EKOS Communications, Inc.

In 2011, green sea turtles laid a staggering 1.44 million eggs on just one island in the Philippines thanks to conservation efforts, breaking all previous records. The graceful and enigmatic green turtle faces a variety of threats globally, and as a result is classified as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Yet there is some good news for this marine reptile, as Conservation International (CI) announces that the species has laid a record number of eggs on a small island in the Philippines.

Almost exactly five years ago, I took at look at Transcendentist, a Berkeley based green dentistry office that combined environmental responsibility with a very different approach to patient care. Rather than the typical clinical approach, the founders of Transcendentist created a spa-like atmosphere complete with foot massages. Even then, the idea was taking off: nothing like a little calm to take the edge off of that fear of the dentist thing.

Put your hands up and step away from the sugar! No, not really. But one day, sugar may be a regulated substance, on par with alcohol and tobacco. The notion seems draconian at first, but once you look at the reasoning behind it, it begins to make a lot of sense. Researchers from the University of California (UC) San Francisco stipulate that excessive consumption of sugar is behind the global obesity pandemic. Sugar contributes to over 35 million deaths per year from diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other diseases. Their desire is to see a healthier world with fewer health-related costs through the restriction and regulation of sugar.

To help increase the supply of photovoltaic materials and technologies for the growing global market for solar energy, the world's largest producer of solar panels has signed a strategic agreement with DuPont. The agreement focuses on technology advancements, supply chain optimization cost reduction initiatives, and DuPont™ Tedlar® polyvinyl fluoride film supply.

IDTechEx has been tracking developments in the electric vehicle market for the last eleven years by touring the world's companies, research institutes and conferences to gain insights into key technology changes and business opportunities in the EV market. They have just published their new 2012 forecast with a 10 year horizon, and whether you like EVs or not — their take is that they are here to stay.

Yellow-cedar, a culturally and economically valuable tree in southeastern Alaska and adjacent parts of British Columbia, has been dying off across large expanses of these areas for the past 100 years. But no one could say why. "The cause of tree death, called yellow-cedar decline, is now known to be a form of root freezing that occurs during cold weather in late winter and early spring, but only when snow is not present on the ground," explains Pacific Northwest Research Station scientist Paul Hennon, co-lead of a synthesis paper recently published in the February issue of the journal BioScience. "When present, snow protects the fine, shallow roots from extreme soil temperatures. The shallow rooting of yellow-cedar, early spring growth, and its unique vulnerability to freezing injury also contribute to this problem."

For the past 18 years, the NFL has been working to decrease the environmental footprint of the largest annual sporting event in the U.S. — the Super Bowl. Two years ago, we wrote about several initiatives aimed at reducing the events’ impacts. Last year, we covered how Super Bowl XLV was slated to be the greenest NFL championship game in history. This year, the NFL is trying to outdo itself yet again by working with the Green Mountain Energy Company and the Indianapolis community to make Super Bowl XLVI the greenest yet. I talked with Jack Groh, Director of the NFL’s Environmental Program, to get the details on this year’s efforts.

Rice University scientists have created a nano-infused oil that could greatly enhance the ability of devices as large as electrical transformers and as small as microelectronic components to shed excess heat. Research in the lab of Rice materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan, which appears in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano, could raise the efficiency of such transformer oils by as much as 80 percent in a way that is both cost-effective and environmentally friendly. The Rice team focused their efforts on transformers for energy systems. Transformers are filled with mineral oils that cool and insulate the windings inside, which must remain separated from each other to keep voltage from leaking or shorting.

In January of this year, a comprehensive study of animals in the Southern Ocean was completed, showing that the region is under threat from climate change. The scientific journal Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography featured the findings of an international group of researchers who wrote over 20 papers about the effects on the Scotia Sea food web by above average water temperatures.

A company called Verdant Power has won the first ever commercial license for a hydrokinetic tidal power facility in the U.S., and that could be just the first drop in a torrent of more than 100 new hydrokinetic projects that are still in the initial stages of permitting around the country. Verdant's project, called RITE for Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy, will tap the powerful currents of New York City's East River to generate clean electricity.

