Oil Peak and the Renewable Abiotic Petroleum
	We are living in a civilization based on oil. It is an issue that makes us extremely vulnerable. That's because of the global "Peak Oil." The oil production follows a bell curve. Its peak is the moment when oil has been 50% depleted. After the peak, oil production decreases while its price starts to go up. Many scientists, bankers and investors consider that 2005 was the year of global Peak Oil. US domestic oil ... [read more >>]
	10 May 2008, 06:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

World's Largest Underwater Robot
	Weighing a massive 60 tons and with the dimensions of a small house, the UT-1 Ultra Trencher is now the biggest underwater robot ever made to be used for installing subsea cables for telecommunications and pipelines used in the oil industry. UT-1 Ultra Trencher is 7.8 meters long, 7.8 meters wide and 5.6 meters tall, cost 10 million UK pounds to build and may navigate through the water at speeds of 2 to 3 knots. Its XXL dimen ... [read more >>]
	24 March 2008, 06:59GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Arab Emirates Say They Will Build Pollution-Free City
	Now that's really unexpected! I always thought that the first pollution-free city will be build in the United States, not in the middle east. I guess this should be an example for a country that considers itself the most technologically advanced in the world, but is still being the biggest carbon dioxide emitter and has been dodging international regulation related to carbon dioxide emission for more than three decades. Take ... [read more >>]
	22 January 2008, 05:15GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Is Fish Good or Bad For Your Heart?
	Fish oil is the childhood nightmare for many of our grandparents. And while fish oil supplements could be recommended for some cardiac patients, others could experience negative effects, as found by a meta analysis carried out at St. Michael’s Hospital and University of Toronto and published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The team analyzed data coming from researches made on subjects with implantable cardioverte ... [read more >>]
	15 January 2008, 04:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Top 10 Unusual Ecological Sources of Fuel
	We live in an oil dominated world: who gets it holds the power. That's why the western world is struggling to find new fuels that would free it from an oil-and-gas based economy, which renders them vulnerable to the blackmail of some oil-and-gas rich countries, like many in Middle East, Russia or Venezuela, where human rights do not mean much. Not to mention the funds terrorism gets from oil trade... Nuclear energy is not a reliabl ... [read more >>]
	12 December 2007, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Are Birds Affected by Oil Spills Really Saved?
	The oil spill wipes out life on its way; the tidal areas are depleted of life. A large array of sea species, from marine mammals (cetaceans, seals, otters) to sea birds, turtles, fish, crustaceans, and mollusks lose their habitat. The petroleum attacks directly the animals and plants, both physically and chemically. Most animals die smeared by the oil or intoxicated by hydrocarbons. Clams and cockles have no chance. The fuel breaks dow ... [read more >>]
	12 December 2007, 07:02GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Geologist Indicator Plants
	There are over 200 species of plants linked to the existence of underground ore deposits. Plants usually need in low amounts metals for their metabolism. If there is too high the amount encountered in the soil, the plants depose the absorbed excess in their tissues. Sometimes, the deposits can be so big, that when the concentration bypasses 150:1,000,000, the plants can be exploited like ore deposits. The metal is extracted from their ... [read more >>]
	21 November 2007, 10:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Black Sea, a Dead Sea?
	The Black Sea is already considered one of the most polluted seas in the world. In the last 40 years it turned into a sort of depository for half of Europe, a place for depositing huge amounts of phosphorus compounds, mercury, DDT, oil and other toxic wastes coming from the 160 million people inhabiting its shores. The contamination has already had severe environmental effects: from the 26 species of fish captured in the  ... [read more >>]
	16 November 2007, 02:50GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Which Are the Effects of an Oil Spill?
	That was the greatest ecological disaster on the sea: in 1978 the tanker "Amoco-Cadiz" contaminated with 280,000 tonnes of crude oil the coasts off Bretagne (Western France). More "famous" is the ecological catastrophe produced by Exon Valdez in 1989 on Alaska's shores. During the 1991 Gulf War, about one million oil tonnes blackened the Persian Gulf. In 1992, The "Aegean See" got stuck in La Coru ... [read more >>]
	30 August 2007, 14:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Why Does Drinking Bottled Water Represent an Environmental and Health Risk?
