More and more countries are banning incandescent light bulbs in favor of energy-efficient compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs. But options to recycle the mercury-laden alternatives are often scarce.

A toxic gas present in air pollution and tobacco smoke plays a significant role in triggering tuberculosis infection, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

The UAB study focused on carbon monoxide (CO), a colorless, odorless gas present in tobacco smoke, and vehicle and manufacturing plant emissions. Also, CO is produced naturally in brushfires and volcanic gas.

Six dietary supplements sold by Herbalife Ltd contain dangerous amounts of lead if taken in the recommended dosages, according to information posted on Monday on a Web site linked to a long-time critic of the firm.

Herbalife disputed the claim, saying its weight-loss and nutritional products met regulatory requirements in all of its markets.

According to a new study, knowledge of potentially toxic household substances among primary caregivers for young children is alarmingly poor. The results show that less than one-third of primary caregivers for children under the age of six could correctly estimate the toxicity of household poisons. The study is being presented at the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine’s 2008 Annual Meeting.

More and more countries are banning incandescent light bulbs in favor of energy-efficient compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs. But options to recycle the mercury-laden alternatives are often scarce.

The next scourge to afflict the global economy after soaring oil and food prices will be a surge in the cost of water brought on by growing scarcity, one of the world's biggest companies warned yesterday.

General Electric, the US industrial group, said it would cut its own use of water by 20% by 2012 and export water-saving and recycling technology to countries - often emerging economies - hit by shortages.

An abrupt release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from ice sheets that extended to Earth's low latitudes some 635 million years ago caused a dramatic shift in climate, scientists funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) report in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

The shift triggered events that resulted in global warming and an ending of the last "snowball" ice age.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) noted in a press release from yesterday that, "The latest Food Outlook indicates that the food import bill of the Low Income Food Deficit Countries (LIFDCs) is expected to reach US$169 billion in 2008, 40 percent more than in 2007. FAO calls the sustained rise in imported food expenditures for vulnerable country groups 'a worrying development,' and says that by the end of 2008 their annual food import basket could cost four times as much as it did in 2000.

Whale hearts hold clues to making pacemakers and lizard skins are showing how to cut friction in electrical appliances as companies mimic nature to develop high-tech goods, a U.N.-backed report said on Wednesday.

Among other advances that could save hundreds of millions of dollars, the wings of desert beetles could improve water collection and the drought-resistant African "resurrection plant" indicates ways to store vaccines without refrigeration.

Getting away from it all doesn’t have to mean leaving your frosty cold-ones behind. These SunDanzer energy efficient DC refrigerators can keep your vitals cold while maintaining the off-the-grid status of your mountaintop yoga studio.