More than 50% of buyers put location as the number one influencing factor in their choice of a new home. Things like low crime rate, good local amenities, road network and schools all influencing their decision of location. And we all know ‘good location’ homes sell at a price premium.
After location it traditionally used to be factors such as friendly neighbours, large gardens and fitted kitchens that weighed heavily in the buyer’s mind for choosing a home. But what is surpris
Weather extremes brought on by climate change could make such anomalies more common
Buoyed by the effects of an intense drought, otherwise harmless snails likely killed off thousands of acres of salt marsh in the Southeast in recent years.
Periwinkle snails, known to science as Littoraria irrorata, normally coexist happily with salt marsh. But the drought, which lasted from 1999 to 2001, weakened and killed marsh grasses such as cordgrass, or Spartina alterniflora, so ex
All-purpose detergents remove lead-contaminated dust from household surfaces just as effectively as high phosphate detergents and lead-specific cleaning products, according to new research scheduled for publication in the Jan. 15 issue of the American Chemical Society’s Environmental Science & Technology journal.
The researchers, led by Roger D. Lewis, Ph.D., CIH, of the Saint Louis University School of Public Health, tested how well various detergents removed lead from three
In the first-ever poll of European consumers, supermarkets, chefs and restaurateurs on attitudes toward seafood and the ocean, 79% said that the environmental impact of seafood is an important factor in their purchasing decisions.
The new study, commissioned by the Seafood Choices Alliance in partnership with Greenpeace, the Marine Conservation Society, WWF and the North Sea Foundation, reveals that 86% of consumers would prefer to buy seafood that is labelled as environmentally re
When oil is produced, water accounts for about 60 per cent of the pumped volume. Today, a high percentage of this briny water is polluted. In response to the authorities’ target of pollution-free produced water, a new cleaning technology will be developed over the next three years.
Water volumes are increasing, and purification requirements are becoming far more stringent. In response, we are making broad-based efforts to develop a whole new technology, comments the project man
According to a letter published in Nature, widespread culling of badgers caused a 19 per cent reduction in the incidence of cattle TB in the areas culled, but also led to a 29 per cent increase of TB in surrounding areas. The researchers suggest the increase is caused by the remaining badgers roaming more widely.
The team had previously found that localised ’reactive’ culling increased TB incidence in cattle by 27 per cent. Ecological data suggests that increased badger
Unsafe levels of lead have been found in soil and sediments left behind in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and could pose a heightened health threat to returning residents, particularly children, according to a new study published in the American Chemical Society’s journal Environmental Science & Technology. In some soil samples collected from the area, lead levels were as much as two-thirds higher than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers safe, according to rese
The NAPOLEÓN Integrated Project has been recently launched under the leadership of Professor José María Asua of the University Institute of Polymeric Materials (POLYMAT) at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).
Over a period of four years, 21 European participants, including large and small business enterprises as well as universities, will work on the development of radically new products through the technological process for the production of controlled nanostructured
The Chemical Industries Association (CIA) today commended the Trade & Industry Committee’s report on its inquiry into ‘Security of Gas Supply’ and strongly agrees with the Committee’s assessment that the UK does not have a properly functioning forward gas market.
The CIA also shares its concern – acutely – over problems of uncertain supply and the high prices caused by dependence of the liberalised UK market on the largely unreformed European one. As the Committee observes, “It is fa
London is completely blanketed by the black plume of smoke from Europe’s worst peacetime fire in this Envisat image, taken within five hours of the blaze beginning.
This image was acquired at 10:45 GMT on Sunday morning by the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS), one of ten instruments aboard Envisat, Europe’s largest satellite for environmental monitoring. This Reduced Resolution mode image has a spatial resolution of 1200 metres, and shows the cloud spread across a span
Groups rally to safeguard hundreds of imperiled species
Safeguarding 595 sites around the world would help stave off an imminent global extinction crisis, according to new research published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Conducted by scientists working with the 52 member organizations of the Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE –– www.zeroextinction.org), the study identifies 794 species threatened with imminent extinction, each of which is in
Environmental damage in the Baltic can have negative effects on the important species bladderwrack (kelp) and thereby on the entire ecosystem. This in turn would have a severe economic impact on fishing. This is shown in a study presented by Mid Sweden University in Sweden.
Bladderwrack is one the few marine algae that can survive in the low salt content of the Baltic. It is counted as one of the ecologically most important species in the Baltic, where bladderwrack constitutes a ma
A vegetated rooftop recycling system has been developed that allows water to be used twice before it is flushed into the communal waste water system.
The Green Roof Water Recycling System (GROW) uses semi-aquatic plants to treat waste washing water, which can then be reused for activities such as flushing the toilet.
GROW is the brainchild of Chris Shirley-Smith, whose company Water Works UK is collaborating with Imperial College London and Cranfield University. The res
The Coral Reef Research Unit (CRRU) at the University of Essex has been awarded a grant to explore unknown coral reefs around an un-explored island in the Seychelles.
The research, funded by the EarthWatch Institute and Mitsubishi, will start in July 2006.
Dr David Smith, Director of the CRRU, recently returned from the annual EarthWatch PI conference where he presented a paper about the research: ’Scientists from all over the world met to discuss their research an
Last week the historic fortified town of Campeche, in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, was the centre for a Conference on the use of space technologies to conserve the world’s natural and cultural heritage, including UNESCO biosphere reserves.
Experts representing more than 30 countries attended this international conference on the ’Use of Space Technologies for the Conservation of Natural and Cultural Heritage’, organised by the National Institute of Anthropology and Historia (
In both poor and rich countries, well-educated people are receptive to the knowledge of climate experts. Expert knowledge can make people see climate change as a shared, global problem even though it affects different parts of the world so differently. This is shown in a dissertation by the political scientist Monika Bauhr at Göteborg University in Sweden.
You often hear that climate change is a global problem. At the same time, political and economic differences lead to differe
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