The unbelievable underworld and its impact on us all
Manchester, UK (SPX) Nov 28, 2014 -
A new study has pulled together research into the most diverse place on earth to demonstrate how the organisms below-ground could hold the key to understanding how the worlds ecosystems function and how they are responding to climate change.
Published in Nature, the paper by Professor Richard Bardgett from The University of Manchester and Professor Wim van der Putten of the Netherlands Ins ...
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Seized Greenpeace ship leaves Canaries after bail paid
Madrid (AFP) Nov 26, 2014 -
A Greenpeace ship impounded by Spain earlier this month as it protested oil exploration off the Canary Islands was allowed to leave on Wednesday after payment of a 50,000-euro bail, the group said.
The Arctic Sunrise "left at 5:00 pm local time (1700 GMT) and set off toward Valencia" in eastern Spain, a spokesman for the environmental group said.
Spain said it impounded the ship because ...
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German chip-maker Infineon sees growth after solid Q4
Frankfurt (AFP) Nov 27, 2014 -
German semiconductors giant Infineon said Thursday it will pay an increased dividend for the year to September and forecasts further sales growth after a solid fourth quarter.
Infineon, which runs its business year from October to September, said in a statement that its net profit rose by 27 percent to 181 million euros ($226 million) in the fourth quarter.
Fourth-quarter sales were up ...
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China Internet giants in tit-for-tat battle for users
Shanghai (AFP) Nov 27, 2014 -
China's version of Twitter, Weibo, has effectively banned users from promoting the country's most popular messaging app WeChat on its platform as the two Internet giants battle for users.
Nasdaq-listed Weibo said in a statement it would crack down on users disseminating QR (quick response) codes - a type of barcode - and other marketing information.
Weibo did not name WeChat, but the i ...
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ADB ready to work with new China-led bank, says president
Manila (AFP) Nov 26, 2014 -
The head of the Asian Development Bank said Wednesday he is ready to work with China on a new infrastructure investment bank proposed by Beijing, despite fears it could undermine his institution.
The Manila-based ADB is too large and established to be threatened by the proposed lender, Takehiko Nakao told a foreign correspondents' forum in the Philippines.
"If the AIIB (Asian Infrastruct ...
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Selfie sticks could bring jail time in South Korea
Seoul (AFP) Nov 27, 2014 -
That selfie stick in your hand. A harmless memory-maker? Or a potentially chaos-inducing electromagnetic radiation emitter?
In South Korea, it seems, it could be both and anyone selling an unregistered version could face a $27,000 fine or up to three years in prison, the Science Ministry announced last week.
Regulating the sale of these small, articulated monopods designed for cell phone ...
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Australia mulls tighter foreign property investment rules
Sydney (AFP) Nov 27, 2014 -
An Australian parliamentary committee Thursday recommended strengthening rules on foreign investment in the country's booming housing market, calling enforcement of the current framework "severely lacking".
The committee's review was commissioned this year amid concerns that local buyers were being squeezed out of the residential property market by foreign investors, particularly cashed-up C ...
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China's Alibaba plans to invest more in India
New Delhi (AFP) Nov 26, 2014 -
E-commerce giant Alibaba's founder Jack Ma promised Wednesday to invest more in India where online sales are soaring, predicting that the Internet will transform the country's future.
Ma, on a whirlwind 48-hour trip with a nearly 100-member Chinese business delegation to India, has been scouting for investment opportunities to drive Alibaba's revenues following its record $25-billion initial ...
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Solar industry pins great hopes on Indian solar market
Mumbai, India (SPX) Nov 28, 2014 -
The sixth Intersolar India, India's largest exhibition and conference for the solar industry, drew to a close on November 20. Here, 160 international exhibitors from the fields of photovoltaics (PV), PV production technologies, energy storage systems, and solar thermal technologies showcased the entire solar industry value-added chain.
Around 9,000 visitors, eleven percent more than last y ...
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China coal mine explosion kills 11: Xinhua
Beijing (AFP) Nov 27, 2014 -
Eleven people died Thursday in a coal mine explosion in China, state media reported, in the second deadly accident in two days in the country's notoriously dangerous mining industry.
The blast ripped through the Songlin mine in the southwestern province of Guizhou in the morning when 19 miners were working underground, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
Eight of them managed ...
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Solarmax Is Latest Victim of Decline of European Solar Inverter Market
Wellingborough, UK (SPX) Nov 28, 2014 -
Solarmax was the fifth largest photovoltaic (PV) inverter supplier in the world in 2008, with a market share of over 4 percent. Its market share has declined each year since, and it held a share of less than 1 percent in 2013.
