looks. So while electric cars like the Tesla Roadster, Tesla Model S and Fisker Karma will likely sell well, other EVs that look as if they came from a different planet will have a tough time convincing buyers.
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Ah, this is something Japan knows how to do, and do well. Research.

Sharp Corp. Sanyo Electric Co. and 15 other companies has joined forces with Gifu University to conduct research on nanocrystalline silicon, a promising material for highly energy-efficient thin-film solar cells.

The consortium will

1. explore the nanocrystalline silicon as the next-generation photovoltaic material = solar cell. Japan is a leader in solar cells and wants to pull far ahead.
2. analyze the properties of nanocrystalline silicon
3. collect the kinds of basic data needed to develop solar cell materials
4. use a scanning probe microscopes to observe electron movements in the silicon when the material is exposed to light
5. study unknown phenomena taking place on the surface of the silicon thin film
6. create a device to use for quick, objective evaluations during the product development process.

In the end, cheaper and more efficiently made and higher quality products, if Japan does what Japan does best.

Image courtesy of brixton

More Japanese researchers with nothing to do (remember the whales), have learned, or think they learned that elephants not only don’t forget, they can count, too.

In addition exercises, one elephant scored 87% and another scored 69%. American elephants scored in the lower percentile, wondering aloud “What’s addition?”

Researchers dropped different amounts of food into a bucket, blindfolded the elephant to to determine if Dumbo could conclude which bucket had the most food in it. The animals were tested using their favorite foods – oranges, cabbages, apples and little children.

I wonder, did they think to ask the elephants that got wrong answers if they were hungry or not?

The elephants were able to distinguish between the addition of just one food item, meaning, it’s not just pure guessing. Here’s a question I have – did the elephants know they were being tested? And, did they pray before the tests?

The Japanese have been claiming all along that they have been doing research on the whales, not just hunting for dinner for a football team for a month.

A study has come out that says the whales are losing their blubber because ocean resources have been dwindling.

Japan conducted “lethal research” on 6,779 whales, about two-thirds were killed and some were pregnant.

The problem for the big Nemos is a lack of krill, a critical link in the food chain. The scarcity is blamed on climate change and the recovery of species like the humpback whale.

Minke whales shed nearly 10% of the blubber over 18 years and lose about 38lbs a year. I wonder if I were to remove krill from my diet, would I lose weight, too?

The study was led by Japan’s government-backed Institute of Cetacean Research and published in Polar Biology. Whale lovers say, “There is no need to kill whales to study them. ‘Research’ whaling is just commercial whaling under another name.”

Poor whales … if the Japanese don’t get them, climate change will.

Ask a Chinese person and they will tell you China had it first. China has the oldest. China has the most. It was invented first in the Middle Kingdom. It is everything. So, why not ‘living fossils’ too? There are at least two living fossils in China. The Chinese sturgeon and Chinese alligator.

China sent five pre-historic Chinese sturgeons to Hong Kong’s Ocean Park. The never-t0-be sashimi dish is called “living fossil of fish” or “Giant Panda in the water.” Hong Kong’s visitors are home to the only human-bred Chinese sturgeons living in sea water. Why five? To coincide with the Beijing Olympics. What pre-historic fish have to do with the modern Olympics is beyond me. The sturgeon species supposedly dates back to the Cretaceous period when dinosaurs still roamed the land. It seems to me that most fish were here from the beginning. Even the Flood of Noah’s time couldn’t snuff them out.

Meanwhile -

fishermen (alligatorermen?) have found a wild Chinese alligator that is also being referred to as a living fossil. The alligator was guessed to be about 40-years old. (Why didn’t they just ask?). It was the first sighting of an alligator in the district of Wuhu in more than 30 years. This alligator species was supposedly very plentiful some 230 million years ago (if you believe the Earth is that old), but now there are only about 150 in the wild. The Yangtze alligator as it is also known is one of the world’s most endangered creatures. Gosh, what would Marco Polo say if he saw this fellow?  Since 1979, the Chinese Alligator Breeding Research Center in Anhui has seen the number of alligators at the center rise from about 200 to more than 10,000.

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