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A Chinese expedition is all set to build an inland research base at Dome Argus, or ‘Dome A’, in Antarctica, 4,093 meters above sea level.

According to a report in Nature News, Kunlun, the station, which is scheduled to open on January 28, will gather data in fields ranging from global climate change to the origin of the Universe.

The 37 million dollars Kunlun will be China’s third Antarctic station, joining the Great Wall station in the South Shetland Islands and the Zhongshan station in east Antarctica.

“The Kunlun station will be a major legacy of the International Polar Year and will propel China to the heart of the Antarctic map,” said Jean de Pomereu, a photographer who followed the expedition to Zhongshan for the Brussels-based International Polar Foundation.

“It is absolutely fantastic to have a station there,” said Eric Wolff, an ice-core specialist at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK.

On October 20, the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration (CAA) sent its expedition team from Shanghai aboard the icebreaker Xue Long to the coastal Zhongshan station.

Bad ice conditions delayed their arrival, but on December 18 — two weeks behind schedule — a 28-man ‘inland team’ began the nearly 1,300-kilometre traverse to Dome A.

On arriving at Dome A this week, the expeditioners will have just 20 days to build the station before temperatures drop sharply to below –50 degrees Celsius in early February. At the end of this year’s first phase of construction, Kunlun is expected to have a main building of 230 square metres, with 11 units for sleeping, eating and working.

It will have space for up to 25 people, according to Qu Tanzhou, director of the CAA. Six more units are expected to be added next year, for a total area of 327 square meters.

Over the next decade, China hopes to add more facilities to Kunlun, including a large fuel tank and a solar-panel array to provide additional power, and to eventually be able to operate year round.

The CAA also plans to have its own aircraft in Antarctica to shuttle researchers between Zhongshan and Kunlun, increasing the research capacity at both stations.

“Only with these logistics in place will we be able to make the most out of the station,” said Qu.

A team of scientists has suggested that growing plants and trees on top of a landfill, a process known as ‘phytocapping’, could reduce the production and release of harmful greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide (CO2).

Despite legislative pressures to reduce landfill use, in certain parts of the world, it remains the most economical and simplest method of waste disposal.

Biodegradation of organic matter in a landfill site occurs most rapidly when water comes into contact with the buried waste, according to Kartik Venkatraman and Nanjappa Ashwath of the Department of Molecular and Life Sciences, at Central Queensland University (CQU), Rockhampton, Australia.

They point out that conventional approaches to reducing this effect involve placing compacted clay over the top of a landfill to form a cap that minimizes percolation of water into the landfill.

But, according to researchers, the use of clay capping has generally proved ineffective in trials in the US.

Hence, a new technique, known as phytocapping, which involves placing a layer of top soil and growing dense vegetation on top of a landfill, was successfully trailed at Rockhampton’s Lakes Creek Landfill.

This research was conducted by Venkatraman and Ashwath, in conjunction with the Rockhampton Regional Council and Phytolink Pty LTD.

Selected plant species are established on an unconsolidated soil placed over the waste. The soil acts both as “storage” and “sponge” and the plants as “bio-pumps” and “rainfall interceptors”.

For an effective site water balance, it is important that appropriate plant species are chosen and the soil depth optimized.

As such, the team has investigated the effects of different ranges of species as well as soil depth.

The team’s studies of the benefits of a landfill phytocap show that the approach can reduce surface methane emission four to five times more than the adjacent un-vegetated site.

They found that a cap of 1400 mm thickness also reduces surface methane emissions 45 percent more than a cap half as thick.

The benefits of phytocapping include, cutting in half the cost of landfill remediation and providing biodiversity corridors along which wild species can travel.

The process also inverts the aesthetic qualities of landfills adjacent to urban communities, and in some cases, introduces economical benefits such as timber and fodder.

“The establishment of phytocaps would offer an additional and economical way of reducing methane emission from landfills,” the researchers concluded.

A hydropower firm in Himachal Pradesh has been penalised for violating environmental laws, the government said Friday.

Om Power Corp, that is executing a 15-MW hydropower project near Palampur town in Kangra district, has been fined Rs.6.4 million after being found violating green norms.

