Researchers at Ghent University have developed a process that turns grass into fuel.
Scientists at the Centre for Microbial Ecology and Technology (CMET), Ghent University have developed a way to turn grass into biofuel. Will we soon drive on ‘grassoline’?
"Until now, grass has mainly served as feed for animals. We can get more out of grass: due to its vast abundance, it is an attractive source to produce organics such as aviation fuel" , scientist Way Cern Khor tells us. During his PhD research at Ghent University, Belgium, he investigated methods that disintegrate and bioconvert grass until it can be used as a fuel.
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The glaciers and ice caps that dot the edges of the Greenland coast are not likely to recover from the melting they are experiencing now, a study has found.
Researchers report in the current issue of the journal Nature Communications that melting on the island passed a tipping point 20 years ago. The smallest glaciers and ice caps on the coast are no longer able to regrow lost ice.
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Elon Musk wants to merge the computer with the human brain, build a “neural lace,” create a “direct cortical interface,” whatever that might look like. In recent months, the founder of Tesla, SpaceX, and OpenAI has repeatedly hinted at these ambitions, and then, earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk has now launched a company called Neuralink that aims to implant tiny electrodes in the brain “that may one day upload and download thoughts.”
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Land snails are generally believed to be ground-dwelling creatures, preferring dark and humid places, like the forest floor, or a suburban garden. So why do we find some species of snails in the tops of trees, where it is relatively light and dry? Associate Professor Ikuyo Saeki from the University of Tsukuba, Japan and her colleagues from Hokkaido University and other institutions, have performed some fascinating research to find out why.
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Travel just few miles west of bustling Cheyenne, Wyoming, a you’ll find yourself in big-sky country. Tall-grass plains line the highway, snow-packed peaks pierce the sky, and round-edged granite formations jut out of the ground. But in this bucolic scene sits an alien building: a blocky, almost pre-fab structure with a white rotunda, speckled with dozens of windows that look out onto the grounds. Inside, it’s home to two supercomputers that focus on the vast landscape above.
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The climate of the Earth follows a complex interplay of cause-and-effect chains. A change in precipitation at one location may be caused by changes on the other side of the planet. A better understanding of these “teleconnections” – the linkages between remote places – may help to better understand local impacts of future climate change. A look into the climate of the past helps to investigate the teleconnections. An international team of Japanese, British, Australian, and German scientists, with the participation of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, now investigated Japanese lake sediments to decipher the interplay between local climate changes on the northern hemisphere about 12.000 years ago. Their results, now published as Nature Scientific Report, show that a regional warming in Europe caused a cooling and an increase in snowfall in East Asia.
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