	Plastic is everywhere around us, and nowadays we almost drink from nothing else than plastic containers. It's so fancy to carry with you a plastic bottle and drink your water / juice / soda little by little. But while US bottled water sales are going up by an annual 9.7 %, on a market estimated at approximately $11 billion, amassing at the same pace mountains of tossed plastics, alarm calls are made for people to go back to drinki ... [read more >>]
	16 August 2007, 07:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Borneo's Pygmy Elephants, Under the Risk of Extinction
	This is a dwarf among elephants: the pygmy elephant of Borneo is one meter (3 feet) shorter than its mainland Asian elephant counterparts and remarkably tame and passive. Now, these gentle creatures are menaced by the shrinking and fragmentation of their habitat, the forests. A new research made by the World Wide Fund for Nature has found there are probably no more than 1,000 left, much less than the previous estimate of 1,600 individua ... [read more >>]
	13 August 2007, 03:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Fish Oil Better Than Vegetable Oil
	Do you think that olive oil in the Mediterranean diet is the best? Well, it appears that you are wrong. A new research has found that fish oil, rather than vegetable oil in the diet, reduces the formation of chemicals called prostanoids, which in big amounts cause inflammation in many tissues and organs. "Prostanoids help control blood pressure, fight allergies, and modulate inflammation, but too much of them – especially those ma ... [read more >>]
	30 July 2007, 03:03GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Scientists Believe We Could Soon Create Instant Oil and Natural Gas
	Scientists believe there's a chance to solve the problem of future oil and natural gas shortages, by creating new reserves in a short time that could be regarded as just a flash compared to how much is believed to take for oil to form underground. Although there is no effective way of doing that just yet, Jennifer McIntosh, a geochemist from the University of Arizona in Tucson, thinks that by understanding some unusual p ... [read more >>]
	20 July 2007, 11:17GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Self-propelling Oil Could Produce Synthetic Life
	Tiny drops of an oily mixture can propel themselves in water, without external influences or fuel sources and could one day produce synthetic life in the form of artificial cells that will be able to move independently through living bodies. A special mixture of oil in the form of tiny globules, placed in water, were shown to be able to slowly creep in one direction, a ... [read more >>]
	20 July 2007, 09:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Mystery of Oil Drop In Water Pumping Like a Beating Heart
	A simple experiment produces some puzzling results and no scientific explanation for the phenomenon has been found until recently. This one can be safely performed at home and you don't need expensive equipment. First you must pour clean water onto a small, almost flat, plate. No need for distilled water, as regular water will do just fine. Then, in a ball, mix small amounts of mineral oil with just a tiny drop of detergent. Th ... [read more >>]
	18 July 2007, 04:18GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Suicide Bombers in the Chemical Insect War
	Sometimes the suicide bombers have more noble intentions than 72 virgins. They can save the whole colony, like in the case of the cabbage aphids that have developed a type of mustard oil "bomb" that helps them keep the predators away, as revealed by a new research. This is the first time when aphids have been found to employ a plant chemical (encountered in the species they eat on) to emit a lethal burst of mustard oil when attac ... [read more >>]
	12 July 2007, 05:13GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Olive Oil Fights Off HIV!
	The Mediterranean cuisine considers olive oil one of the healthiest types of food. Now it appears it has a hidden quality: it can even fight the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), as found by a team from the University of Granada, Spain, headed by Professor Andrés García-Granados, senior lecturer in Organic Chemistry. The researchers revealed that the maslinic acid, a natural chemical extracted from dry olive-pomace oil in o ... [read more >>]
	10 July 2007, 05:24GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Why Does Pumpkin Seed Oil Appear Red in a Bottle but Green on a Plate?
	Pumpkin seed oil is a specialty used in the Styria region of Austria and the Lower Styria, in Slovenia. Although used for centuries by the local population, a weird property of this oil could not be explained until now. This oil seems to change color for no apparent reason, depending only on the container. The viscous oil can look dark red when placed in a transparent bottle but light green on a plate or a spoon, depending o ... [read more >>]
	10 July 2007, 04:04GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Giant Microwave Oven Turns Plastic Back to Oil
	Plastics are durable and degrade very slowly. One of the main advantages of this material is the low price and incredible versatility, which led to a rapid expansion of plastic compounds in almost all industry areas. The problem is that it's made of oil and should petroleum prices continue to rise, so will the cost of plastic. Not to mention the fact that oil is not renewable. The same property that made plastic so popular, its du ... [read more >>]
	27 June 2007, 03:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Plastics Made of Glucose
	Nowadays, people turn to nature in their attempt of transitioning from certain technological processes: glucose is going to replace oil to produce fuel and different chemicals. And apparently, plastics, too. Glucose is the main energetic molecule used by plants and animals, the first sugar plants get by photosynthesis and the most common chemical in nature, and it is the basic building block for the molecules of starch and cellulose. ... [read more >>]
	18 June 2007, 04:24GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Future Bags of Chips May Have the Potatoes on the Outside, Too!
