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Elizabeth Demaray, an associate professor of fine arts, is cultivating lichen on the sides of New York City skyscrapers to counteract the lack of native vegetation found in the city. Her "Lichen for Skyscrapers Project" was featured as part of New York's Art in Odd Places Festival from Oct. 1-10 and is currently on view as a site-specific installation on 14th Street between Union Square Park and the Hudson River. "Metropolitan centers figure into local temperatures in an interesting way," Demaray says. "They are sometimes referred to as 'urban heat islands' because they create heat and they trap heat. A large part of this process is due to the materials that we build with and the actual architecture of the buildings that we create." Demaray says one of the ways to reduce heat in these cities is to cultivate lichen, which forms a protective barrier, insulating its supporting building from harmful elements. It can lower cumulative temperatures by absorbing sunlight and reflecting heat due to its light color palate while making oxygen and creating green space on the sides of buildings.

A Binghamton University computer scientist with an interest in "green" software development has received the National Science Foundation's most prestigious award for young researchers.

Investing $40 billion annually in the forest sector is needed for the world to transition into a low carbon, resource-efficient green economy, according to a UN report released here Sunday.

South Korea's largest business group Samsung signed an initial deal Wednesday to invest $7.04 billion in a state project to build a green energy complex on reclaimed wetland.

Fast, low-energy memory for MP3s, smartphones and cameras could become a reality thanks to University of Edinburgh scientists.

A new study has revealed widespread reductions in the greenness of Amazon forests caused by the last year's record-breaking drought.

As manufacturers and other businesses step up efforts to cut waste, reduce energy use and improve the overall sustainability of their products and processes, the number of planet-friendly standards and regulations also is increasing at a rapid clip, creating a sometimes-confusing array of options for "going green." National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers have prototyped a framework to help organizations of all types sort through the welter of choices and evaluate and implement sustainability standards most appropriate for their operations and interests.

"Bicyclean, a pedal-powered grindstone that pulverizes entire circuit boards inside a polycarbonate enclosure, capturing the dust. Though Field is now a year out of college, her project recently won the silver award at the Acer Foundation's Incredible Green Contest in Taiwan and was displayed for three days at COMPUTEX Taipei, one of the world's largest computer industry expositions. The $35,000 prize will enable her to return to Ghana to test a second-generation prototype and to seek non-profit status for the endeavor, a significant milestone in a project she was afraid might fall by the wayside after graduation."

"The unique facility looks and behaves like an actual house, and has been built to U.S. Green Building Council LEED Platinum standards-the highest standard for sustainable structures. The two-story, four-bedroom, three-bath Net-Zero Energy Residential Test Facility incorporates energy-efficient construction and appliances, as well as energy-generating technologies such as solar water heating and solar photovoltaic systems. "

"You hear that it's good to recycle everything," Mr. Herscher said, "and then you hear it takes more energy to recycle paper than it does to cut it down. It's really hard to know what the right thing to do is. This is a way to express my own frustrations."

A University of Washington project sees a role for programmers to reduce the energy appetite of the ones and zeroes in the code itself. Researchers have created a system, called EnergJ, that reduces energy consumption in simulations by up to 50 percent, and has the potential to cut energy by as much as 90 percent. They will present the research next week in San Jose at the Programming Language Design and Implementation annual meeting.

The frustrating search for a shady spot to park is about to get easier. But the new trees being planted at nine big parking lots in the San Jose, Calif., area aren't leafy green saplings, they're big silver specimens with 12-foot-tall trunks and broad steel canopies that will shield cars from the sun - and produce solar power.

Scientists today claimed one of the milestones in the drive for sustainable energy - development of the first practical artificial leaf. Speaking here at the 241st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, they described an advanced solar cell the size of a poker card that mimics the process, called photosynthesis, that green plants use to convert sunlight and water into energy.

Your next new car hopefully won't be a lemon. But it could be a pineapple or a banana. That's because scientists in Brazil have developed a more effective way to use fibers from these and other plants in a new generation of automotive plastics that are stronger, lighter, and more eco-friendly than plastics now in use. They described the work, which could lead to stronger, lighter, and more sustainable materials for cars and other products, here today at the 241st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

City buildings create their own microclimates. Ignoring these variations can make life uncomfortable for inhabitants and prevent buildings from achieving true energy efficiency, according to Evyatar Erell, a professor of architecture at Israel's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev."Even when architects design a green building, it may not make the best use of the environment because other buildings get in the way," he said.

Bloomberg's office says the new initiatives include plans to build solar power plants on capped landfills and launch a loan program to help property owners pay for green energy efficiency upgrades.

The obscure technology used in heated automobile seats, gadgets that charge iPhones from the heat of a campfire, and other devices is undergoing a renaissance and could well emerge as a new "green" substitute for traditional sources of energy and play other key roles in addressing some of society's most pressing sustainability issues. That's the conclusion of an article on the technology - termed thermoelectrics - in the current issue of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) the American Chemical Society's weekly newsmagazine.

The time may finally be right to sell Americans on eco-driving, according to a group of transportation experts from four University of California campuses as well as representatives from industry and government who attended an all-day conference on May 18.

An entire blog devoted to the future.