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Texas leads the nation in wind power, but some environmentalists worry about bird deaths cause by wind turbines – typically, birds fly into the blades of the turbines. Now, a new approach pioneered by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hopes to decrease those fatalities by trying to calculate the probability of […]
One of the nation’s leading researchers who’s trying to make batteries better is James Tour and his colleagues at Rice University. “Everybody’s investing billions. If you say millions they scoff at you,” Tour told News 88.7. Tour says there are three categories of things that need better batteries: portable electronic devices, electric vehicles, and a use […]
A satellite launched by NASA over the weekend could help people around the world tackle the challenges of drought. Researchers at the University of Texas will play a part in that mission that could also help forecast flooding and allow officials to better manage reservoir water supplies. The SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive) satellite that launched […]
Rain or shine, in the light of summer or the early afternoon darkness of winter, under heavy sleet, unrelenting winds or drifts of snow, people in Copenhagen just bike. They bike in fur coats, they bike in suits and ties. They bike old, they bike young. They wheel their kids around on a cargo bike […]
Standing on the shore of the Baltic sea a few miles outside of Copenhagen, Denmark, the view’s about what you’d expect. Rocky shore, grey horizon, a boat here or there. But this shore is special. Look up, and you’ll see — and hear — three giant offshore wind turbines cutting through the air. Each stands 500 […]
About an hour’s drive outside of Sevilla, Spain’s old city, past grazing black-footed pigs and olive orchards, sits the Abengoa Solucar complex, and it’s truly a sight: Imagine cresting a hill and then all of the sudden seeing several large towers, over 500 feet high, with hundreds of beams of light striking them — solar […]
Credit Photo courtesy of Richard Casteel Todd Caldwell works on a soil moisture monitoring station in Central Texas. Stanley Rabke’s family has lived and worked on their Hill Country ranch since 1889. Generations of Rabkes have struggled with the extremes of Texas weather, but one storm sticks out in Stanley’s memory: it came after the […]
Helped by $6 million from the State of Texas, prairies west of Houston are being restored with native grasses to increase the population of Bob White Quail. There’s something missing these days around ranches and farms just west of Houston: the unmistakable call of the Bob White Quail. “Everybody knows that sound, “said Robert Perez, […]
From KXWT News: By early next year, alongside the sound of jets landing at the Midland International Airport, you might also hear sonic booms from space flights re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. This month, the private space company XCOR broke ground at the airport, where it plans to launch commercial space flights next year. Some hope this new […]
Global demand for solar panels could soon create shortages according to Bloomberg News. In Texas, costs for solar are dropping and the amount of power Texans now get from the sun is up over 30-percent in the past year. But while some housing developments are banning the roof-top solar panels, saying they’re unsightly, some homeowners in […]
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