	Everybody knows potatoes, some people love them, some people don't. But for the junk food addicts, there are some good news: future bags of chips may actually be made of potatoes, thus bringing the potato out of the bag and into the bag. A new study by the University of Maine's Margaret Chase Smith Policy suggests that there may be another way for the state's potato industry to benefit from the vegetable. So, ... [read more >>]
	07 June 2007, 16:26GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Nanotechnology Recovers Renaissance Masterpieces
	Nanotechnology has found yet another application in our lives and helps us recover some of the most precious works of art from as early as the Renaissance. It's a new development and a simple and cheap method for cleaning up paintings. The new method works like a nano scrub, using oil-in water nanocontainers to remove grime that has deposited on the surface over the centuries, or damaged after floods and even past attempts to rest ... [read more >>]
	15 May 2007, 07:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Hell Bacteria Eating Heavy Oil And Natural Asphalt
	Bacteria come from hell. They can survive in the toughest environments. Now a team at UC Riverside has found in the Rancho La Brea tar pits in midtown Los Angeles, California, hundreds of new bacterial species that live in heavy oil and natural asphalt! Inside the 28,000 years old mix of soil and heavy oil, the bacteria survive due to three previously unknown enzyme types that can break down the petroleum chemicals. "We wer ... [read more >>]
	11 May 2007, 04:14GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Coconut Oil Replacing Diesel
	Oil-based fuels can be costly. And in a few years, the production could become insufficient. That's why on the island of Bougainville (the largest on the Solomon archipelago, Papua New Guinea), the locals have chosen a more effective solution for fueling cars and generators: coconut oil. Currently, there are a lot of mini-refineries on the island producing the plant oil that replaces diesel. The use of cocos-base ... [read more >>]
	09 May 2007, 09:09GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Carbon Nano Lubricant for Auto Engines
	A new material is considered a breakthrough in lubricants for auto motors, as it will greatly improve the durability and lubrication efficiency, far beyond the capabilities of current oil-based lubricants. It is called CNSC (Carbon NanoSphere Chains) and it's produced by CleanTechnology International Corp, who will begin mass production in May, at its factory in Houston, TX. According to the company, the new breakthr ... [read more >>]
	09 May 2007, 07:27GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

U.S. Military Wants to Switch to Alternative Synthetic Fuels
	A synthetic alternative to imported petroleum-based fuel is what the U.S. Military - through the DARPA programs- is searching for these days, to power their 21st Century vehicles. It will probably use the same chemical technology Germany used to produce its gasoline during World War II. Sasol Technology's Delanie Lamprecht points out that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has been seeking alternative ways of obtaining " ... [read more >>]
	24 April 2007, 06:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

By 2008, Earth Will Run Short of Oil
	That's it. The World's natural abundance tap is going to turn off. Between 2008 and 2018, the world will experience a last year of high oil production followed by a constant drop, as it is depicted by a new model made by Fredrik Robelius, a Swedish physicist and petroleum engineer at the University of Uppsala. In 1956, the American geophysicist M. King Hubbert predicted that U.S. oil reserves would reach a maximum with ... [read more >>]
	18 April 2007, 05:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Palm Oil, a Dangerous Solution for Biofuels
	Palm oil has been regarded as the best solution for obtaining an ideal biofuel: a cheap, renewable alternative to fossil fuels that would be also a solution for global warming. Thus, energy companies converted generators and energy production from palm oil increased. But new researches are increasingly pointing that: "As a biofuel, it's a failure." That's the conclusion of a four-year research led by Marcel ... [read more >>]
	02 April 2007, 04:37GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Did Ancient Greeks Smell Like?
	We look at the Middle Ages and we tend to think that precarious hygiene and “skunk” scent characterized the human kind till relatively recent times. Wrong. A new exhibition in Rome reveals to us how people during the Bronze Age employed refined and sophisticated perfumes, typically a mix of natural spices and olive oil. The exhibition also displays artifacts from the oldest known perfume factory. There are four perfum ... [read more >>]
	28 March 2007, 07:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Ice Melting Has Triggered the War for Arctic Riches
	The melting of the polar ice caps due to global warming has accelerated something perhaps unexpected: an international race for oil, fish, diamonds and shipping routes. The frozen north may look barren and uninhabited now, but the latest reports reveal that the northern ice cap is warming faster than the rest of the planet and ice is shrinking quickly. This is a catastrophe for the Arctic ecosystem, including its polar bears and ot ... [read more >>]
	26 March 2007, 07:21GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Breakthrough in Hydrogen Technology: Improved Hydrogen Storage
	Hydrogen may be the fuel of the future. Unlike oil, hydrogen burns much more easily and is totally not contaminant as the only waste product is water. And water, as the hydrogen source, is unlimited. But current technologies do not permit hydrogen use, which is highly explosive. “One of the bottlenecks for bringing hydrogen into everyday use is the problem with storage. This storage problem prevents hydrogen from competing with gas ... [read more >>]
	15 March 2007, 05:27GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia