Bezos envisions moving polluters to outer space Caption: Artist concept of 3D printing with cementitious materials on the Moon. Credit: Greg Trent, Surface Construction. Dear EarthTalk: Is so-called “Off-Earth Manufacturing” really the environmental panacea that Jeff Bezos and other proponents say it is? — M. Traney, Smithfield, RI In July 2021, Richard Branson rocketed into suborbital […]
Caption: “Pips” of Rogue Detection Teams was able to find larvae and larval poop of the endangered checkerspot butterfly for the Forest Service in Washington State in 2019. Credit: U.S. Forest Service- Pacific Northwest Region, FlickrCC. Dear EarthTalk: What are conservation dogs?— Jon Gretcham, Portland, OR Simply put, conservation dogs are canines specially trained in […]
Caption: If you are concerned about the health implications of indoor air pollution, maybe it’s time to go electric in the kitchen. Credit: Roddy Scheer Dear EarthTalk: Should we all be ditching our gas stoves in favor of electric models?— Mary R., San Francisco, CA Walking into your kitchen to make dinner appears relatively simple […]
Caption:Backyard wind turbines could help us make the transition away from fossil fuels. Credit: Cowrin, FlickrCC. Dear EarthTalk: You see a lot of people putting solar panels on their homes these days, but windmills not so much. Is there any future for small residential wind turbines as we transition to more renewable forms of energy?— […]
Caption: XPRIZE founder Peter Diamandis has steered several competitions toward solving pressing environmental problems. Credit: XDRIVE Foundation. Dear EarthTalk: I’ve heard of XPRIZE, which funds innovations in space exploration technology. Is XPRIZE used to address climate change or other environmental problems?— J.D. via e-mail XPRIZE was launched in 1996 to spur innovation in the commercial […]
Caption: Consider yourself lucky to see a Toyota Mirai or any other “FCV” (fuel cell vehicle) out in the wild — there are only about 300 on the road in the U.S., with the vast majority of those in California. Credit: Aaron Smart, FlickrCC. Dear EarthTalk: What’s the latest on hydrogen powered fuel cells? Not […]
Editor’s note: Intel is Oregon’s largest private employer with a reported 21,000 employees in the state. Intel recently announced six new memory and storage products to help customers meet the challenges of digital transformation. Key to advancing innovation across memory and storage, Intel announced two new additions to its Intel® Optane™ Solid State Drive (SSD) […]
Editor’s note: Intel is Oregon’s largest private employer with a reported 21,000 employees in the state. At Crown Coffee, a small-yet-homey coffee bar in downtown Singapore, the barista never gets your order wrong. Ella is her name and with uncanny consistency she makes a perfect cup of coffee every time. Ella is not human, but […]
The lives of honeybees are shortened – with evidence of physiological stress – when they are exposed to the suggested application rates of two commercially available and widely used pesticides, according to new Oregon State University research. In a study published in the journal PLOS ONE, honeybee researchers in OSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences found […]
TRACE-COVID-19, the groundbreaking Oregon State University project to determine community prevalence of the novel coronavirus, expanded to include two days of sampling in Newport on June 20-21. The addition of Newport to the study follows the positive tests of more than 120 workers at Pacific Seafood, which operates five processing facilities in the city. In […]
