London, Dec 11 : A team of scientists has theorized that nanoparticles from melting glaciers can help slow global warming, by trapping CO2 from the atmosphere.

According to a report in New Scientist, Rob Raiswell of the University of Leeds, UK and colleagues trained high-resolution microscopes on ice sampled from icebergs in the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic glaciers from which they are born.

They found nano-sized particles of iron, between five and 10 millionths of a millimetre across.

Washington, Dec 11 : The first quantitative, scientific evaluation of the proposed, major, energy-related solutions, has suggested that natural sources like wind, water and the Sun are much better than biofuels, nuclear and coal for clean energy.

The evaluation was done by Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University.

Washington, Dec 11 : Researchers in Nevada, US, are reporting that waste coffee grounds can provide a cheap, abundant, and environmentally friendly source of biodiesel fuel for powering cars and trucks.

In the new study, Mano Misra, Susanta Mohapatra, and Narasimharao Kondamudi note that the major barrier to wider use of biodiesel fuel is lack of a low-cost, high quality source, or feedstock, for producing that new energy source.

Spent coffee grounds contain between 11 and 20 percent oil by weight, which is about as much as traditional biodiesel feedstocks such as rapeseed, palm, and soybean oil.

Washington, Dec 10 : A new research has determined that contrary to earlier projections, few developing countries will be able to afford more efficient technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next few decades.

The study, by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado, warns that continuing economic and technological disparities will make it more difficult than anticipated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and it underscores the challenges that poorer nations face in trying to adapt to global warming.

Many developing countries, such as Mexico, are failing to adapt technologies that are substantially more efficient and could result in reduced carbon dioxide emissions.

Washington, December 10 : A new chromium-free coating can help protect cars against rust, reveals new study.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institutes for Silicate Research ISC in Würzburg and for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU in Chemnitz, developed an alternative anti-corrosion method based on nanocomposites as against the long-standing chromium plating prohibited since 2007.

The boffins along with colleagues at the Institute for Corrosion Protection Dresden GmbH had submerged steel sheets into a coating sol, applied a power coating and exposed them to various tests to produce the new nanomaterials.

Washington, Dec 10 : In an effort to combine the properties of plastics and metals, scientists have developed a composite material, which not only conducts electricity like metals but is also light and inexpensive like plastics.

The plastic-metal hybrids will be used in the very places where plastic components are equipped with printed circuit boards, for instance in cars or aircraft.

Till date, it was only possible via the roundabout route of punching and bending metal sheets in an elaborate process in order to integrate them in a component.