Metamaterials are a new class of materials that have been engineered to have properties not found in nature. It is a multidisciplinary science made possible by the tools of nanotechnology. The name refers to “materials beyond the imagination.”

For those wanting to know more about solar power and how we obtain energy from the sun, this information from the Photovoltaic Education Network will prove to be of immense use.Created by Christiana Honsberg and Stuart Bowden, who work at the Solar Power Labs at Arizona State University, they introduce their website with a poignant description of photovoltaics as:“…a most elegant energy source. Light shines on a crystal and produces electricity. It’s as simple as that. There are no moving parts.

Feeling guilty about that second or third (or fourth!) cup of coffee in the morning? Erase that guilt because a new study shows extra coffee may be helping fight depression!

Searching for the healthiest low-calorie sweetener for your coffee in the morning? Seven sweeteners are discussed here. Find out if your favorite makes the best or worst list!

An article was released on Rodale the other day discussing the 4 best and 3 worst sweeteners for our bodies. Here is the gist of that article, and my take on the information provided.

Fresh, pure, premium, and safe are some of the words that come to mind when we think about bottled water. But the question remains: is bottled water really better than tap water? At first glance, it’s easy to assume so. But when we take a closer look, it turns out bottled water isn’t really all that it’s tapped out to be…

Americans spent about $15 billion dollars on bottled water last year, and bottled water sells for at least 300 times the cost of tap water. Bling H2O sells individual bottles for $40. They justify the price with their “9 step purification process” and an aesthetic crystal-infused lining of the bottle. Bling H2O represents the zenith of ultra premium market of bottled water. How did we get here?

Tomorrow is World Vegetarian Day, and to kick-off Vegetarian Awareness Month we wanted to talk about some of the reasons to go vegetarian now!

A research team led by pioneering clean energy technology developer and MIT professor Daniel Nocera has developed an ‘artificial leaf’ that like its namesake captures energy from sunlight and produces electricity that it then turns into chemical fuel — hydrogen and oxygen gas.

Heat-loving fungi could provide a key enzyme for making low cost biofuel, and a team of “mushroom detectives” from the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute think they’ve just nailed their man – er, fungus. In an article published just yesterday in Nature Biotechnology, the team identified two types of fungi that can boost the biofuel refining process along at temperatures up to 75 degrees C. That’s far above the room-temperature range that conventional bio-refining organisms can tolerate.

Fans of all-electric transportation get ready! Parker Brothers Choppers has introduced an all-electric two-wheeled machine that looks like it came from the movie Tron and was delivered here by a meteor from the future.

Hydrogen has, for a long time, been considered by many a potential alternative to fossil fuels such as gasoline for cars, but it has to be stored as a liquid under extremely high pressures ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 psi (pounds per square inch), and in a very expensive container which has to be insulated to keep as much outside heat as possible away from the hydrogen it contains.

According to New Scientist Magazine some fish that the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the largest independent certifier of sustainable fisheries, have certified as sustainable with their eco- label may not be in fact sustainable. It turns out that a study from Clemson University in South Carolina found that some fish that carry the MSC-certified eco-label come from unsustainable fisheries or are the wrong species altogether.