The lush vegetation wrapping the center of the globe is one of the most important features for regulating a stable climate in the world. Much excess CO2 emissions from industrialized regions find their way to the equator to be absorbed by abundant CO2-consuming plant life. However, as large tracts of tropical rainforest are cut down in the Amazon, Congo, and Southeast Asia, worries have grown that this vital region may turn from a carbon sink to a carbon source. Those worries can be put at ease somewhat thanks to a recent study from the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC). Their report suggests that carbon storage of forests, shrublands, and savannas in the tropics are 21 percent higher than previously believed.

Tunis, Tunisia: A remote seasonal salt lake on the edge of the Sahara leads a list of 15 new Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance being declared in the country on World Wetlands Day, February 2. Chott Elguetar, a 7,400 ha site with an intermittent lake, is vital to the survival of the threatened Scimitar Oryx, Addax and Dama Gazelle. It also contains traces of human religious and industrial activity that have been dated back 40,000 years.

World Wetlands Day (WWD) is an annual celebration held on the 2nd February in order to raise worldwide awareness of the importance of wetlands. The date is particularly significant, marking the anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands, also known as the Ramsar Convention, which is an international treaty that represents the commitment of its members to the preservation of their wetlands.

The European Commission has unveiled a new set of water pollution rules, which will for the first time include certain pharmaceutical products. The Commission is proposing to add 15 chemicals to the list of 33 pollutants that are currently monitored and controlled in EU surface waters. The popular pain-relieving drug Diclofenac is one of three pharmaceuticals to be put on the European water watch-list, which law-makers say is another step towards improving the quality of rivers, lakes and coastal waters. The 15 substances include industrial chemicals as well as compounds used in biocides and plant protection products. They have been selected on the basis of scientific evidence that they may pose a significant risk to health.

It's good news for the human environment. The UPS Foundation today announced almost 120 grants totaling more than $6 million to non-profit organizations around the world that champion diversity and support diverse communities. For more than 60 years, UPS's philanthropic arm has funded organizations that support under-served and under-represented members of society. This year’s grants will support a wide range of programs, including those for wounded veterans, the hearing and visually-impaired, women and girls and culturally distinct populations.

The UN High-Level Panel Global Sustainability released its report in Addis Ababa yesterday entitled Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing. The panel’s 99-page report, which will serve as an input to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in June, (otherwise known as the Rio+20 Summit) is a call to action, "to address the sustainable development challenge in a fresh and operational way." This document is incredibly rich, beautifully written and filled with a tremendous amount of good thought, clear vision, careful analysis, sober assessment, and useful suggestions for ways to move sustainable development from an abstract concept to the core of mainstream economics.

New research led by scientists from Oxford University and Exeter University has shown that the invasion of the land by plants in the Ordovician Period (488-443 million years ago) cooled the climate and may have triggered a series of ice ages. During this period sea levels are very high and at the end of the period there was a mass extinction event. At the beginning of the period, around 480 million years ago, the climate was very hot due to high levels of CO2, which gave a strong greenhouse effect. The marine waters are assumed to have been around 45°C, which restricted the diversification of complex multi-cellular organisms. But over time, the climate become cooler, and around 460 million years ago, the ocean temperatures became comparable to those of present day equatorial waters. The dramatic cooling of the planet between 300 and 200 million years ago was also the result of the evolution of large plants with large rooting systems that caused huge changes in both of these processes. In the current results it was shown that the appearance of the first land plants had a similar effect and much earlier in time.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association today designated the Atlantic sturgeon an endangered species, providing it greater legal protections, following a petition the Natural Resources Defense Council submitted in September 2009. NOAA's Fisheries Service today announced four subpopulations or distinct population segments of Atlantic sturgeon, which are treated as individual species under the law, will be listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act: the New York Bight, the Chesapeake Bay, the Carolina, and the South Atlantic. The northernmost distinct population segment, the Gulf of Maine, will be listed as threatened.

Conservationists working in Central Africa to save the world's rarest gorilla have good news: the Cross River gorilla has more suitable habitat than previously thought, including vital corridors that, if protected, can help the great apes move between sites in search of mates, according to the North Carolina Zoo, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and other groups.

For years scientists have debated what could have plunged Europe into the half-millennium-long cold spell that ended only a century ago. Was it the temporarily spotless and therefore faint sun, or did a burst of volcanic eruptions loft debris that shaded out a normal sun? Or were the sun and volcanoes in cahoots? Researchers analyzing plants killed in the Little Ice Age's opening years are now pinning the blame on volcanoes alone.