It was largely of a victim of a severe decline in the European PV inverter market, which has fallen from $5.5 billion in 2010 to $1.9 billion in 2013.
It is fo ...
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US automakers aim for luxury market in China
Detroit (AFP) Nov 27, 2014 -
China is the new El Dorado for US automakers looking to develop sales of their luxury brands, which globally are lagging behind German and Japanese competitors.
General Motors, the largest US automaker, already sells more cars in China each month than it does in its home market and expects that to continue.
"Our joint ventures in China are working to boost production capacity by 30 perce ...
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Trina gets carbon footprint verification for solar PV modules from BSI
Changzhou, China (SPX) Nov 28, 2014 -
Trina Solar has announced it obtained Carbon Footprint Verification for the Company's solar PV modules from the British Standards Institution (BSI), a leading international standards and certification body.
The Carbon Footprint Verification, which is based on standards PAS 2050 and ISO 14067, is widely used as a means of quantifying the carbon footprint of a range of goods and services. ...
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Yingli supplies 72 MW of panels to Solarcentury in the UK
Baoding, China (SPX) Nov 28, 2014 -
Yingli Green Energy has announced that the Company will supply 72 megawatts of multi- and monocrystalline solar panels to Solarcentury Holdings. In terms of the agreement between Yingli and Solarcentury, the Company will complete the delivery of approximately 168,000 solar panels by the end of this year.
The panels will be installed in projects across the UK. These projects will produce ap ...
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China blames politics for Indonesia development bank delay
Beijing (AFP) Nov 27, 2014 -
China said on Thursday that "domestic reasons" had caused Indonesia to delay joining a new infrastructure bank seen as an attempt by Beijing to rival Western-backed international development banks.
Indonesia, Japan and South Korea were absent when China and 20 other countries agreed in Beijing last month to found the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), expected to have an initial ca ...
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Mittal bids for 'environmental disaster' Italian steel plant
Rome (AFP) Nov 26, 2014 -
ArcelorMittal has teamed up with Italy's Marcegaglia to bid for Ilva, a loss-making Italian steel plant at the centre of a major environmental scandal, the target company confirmed Wednesday.
The Ilva site at Taranto in the Puglia region of southern Italy employs 16,000 workers and has the biggest output capacity of any plant in Europe.
It is currently operating at roughly half of its pe ...
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Super material has chink in its armour: study
Paris (AFP) Nov 26, 2014 -
Scientists said Wednesday they had found a chink in the impermeable armour of graphene, the world's thinnest material, and one of the strongest.
The team said they were surprised to see the super material known to repel all gases and liquids, let through sub-atomic particles called protons.
And they hailed the unexpected finding as a potential breakthrough for fuel cells - a non-polluti ...
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TEPCO starts cementing tunnels to solve Fukushima water issue
Tokyo, Japan (Sputnik) Nov 28, 2014 -
The Fukushima power plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) on Tuesday announced that it was starting to cement the underground tunnels near the second power generating reactor in order to solve the problem of radioactive water leakage into the ocean through the groundwater.
In April, TEPCO started experimentally freezing the highly contaminated water accumulated in the undergr ...
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Protons fuel graphene prospects
Manchester, UK (SPX) Nov 28, 2014 -
Published in the journal Nature, the discovery could revolutionise fuel cells and other hydrogen-based technologies as they require a barrier that only allow protons - hydrogen atoms stripped off their electrons - to pass through.
In addition, graphene membranes could be used to sieve hydrogen gas out of the atmosphere, where it is present in minute quantities, creating the possibility of ...
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Shaping the future of energy storage with conductive clay
Philadelphia, PA (SPX) Nov 28, 2014 -
In the race to find materials of ever increasing thinness, surface area and conductivity to make better performing battery electrodes, a lump of clay might have just taken the lead. Materials scientists from Drexel University's College of Engineering invented the clay, which is both highly conductive and can easily be molded into a variety of shapes and sizes.
It represents a turn away fro ...
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Single-atom gold catalysts may enable cheap output of fuel and chemicals
Somerville MA (SPX) Nov 28, 2014 -
New catalysts designed and investigated by Tufts University School of Engineering researchers and collaborators from other university and national laboratories have the potential to greatly reduce processing costs in future fuels, such as hydrogen. The catalysts are composed of a unique structure of single gold atoms bound by oxygen to several sodium or potassium atoms and supported on non-react ...
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