Silicon Valley is experimenting with bacteria that have been genetically altered to provide ‘renewable petroleum’“Ten years ago I could never have imagined I’d be doing this,” says Greg Pal, 33, a former software executive, as he squints into the late afternoon Californian sun. “I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right? But the people I talk to – especially the ones coming out of business school – this is the one hot area everyone wants to get into.”More…

British householders can produce their own energy, but official policy has led to Britain lagging behind the rest of Europe. Geoffrey Lean reports.Ministers could avoid building nuclear reactors by encouraging families to fit solar panels and other renewable energy equipment to their homes, a startling official report concludes.More…

It has long been the holy grail for those who believe that technology can save us from catastrophic climate change: a device that can “suck” carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air, reducing the warming effect of the billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas produced each year.

Now a group of US scientists say they have made a breakthrough towards creating such a machine. Led by Klaus Lackner, a physicist at Columbia University in New York, they plan to build and demonstrate a prototype within two years that could economically capture a tonne of CO2 a day from the air, about the same per passenger as a flight from London to New York.

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Many scientists now believe the Earth can be altered to tackle global warming. But are these geoengineers being overly optimistic? Danny Bradbury investigates.

It sounds like something from B-movie lore. Scientists working to avert global catastrophe invent a terrible technical instrument that could affect the fundamental way that the planet operates. The question is not whether they should use it, but whether they have a choice.

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On May 22, researchers at Osaka University presented the first demonstration of cold fusion since an unsuccessful attempt in 1989 that has clouded the field to this day.

To many people, cold fusion sounds too good to be true. The idea is that, by creating nuclear fusion at room temperature, researchers can generate a nearly unlimited source of power that uses water as fuel and produces almost zero waste. Essentially, cold fusion would make oil obsolete.

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“Monkeys have learnt to feed themselves using a robotic arm controlled by their thoughts”, The Times reported today. It said that this experiment could ultimately lead to paralysed people and amputees leading more independent lives. Extensive media coverage was given to a study in two rhesus monkeys that were fitted with a brain implant and then trained to control a robotic arm with their thoughts to feed themselves.

A letter to the scientific journal Nature described the study and included a description and videos of the technology known as the “brain-machine interface”. Microelectrodes were implanted in the parts of the brain that control movement and the monkeys learned how to generate signals that were used to direct a robotic arm with five types of movement. Complex software allowed the researchers to adjust the speed, direction and end position of the arm so that the electrical impulses from the brain produced a useful movement with which the monkeys fed themselves.

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Food is now worth more as petrol than on the table, says Chris Goodall, and the unpalatable truth is that only a long and painful attack on oil consumption will reverse the spiral in food prices. 

The rising cost of foods is widely being blamed on the use of grains for biofuels, and the case for the prosecution is simply made. About 100m tonnes of maize from this year’s US crop will be diverted into ethanol refineries, an increase of a third on 2007’s figure. This means one in 20 of all cereal grains produced in the world this year will end up in the petrol tank of US cars, the country that is most aggressively increasing the use of food for fuel. 

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How two tiny glitches plunged 500,000 homes into the darkTwo relatively minor technical glitches within two minutes of each other triggered the most serious disruption to Britain’s energy supply network in more than 20 years this week.But power industry insiders said that the shutdown, which led to blackouts in as many as 500,000 homes across the country on Tuesday, could have been even worse.More…