Want to lose weight but find it hard to hit the gym three times a week or eating 1,500 calories per day? You might not have to do either. New research suggest sleeping more could be enough to keep the flab away. Research into the circadian clock that regulates our sleep-wake cycle shows disruptions to the clock may be linked to metabolic disorders such as obesity and type-2 diabetes. And researchers say sleeping for eight hours a night and eating during daylight hours could be as important in controlling weight gain as diet and exercise. Gad Asher, clinician and medical researcher from the Department of Biological Chemistry at Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, presented research to a Garvan Institute seminar on obesity in Melbourne last night that found every cell in the body has a circadian clock.

Raising a family can be a difficult matter. But does it make one happy or miserable? Of course part of the answer is that it depends... Contrary to some scholarship and popular belief, parents experience greater levels of happiness and meaning in life than people without children, according to researchers from the University of California, Riverside, the University of British Columbia and Stanford University. Parents also are happier during the day when they are caring for their children than during their other daily activities, the researchers found in a series of studies conducted in the United States and Canada.

The warming temperatures will bring many people out into the sun to get a little color on their skins. The sun, while being the source of all life on Earth, is also quite lethal if exposed for too long. As summer approaches, it is good to remember a few things about protecting your skin from the great ball of fire in the sky. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has teamed up with the National Council on Skin Cancer Prevention, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and National Park Service (NPS) in a joint effort to spread the word. They have designated the Friday before Memorial Day as "Don't Fry Day" to highlight the important message.

The international wind power industry is watching Washington, DC to see if lawmakers will extend the federal production tax credit (PTC) for wind power. But their eyes are also focused on Trenton, the state capital of New Jersey, to see if state regulators there will help launch America's long-awaited offshore wind energy industry.

An University of California - Riverside led team has identified black carbon and tropospheric ozone as the most likely drivers of large-scale atmospheric circulation change in the Northern Hemisphere tropics zone. While stratospheric ozone depletion has already been shown to be the primary driver of the expansion of the tropics in the Southern Hemisphere, the researchers are the first to report that black carbon and tropospheric ozone are the most likely primary drivers of the tropical expansion observed in the Northern Hemisphere.

Cities in a number of Asian countries, including China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan, are currently on the warpath against plastic shopping bags. The cities have passed local laws that ban such bags, on the basis that they clog sewers and drainage canals, cause street flooding, choke animals and are responsible for other forms of environmental damage. China and Taiwan, for example, impose heavy fines on violators. Other countries are appealing for a switch to the production and use of biodegradable bags. But this misses the point. People do not object to using biodegradable bags, and consider them a welcome return to the traditional practice of using shopping baskets and bags made from locally available materials — such as jute, abaca and cloth — that are less harmful to the environment.

Some people like food or beverages hot and some like them cold. What's the difference? Can the temperature of the food we eat affect the intensity of its taste? It depends on the taste, according to a new study by Dr. Gary Pickering and colleagues from Brock University in Canada. Their work shows that changes in the temperature of foods and drinks have an effect on the intensity of sour, bitter and astringent tastes but not sweetness. Their work is published online in Springer's Chemosensory Perception journal. Humans receive tastes through sensory organs called taste buds concentrated on the top of the tongue. Taste is sensed through taste cells, which are known as taste buds. There are about 100,000 taste buds that are located on the back and front of the tongue. Others are located on the roof, sides and back of the mouth, and in the throat.

Earth's ecosystems keep soaking up more carbon as greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere, new measurements find. The research contradicts several recent studies suggesting that "carbon sinks" have reached or passed their capacity. By looking at global measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the new work calculates instead that total sinks have increased roughly in line with rising emissions.

Curious about electric cars? On your next vacation, give one a test drive—and instead of paying high gas prices, charge up for free. Major car rental companies, which have been offering hybrid vehicles for years, are now getting into the electric car (EV) market. And an ever-growing number of hotels, resorts, and even B&Bs are adding free electric-car charging stations to entice guests to get off the grid and plug in their cars when they travel.