“Om Power Corp has been asked to deposit Rs.64 lakh (Rs.6.4 million) for violating environment norms while executing the project. We will not allow the company to resume work till it takes corrective measures,” Forest Minister J.P. Nadda told IANS.

“The company has violated environment laws - from haphazard cutting of hills, damaging trees to unscientific dumping of debris in areas close to water channels,” he added.

A forest department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said most hydropower projects are violating environment laws. “But the government is adopting a pick-and-choose policy to take action. It reacts only when there is a protest by local communities,” the official said.

The hill state has abundant water resources. Its power generation potential is 20,415 MW, about 25 percent of India’s total hydropower potential, out of which only 6,150 MW has been tapped so far.

In 2006, the state government approved a hydropower policy that aims to make Himachal Pradesh the ‘hydropower state’ of India. Since then, it has sanctioned a slew of hydro projects.

Local entrepreneurs are being encouraged to take up projects of between 2 MW and 5 MW generation capacity. Those above 5 MW are being allotted after open bidding.

The Asian Development Bank last month announced it would provide Himachal Pradesh $800 million as loan for projects that together will add 808 MW.

Honey bees, whose numbers are falling, must be given flowery “recovery zones” in Europe’s farmlands to aid their survival, a leading EU lawmaker said Wednesday.Bees pollinate numerous crops and scientists have expressed alarm over their mysterious and rapid decline. Experts have warned that a drop in the bee population could harm agriculture.

“If we continue to neglect the global bee population, then this will have a dramatic effect on our already strained world food supplies,” said Neil Parish, who chairs the European Parliament’s agriculture committee.

Parish, a British conservative, said vast swathes of single crops such as wheat often made it difficult for bees to find enough nectar.

But he said farmers could help bees by planting patches of bee-friendly flowers — including daisies, borage and lavender.

“We’re talking about less than one percent of the land for bee-friendly crops — in corners where farmers can’t get to with their machinery, round trees and under hedges.”

Genetically modified crops, climate change, pesticides and modern farming techniques have all been blamed for making bees vulnerable to parasites, viruses and other diseases.

More research is needed to pin down the exact cause of the declining number of bees, the European Parliament is expected to recommend in its vote Wednesday evening.

“The experts themselves are mystified,” said Parish. “A failure to act now could have catastrophic consequences.”

The EU parliament’s vote will carry no legal weight but is intended to nudge the European Commission and EU member states to take the matter seriously.

A California-based computer scientist, a philosophy professor and a molecular biologist each received USD 500,000 at an awards ceremony today for this year’s Kyoto Prizes for achievement in the arts and sciences.

Computer scientist Richard Karp, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, won the prize in advanced technology for his work in measuring how difficult certain computational problems are to solve - a fundamental step in designing computer algorithms.

The award in arts and philosophy went to Canadian professor Charles Taylor for developing a social philosophy that allows individuals from diverse backgrounds to keep their identities and still live peacefully together.

Canadian molecular biologist Anthony Pawson was picked in the basic sciences for research that deepened understanding of how cells communicate. The University of Toronto professor’s discoveries have spurred progress in a wide range of biomedical research and the development of anti-cancer drugs.

The three received a gold medal and USD 500,000 each at a ceremony in Kyoto.

Founded in 1985, the Kyoto Prize is given to people for their contribution in the scientific, cultural and spiritual betterment of humankind. It is awarded by the Inamori Foundation, the charitable body established by Kazuo Inamori, founder of Japanese electronics maker Kyocera Corp.

Nearly the length of a human arm, a recently identified stick bug from the island of Borneo is the world’s longest insect, British scientists said on Thursday.

The specimen was found by a local villager and handed to Malaysian amateur naturalist Datuk Chan Chew Lun in 1989, according to Philip Bragg, who formally identified the insect in this month’s issue of peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa. The insect was named Phobaeticus chani, or “Chan’s mega stick,” in Chan’s honour.

Paul Brock, a scientific associate of the Natural History Museum in London unconnected to the animal’s discovery said there was no doubt it was the longest extant insect ever found.

