Tiny particles of diamond dust dating back 12,900 years ago have been discovered at six North American sites, including one in the Ozarks. The scientific team that made the discovery says the presence of the diamonds provides strong evidence of an Earth impact with a rare swarm of carbon and water rich comets.

The nanodiamonds, weighing in at just 10 to 2,700 parts per billion, can be produced…[more]

A magnificent fireball that lit up the night skies over Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada on November 20 has been determined to have been caused by a 10 ton asteroid fragment that exploded when entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

The fireball first appeared as the fragment began to pierce the atmosphere about 50 miles above
Lloydminster, Alberta/Saskatchewan and ended up fragmenting in a series of explosions. The desk-sized…[more]

University of Liverpool (England) scientists have come up with a way to convert methane gas into a powder that can be more easily transported. That could be welcome news to consumers of natural gas as well as to the environment since methane is often burned off in large quantities because, in its gaseous state, it is difficult and expensive to transport over long distances.

The chemists at Liverpool…[more]

A $15 million grant was awarded to the state of Oklahoma to research the production of alternative fuels from non-food crops.

The award was made by the National Science Foundation and will be receive an annual $1.1 million match from the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. The grant money will be used to fund a research project that involves scientists from Oklahoma State University, the University of…[more]

Some of the tiniest solar cells ever built have been successfully tested as a power source for even tinier microscopic machines. An article in the inaugural issue of the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (JRSE), published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP), describes an inch-long array of 20 of these cells—each one about a quarter the size of a lowercase “o” in a standard 12-point font.

…[more]

Move over, oil, gasoline, and coal. Researchers are describing key advances in developing new fuels to help supply an energy-hungry world in the 21st Century in the eighth and ninth episodes in the American Chemical Society’s Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions series. Those fuels include “green gasoline,” “designer hydrocarbons,” “the ice that burns,” and other sources that can help power an energy-hungry world into the future.

Part One of New…[more]

Yale researchers have discovered that it is not “cold hands, warm heart” as the old adage goes, but rather touching something warm that seems to warm the heart.

The basis of their study was a little sneaky as scientists recruited 41 students for what they were told would be a personality test. Instead, the real research began in the elevator ride in Yale’s psychology building. A lab worker…[more]

Here’s something that might be good news to Arkansas and Missouri poultry farms. The Netherlands has just opened the world’s largest biomass power plant running exclusively on chicken manure.

What’s more, the biomass power plant is expected to be able to deliver renewable electrical energy to 90,000 homes.

Utilizing over 440,000 tons of chicken manure annually, the plant will be able to produce more than 270…[more]

Actually to a planet scientists have determined may be suitable to life. The planet, known to astronomers as Gliese 581C, was sent over 500 images, text messages and drawings by way of a radar telescope that usually tracks asteroids.

Scientists selected Gliese 581C because data shows it may have the conditions necessary to support life. But a reply may not be forthcoming even if life does exist on…[more]

High energy prices and the concept of renewable energy has some people thinking. And devising new ways of harnessing the natural energy already available in ways we might be able to use in the future.

One such person is John Mankins, president of the Space Power Association and proponent of harnessing solar energy in space and sending it Earthward as power. Mankins presented a small scale demonstration of…[more]