Vital Technologies, Inc.

Ten companies received Business Week’s (BW) Greener China Business Awards. Although still the world’s biggest user of coal powered energy, China is emerging as an "incubator for clean technology," as BW puts it.

Space is a precious commodity, especially now that so much of our backyard or balcony space is occupied by containers for growing organic vegetables. For those of you out there getting tight on space, but who still want beautiful flowers and plants to look at, consider a vertical garden.

Scientists who have for the first time listed all the animal species that are threatened by cancer say "untold numbers" could be under threat.

Democrats in the House of Representatives on Tuesday said they had reached a deal on difficult agriculture issues in a climate change bill, clearing the way for a vote and probable passage in the chamber this week. "We have an agreement finally," said House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, whose support had been widely sought by House Democratic leaders. Peterson declared he is now prepared to vote for the controversial bill.

NASA plans to fill a 'sandbox' with simulated Martian soil this week to test escape maneuvers for the Mars rover Spirit, which has been stuck in a sand trap called "Troy" since early May. When the rover first became stuck, its wheels slipped so much in the fine, flour-like soil that Spirit moved just centimeters despite the fact that its wheels had rotated enough to move it about 10 metres away. Mission managers then stopped trying to drive the rover, whose wheels had already become buried halfway into the loose soil.

The new Climate Change, Wildlife and Wildlands Toolkit for Formal and Informal Educators is an updated and expanded version of the award-winning (2001 Public Relations Society of America Bronze Anvil Award for Interactive Communications and 2002 Telly Award) and very popular (over 40,000 kits distributed in all 51 states and territories and over a dozen countries across the world) Climate Change, Wildlife and Wildlands Toolkit for Teachers and Interpreters first published in 2001.

Massive supercomputers that devour electricity to keep them humming are not exactly the poster children for green technology. But IBM hopes to change that with its plans to build a supercomputer that will use water to keep the system cool and even recycle some of the waste heat to help heat the university where it’s housed.

When President Obama announced his commitment to increase America’s fuel-economy standards to an average of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, a collection of stakeholders who historically have not shared a unified vision stood behind him. Today, these automotive executives, elected officials, environmental leaders, union representatives and others largely support a new, fuel-efficient direction for the United States transportation industry.

NASA scientists reveal Patagonia glaciers are losing ice mass in higher zones.

Climate change legislation pending in Congress would cost U.S. households only about $175 annually in higher energy and consumer prices, far less than the $3,100 "burden" opponents have claimed would result, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate.

University of Alberta researchers conducting a water study in the Mackenzie River Delta have found a dramatically higher delivery of mercury from the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean than determined in previous studies.

Before you deposit the next beer or wine bottle into your blue bin, here are a few things to know about recycling your favorite sand-based product: 1. It has the quickest turnaround of any curbside product, back on store shelves in as little as 30 days 2. There’s a strong market for recycled glass, and the demand is not currently met 3. A good portion of glass that you place in your recycling bin is not actually recycled

The potential energy savings achievable through state actions is significant. EPA estimates that if each state were to implement cost-effective clean energy-environment policies, the expected growth in demand for electricity could be cut in half by 2025, and more demand could be met through cleaner energy supply. This would mean annual savings of more than 900 bil­lion kilowatt-hours (kWh) and $70 billion in energy costs by 2025, while preventing the need for more than 300 power plants and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by an amount equivalent to emissions from 80 million of today’s vehicles.

An amazing new picture from space reveals a volcanic eruption in its earliest stage, with a huge plume of ash and steam billowing skyward and creating a shock wave in the atmosphere.

Arctic nations are promising to avoid new "Cold War" scrambles linked to climate change, but military activity is stirring in a polar region where a thaw may allow oil and gas exploration or new shipping routes.

If you've been waiting for the chance to get more done during the day, today, Sunday is your day, but only by a fraction of a second. Like a giant timepiece, Earth and sun are configured for the summer solstice once again. This year it happens June 21, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. The sun will be up a fraction of a second longer than the day prior or the day after. (The length of the full day, including night, does not change, of course.)

The ancient plants are dying in the park, the southern-most boundary of their limited growing region, scientists say. Already finicky reproducers, Joshua trees are the victim of global warming and its symptoms -- including fire and drought -- plus pollution and the proliferation of non-native plants. Experts expect the Joshuas to vanish entirely from the southern half of the state within a century.

In the 1960s, a group of businessmen bought 16,000 acres of swampy bottomland along the Ouachita River in northern Louisiana and built miles of levee around it. They bulldozed its oak and cypress trees and, when the land dried out, turned it into a soybean farm. Now two brothers who grew up nearby are undoing all that work. In what experts are calling the biggest levee-busting operation ever in North America, the brothers plan to return the muddy river to its ancient floodplain, coaxing back plants and animals that flourished there when President Thomas Jefferson first had the land surveyed in 1804.

Nissan Motor Co plans to launch production of electric vehicles and their batteries in the United States to tap low-interest loans for green vehicles, the Nikkei business daily said. The overall investment is estimated at 50 billion yen ($516.4 million) and may rise to 100 billion yen, it said.

Nestled in a valley near the Martian equator, scientists have discovered the striking remnants of an ancient lake. Though dry and frigid now, the traces it left behind hint at a water body younger than any other on the planet, and its sediments are a prime target for finding fossilized alien life.