Looking more like a solid shoot of bamboo than its smaller, frailer cousins, the dull-green insect measures about 22 inches, if its delicate, twig-like legs are counted. There are 14 inches from the tip of its head to the bottom of its abdomen, beating the previous record body length, held by Phobaeticus kirbyi, also from Borneo, by about an inch.

Stick bugs, also known as phasmids, have some of the animal kingdom’s cleverest camouflage. Although some phasmids use noxious sprays or prickly spines to deter their predators, generally the bugs assume the shape of sticks and leaves to avoid drawing attention.

“Their main defence is basically hanging around, looking like a twig,” Brock said. “It will even sway in the wind.”

For Bragg, who works as a schoolteacher and catalogues stick bugs as a hobby, the discovery showed the urgency of conservation work.

“There aren’t enough specialists around to work on all the insects in the world,” he said. “There’s going to be stuff that’s extinct before anyone gets around to describing it.”

The Phobaeticus chani is now a part of the Natural History Museum’s “Creepy Crawlies” gallery. It went on display Thursday.

A state-of-the-art, solar powered version of the humble cycle-rickshaw promises to offer a solution to urban India’s traffic woes, chronic pollution and fossil fuel dependence, as well as an escape from backbreaking human toil.

The “soleckshaw”, unveiled this month in New Delhi, is a motorised cycle rickshaw that can be pedalled normally or run on a 36-volt solar battery.

Developed by the state-run Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), prototypes are receiving a baptism of fire by being road-tested in Old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk area.

One of the city’s oldest and busiest markets, dating back to the Moghul era, Chandni Chowk comprises a byzantine maze of narrow, winding streets, choked with buses, cars, scooters, cyclists and brave pedestrians.

“The most important achievement will be improving the lot of rickshaw drivers,” said Pradip Kumar Sarmah, head of the non-profit Centre for Rural Development.

“It will dignify the job and reduce the labour of pedalling. From rickshaw pullers, they will become rickshaw drivers,” Sarmah said.

India has an estimated eight million cycle-rickshaws.

The makeover includes FM radios and powerpoints for charging mobile phones during rides.

Gone are the flimsy metal and wooden frames that give the regular Delhi rickshaws a tacky, sometimes dubious look.

The “soleckshaw,” which has a top speed of 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) per hour, has a sturdier frame and sprung, foam seats for up to three people.

The fully-charged solar battery will power the rickshaw for 50 to 70 kilometres (30 to 42 miles). Used batteries can be deposited at a centralised solar-powered charging station and replaced for a nominal fee.

If the tests go well, the “soleckshaw” will be a key transport link between sporting venues at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

“Rickshaws were always environment friendly. Now this gives a totally new image that would be more acceptable to the middle-classes,” said Anumita Roychoudhary of the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment.

“Rickshaws have to be seen as a part of the solution for modern traffic woes and pollution. They have never been the problem. The problem is the proliferation of automobiles using fossil fuels,” she said.

Initial public reaction to the “soleckshaw” has been generally favourable, and the rickshaw pullers have few doubts about its benefits.

“Pedalling the rickshaw was very difficult for me,” said Bappa Chatterjee, 25, who migrated to the capital from West Bengal and is one of the 500,000 pullers in Delhi.

“I used to suffer chest pains and shortage of breath going up inclines. This is so much easier.

“Earlier, when people hailed us it was like, ‘Hey you rickshaw puller!’ Police used to harass us, slapping fines even abusing us for what they called wrong parking. Now people look at me with respect,” Chatterjee said.

Mohammed Matin Ansari, another migrant from eastern Bihar state, said the new model offered parity with car, bus and scooter drivers.

“Now we are as good as them,” he said.

Indian authorities have big dreams for the “soleckshaw.”

India’s Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal who hailed the invention for its “zero carbon foot print” said it should be used beyond the confines of Delhi.

“Soleckshaws would be ideal for small families visiting the Taj Mahal,” he told media.

At present battery-operated buses ferry people to the iconic monument in Agra — but their limited numbers cannot cope with the heavy tourist rush.

CSIR director Sinha said he hoped an advanced version of the “soleckshaw” with a car-like body would become a viable alternative to the “small car” favoured by Indian middle class families.

