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Jan 30, 2009 | 3
In preparation for Sunday's Super Bowl showdown between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals, many football fans this weekend will buy or rent the biggest-screen TV they can get their paws on. Most of them, however, will be focusing on the picture quality rather than the impact on their electric bills of having an energy-guzzling mega-screen in their living rooms. But they might have no choice come this time next year: The California Energy Commission this summer is expected to adopt rules that would require retailers by 2011 to sell only TVs that meet federal Energy Star program standards, according to the Associated Press.
The voluntary Energy Star guides were issued in 1992 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Energy (DOE) to alert consumers to which appliances and electronic gadgets are green, but they don't keep less efficient products off the shelves. TVs that make the cut are generally use at least 30 percent less energy than those that don't get Star ratings.
Jan 20, 2009 | 2
Sea otters' consumption of food contaminated with deadly pathogens may be slowing their recovery in California, where they're endangered, new research suggests.
A study published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that southern sea otters that feed on small marine snails — an inferior food source compared with the abalone they prefer — were more likely to be infected with Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite shed by cats that can cause deadly encephalitis (brain swelling). Among otters foraging in the areas of San Simeon and Cambria, those feasting on marine snails had a whopping 95 percent chance of developing toxoplasmosis, compared with only 22 percent of those gobbling abalone.
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