Lowering your carbon footprint and reducing greenhouse gasses may become as simple as painting your home or office, thanks to breakthrough research from the University of Notre Dame. The researchers, led by Professor Prashant Kamat, have created a new solar paint dubbed Sun-believable, which is laced with power producing nanoparticles capable of producing electricity. With the ability to generate renewable energy from this new, less invasive method, bulky solar panels as we know them today may soon become relics destined for the museum.

Conservation groups have condemned a move by European agricultural ministers to tone down some of the most controversial environmental proposals in the next phase of the EU's farm support programme. Agricultural and fisheries ministers from the 27 EU countries called yesterday (15 May) for replacing conservation measures recommended by the European Commission with a more flexible system. The decision was not a surprise — ministers have indicated in the past that there was little political appetite for creating requirements in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that tie direct payments to farmers to measures aimed at cutting carbon emissions and reducing other pollutants.

With melting sea ice opening up previously inaccessible parts of the Arctic Ocean, the fishing industry sees a potential bonanza. But some scientists and government officials have begun calling for a moratorium on fishing in the region until the true state of the Arctic fishery is assessed. When scientists with the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program began tracking 323 vertebrate species across the entire Arctic several years ago, most assumed that many fish and animals would not fare well in a region where rapid warming is causing such profound changes.

All are aware of the tragic loss of biodiversity that this planet is current going through in various ecosystems. However, a new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report shows that when good policies are in place, natural ecosystems can sustain themselves and thrive. NOAA has released its annual report, stating that a record six fish populations have been rebuilt to healthy levels in 2011. This brings the number of rebuilt US marine fish populations to 27 since the start of the 21st century, showing that great strides have been made to end overfishing thanks to all interested parties.

While many government officials nervously await the outcome of the November elections and speculate as to its implications for the cleantech sector, one federal department is likely to be relatively unaffected regardless of the outcome: Defense. According to panelists at the recent "Mission Critical: Clean Energy and the U.S. Military" event in Denver, the military's growing commitment to reducing its use of fossil fuel, for both national security and economic reasons, will not waver regardless of who's in charge in the White House or the Congress.

Airlines operating in and out of European airports have complied with the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and handed over data despite the refusal of carriers from China and India. The airlines have provided emission information ahead of the introduction of mandatory reporting. And according to the latest information provided by Member State registries released today, emissions of greenhouse gases from all installations participating in the ETS decreased by more than 2% last year.

Radiation exposure is not too good for one's health and well being. But how much is enough and how much is deadly? A new study from MIT scientists suggests that the guidelines governments use to determine when to evacuate people following a nuclear accident may be too conservative. The study, led by Bevin Engelward and Jacquelyn Yanch and published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, found that when mice were exposed to radiation doses about 400 times greater than background levels for five weeks, no DNA damage could be detected.

Typically heavily reliant on the cost of high and volatile diesel and fossil fuel imports, small island developing states are also on the front line when it comes to having to cope with climate change. Now they're realizing there's a lot in the way of cleaner, more efficient and less costly power and fuel resources right at home. They're increasingly, if belatedly, establishing ambitious renewable energy programs and setting aggressive targets to employ local renewable energy resources to reduce CO2 and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, working with a range of international development agencies, public and private sector partners domestic and foreign, in doing so.

Vast groundwater resources have been revealed in Africa by the first continent-wide quantitative maps. But the resources may not be easily accessible because of political and technical challenges and costs, say experts.

The bottom of the sea to many must be perfectly calm and placid. Well maybe not so... Volcanoes on the seafloor can grow or collapse tens of meters in just a few days, a new study has found, suggesting that the seabed is much more unstable than previously thought. Researchers, led by Professor Tony Watts of Oxford University’s Department of Earth Sciences, report in Nature Geoscience how they surveyed the topography of the active Monowai volcano, a submarine volcano on the southwest Pacific Ocean floor near Tonga, in May and June 2011.

The world's biodiversity is down 30 percent since the 1970s, according to a new report, with tropical species taking the biggest hit. And if humanity continues as it has been, the picture could get bleaker. Humanity is outstripping the Earth's resources by 50 percent — essentially using the resources of one and a half Earths every year, according to the 2012 Living Planet Report, produced by conservation agency the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).