Choking China: The struggle to clear Beijing's air
As pollution levels return to normal in China's capital after a record-breaking month of smog, what can be done to banish the smog?
New Scientist
-
Bear tapping: A bile business
Thousands of bears are being kept in appalling conditions to supply traditional Chinese medicine. Bear bile is used in traditional Chinese medicine and fetches a tidy price. In China, the wholesale price is around 4000 yuan (approximately $580) per kilogram; each bear produces up to 5 kilograms a year. Bears are milked for bile twice a day.
-
Can the world cope if swine flu goes pandemic?
If an influenza pandemic is declared, investigations by New Scientist suggest that global preparedness for a pandemic is extremely patchy.
-
Swine flu: The predictable pandemic?
There were signs that swine flu posed a human pandemic threat over a decade ago, yet no one paid any attention.
-
Humanity's carbon budget running out fast
To avoid "dangerous" climate change, we must not burn more than one-quarter of our remaining reserves of fossil fuels. That's the conclusion of the most comprehensive effort yet to work out how much carbon can be pumped into the atmosphere without pushing warming past 2
-
Could your trashcan solve the energy crisis?
Vaporising household waste to create clean energy could solve two of humanity's biggest environmental problems at once. But is "gasification" as green as it sounds?
-
Geoengineering could dim lights on solar power
Plans to cool the planet by creating a sunshade could cut the amount of electricity generated by solar power.
-
Did lead cause global cooling?
Atmospheric particles containing lead might have offset the Earth's warming in the 20th century.
-
Greenhouse gas could become clean fuel
A new process converts carbon dioxide into methanol, without the need for extreme temperatures and pressures.
-
Earth's tribes unite against climate threats
Indigenous peoples from as far apart as Lapland and Micronesia are meeting in Alaska to forge a common position on climate change.
-
Why Antarctic ice is growing despite global warming
The southern ozone hole has changed weather patterns around Antarctica and cooled the air above the east part of the continent, according to new research.