The project to produce pollution-free electricity using rocket technology is an effort by Clean Energy Systems, Inc., a company founded by former employees of rocket maker Aerojet Inc., which is adapting rocket technology for energy generation. Clean Energy Systems has approached Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) with a proposal to build a larger research facility with funds from the US Department of Energy.

According to the scientists, the system works by burning fuel and water in an atmosphere of pure oxygen at high temperatures - about 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit. This produces a gas mixture of steam and pure carbon dioxide as the only combustion products. The fuel can include natural gas, synthetic gas from coal, petroleum, and biomass. Although carbon dioxide is produced, it is not allowed to escape into the atmosphere. Instead, it can be recovered and used for industrial processes, for oil extraction, or simply stored. The other emission component, the steam, is then used to drive a turbine and generate electricity.

Dr Mann GmbH of the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB, Stuttgart, Germany, has developed a process that uses bioabsorbers to bind heavy metals, and therefore remove them from process waste streams.

Outflows of wastewater from numerous industrial processes contain heavy metals that are a serious hazard to the environment. At the same time, these outflows are of considerable commercial value.

Currently, both thermal and membrane processes are used to recover these metals from wastewater and return them to the production cycle. The most common method used involves precipitation reactions followed by an adsorption process using synthetic resin ion exchangers. The disadvantage of using synthetic resins is that they are made from petroleum, which is a limited resource.

The new ordinance says a refund will be mandatory for all beverage containers considered "detrimental to the environment." That includes cans and throw-away bottles but excludes beverage cartons. The refund is to be about US$0.22 for small containers and about US$0.44 for bottles of 1.5 litres or more. The measure is meant to stabilize Germany's traditional system of reusable bottles.

The existing Packaging Ordinance, passed in 1991 and last revised in 1998, prescribes a market share for these refillable bottles of at least 72 percent. Should that quota be missed several years in a row, a mandatory deposit automatically kicks in, according to the old ordinance.

The low but continuous noise of everyday local traffic can cause stress in children and raise blood pressures, heart rates and levels of stress hormones, reported a new study by a Cornell University environmental psychologist and his European co-authors. The study also found that girls exposed to the traffic noise become less motivated, presumably from the sense of helplessness that can develop from noise they could not control.

Researchers at University of Michigan and Duke University in North Carolina have completed a seven-year study which raises doubts about the ability of forests, so-called carbon sinks, to soak up excess carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere from exhaust pipes and smoke stacks.

The new research by the American scientists shows a shortage of water and nutrients in the soil could limit how trees respond to increases in carbon dioxide. In terms of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide, there is a need to consider the fertility of the site when we want to know how much carbon absorption we have now and how much we can project in the future.

Claims that smoking is twice as dangerous for a woman as a man are backed up by experiments on lung tissue, says a UK expert. David Philips is a lung cancer expert at the Institute of Cancer Research in London. His team studied lung tissue from men and women, and found that women who smoked the same number of cigarettes as men showed twice the amount of DNA damage to their lungs.

The Orlando Sentinel reported that algae have left cancer-causing toxins in drinking water that goes to nearly 185,000 people in West Palm Beach and three southwest Florida counties.

Treated water from a plant on the Peace River that serves people in Charlotte, Sarasota and DeSoto counties contained levels that were five times the World Health Organisations safe level for microcystin, while treated water flowing to homes of 80,000 residents in West Palm Beach contained levels double the safe level. Microcystin is a tumour-promoting toxin that damages chromosomes. Three plants on Lake Okeechobee (Florida) that provide water for 34,000 residents on its shores had higher levels of cylindrospermopsin, (another algae-produced toxin) in treated water than in the lake itself. All these water plants had one thing in common: They draw from surface waters which are all plagued by algae blooms which usually come and go.

The study from Sasha Madronich, a researcher at the U.S government's National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, reported that hydroxyl, a natural detergent that neutralizes most pollutants, is created by ultraviolet radiation that would be blocked if the ozone hole were sealed.

According to the worst scenario, a serious decline in hydroxyl levels could make asthma the number one killer of people under 30. Japan could choke on China's pollution, and famine could grip Russia due to crop failure.