Nanotechnology cancer risk found: Some carbon nanotubes used in bike parts, bumpers and other products could act like asbestos if inhaled, scientists report. Workers making the products are at greatest risk, the study finds. [LA Times]
Burning Our Way Toward Fusion: While we continue to see false progress toward viable cold fusion, our goals in the realm of real fusion may have just become a little more realized. Researchers working with the Vulcan laser at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK have successfully heated matter to 10 million degrees Celsius, a precursor to controlled nuclear fusion. [Popsci]
Biofuel Crops: A Threat to Native Species?: Countries thinking of joining the rush for biofuels run the risk of planting invasive plant species that could wreak environmental and economic havoc, biologists warned on Tuesday. [Discovery]
In Defense of Biofuels: Biofuels—a class of fuels of which ethanol is the most prominent and immediately promising—can play a central part in weaning the United States from oil. But in recent months, a flood of press reports, articles in scientific journals, and statements from international bureaucrats have suggested that ethanol is starving the world’s poor, is a waste of government money, and is bad for the environment. These claims are simply not true. [The New Atlantis]
Dead water: Too much nitrogen being washed into the sea is causing dead zones to spread alarmingly. [Economist]
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