“Greenhouse gas emissions are showing an increasing trend year on year and 60 percent of this comes from the global transport sector.

“In the age of global warming, the soleckshaw, with improvements, can be successfully developed as competition for all the petrol and diesel run small cars,” Sinha said.

Startling evidence has emerged from new research to show that when fishes get a mouthful of sand, the days of coral reefs are numbered.

“We’ve known for a while that having a lot of sediment in the water is bad for corals and can smother them,” said David Bellwood, professor at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) and James Cook University.

The killer blow for a degraded coral reef is a thick mat of sand and weeds that shrouds the rocky surfaces on which the corals would normally grow, preventing them from re-establishing. This gritty algal ‘turf’ has shown itself to be remarkably hardy and, once in place, makes it almost impossible for the corals to return.

If sea levels rise, then the smothered reef ‘drowns’ and never recovers, Bellwood said. “We know this from geological history, at the time of previous sea level rises. The reason we are doing the work is to see whether or not coral reefs will be able to keep up with rising sea levels under climate change.”

But Bellwood and colleague Chris Fulton from the Australian National University have also uncovered a remarkable link in the chain which explains why the algal turf can win in its ‘turf war’ with the corals, according to an ARC press release.

When the water is thick with sediment and it settles on the seaweeds, herbivorous reef fish turn up their noses at the gritty food, much as humans disdain a sandwich that has been dropped on a sandy beach.

“Remarkably we found that when there is little sediment around and plenty of fish, the fish ‘mowed’ the weeds very fast, eating two thirds of their length in about four hours. This action by fish in keeping the algal turf down gives the corals a chance to re-establish” said Fulton.

“But if there is a lot of sediment in the water, the fish go off their feed, the weeds grow, more sand settles - and the murky shroud that smothers the reef becomes more stable, often permanent. Then, when sea levels rise, the reef drowns.”

A new study that directly links population declines in birds to climate change, has determined that birds that haven’t adjusted to the realities of a warming world are worse off than their more flexible counterparts, and could become extinct within a number of years.

According to a report in New Scientist, the findings, by Diego Rubolini of the University of Milan, Italy, and colleagues, are based on more than four decades of migration observations and population estimates of 98 European migratory bird species.

“Those species that are unable to keep pace with climate change could go extinct within a number of years,” said Rubolini.

“It’s groundbreaking because it shows that the predictions of the past two to three years – that birds are going to decline because of climate change – are already coming true. It’s no longer just a prediction,” said Richard Primack of Boston University.

The team looked at changes in the average migration time of individual species at different observation points in central Europe and Scandinavia from 1960 to 2006.

They then compared these travel times with population trend assessments for each species from 1970 to 1990 and 1990 to 2000.

Birds that started to migrate earlier with increasingly warmer spring temperatures had stable or increasing populations, but those that didn’t adjust their travel plans had populations that were in rapid decline.

The researchers attribute the decline to the birds falling out of sync with peak food supplies at their summer breeding grounds.

As global temperatures rise, the greatest warming occurs during the spring – especially in the Arctic, where plants and insects have responded by speeding up their annual life cycles.

According to Primack, similar declines will be found in North American birds and suggests the observed population declines are just the beginning.

“As temperatures continue to rise, these changes are going to get a lot more dramatic for birds, mammals, and other groups of organisms,” he said.

The study accounted for a number of factors that could also have affected changes in population including; migration distance, location of wintering grounds, and the habitat and latitude of breeding grounds

The deepening upheaval on Wall Street has rippled throughout New York’s business community, hurting everyone from luxury goods stores to charities to Manhattan restaurants, store owners and experts say.With New York already feeling the effects of a weak US economy, the fall of bank Lehman Brothers, the sale of its rival Merrill Lynch & Co Inc and the struggles of insurer American International Group, all headquartered in Manhattan, have only added to concerns as Wall Street lays off well-paid bankers and the wealthy rein in their spending.

“These people will probably have to start curbing on some of the more lavish expenses,” said Matthew Miller, editor of Forbes magazine’s list of the richest Americans. “A $20 martini might need to turn into a $15 martini — it’s all relative.”