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The all-new 2012 model – the only factory-built, CNG-powered car produced in America – received the honor yesterday. The prize was presented to Honda by the editors of Green Car Journal representing a diverse panel of environmental experts and automotive enthusiasts who annually select a single vehicle for its outstanding environmental performance. The six-judge panel on the Green Car of the Year jury selected the Civic Natural Gas from a field of five contenders,  including the Ford Focus Electric, Mitsubishi i, Toyota Prius V and Volkswagen Passat TDI. "The Civic Natural Gas is not only a great vehicle, it also demonstrates Honda's commitment to provide a variety of alternatives to gasoline," said Michael Accavitti, vice president of marketing at American Honda Motor Co., Inc. "The Civic Natural Gas and the all-new Fit EV that we introduced yesterday at the Los Angeles Auto Show are the latest additions to a rapidly expanding family of alternative energy Honda v

As part of its commitment to help London 2012 stage a sustainable Olympic Games, The Coca-Cola Company is placing 260 new recycling bins in locations around the city centre. These bins will encourage people to recycle the 11,000 tons of waste produced in the capital every day - before, during and after the Games. Working in partnership with WRAP, Coca-Cola has already established 44 Recycle Zones across the country, and has plans to almost double this number by the time the Games commence. The process that follows the collection of waste includes the following steps:  1. The bottle gets picked up, squashed as small as possible and taken to a reprocessing plant 2. There, the bottle is spun in a special machine to shake off dirt and a magnet removes any metal 3. All the bottles are sorted by color and type 4. The sorted bottles are ground into flakes, and the flakes are then sieved through to get rid of any discolored or contaminated bits 5. These tiny pieces of plastic can then be ma

Theoretical research by scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has led to record-breaking sunlight-to-electricity conversion efficiencies in solar cells. The researchers showed that, contrary to conventional scientific wisdom, the key to boosting solar cell efficiency is not absorbing more photons but emitting more photons. "A great solar cell also needs to be a great light emitting diode," says Eli Yablonovitch, the Berkeley Lab electrical engineer who led this research. "This is counter-intuitive. Why should a solar cell be emitting photons?  What we demonstrated is that the better a solar cell is at emitting photons, the higher its voltage and the greater the efficiency it can produce." Yablonovitch is the corresponding author of a paper describing this work titled "Intense Internal and External Fluorescence as Solar Cells Approach the Shockley-Queisser Efficiency Limit." Co-author

A new plastic chair introduced in Brazil is receiving awards for its contemporary look with a focus on features such as geometry, harmony and consistency thanks to Ticona Engineering Polymers and the exceptionally well balanced property profile of Celstran® long fiber reinforced thermoplastics (LFRT). Manufactured from a single mold, the IC01 chair by designer Guto Indio da Costa uses a  glass fiber  reinforced  polypropylene  ( PP ) Celstran LFRT grade from Ticona that offers design, processing and cost advantages vs. unfilled polypropylenes and acrylonitrile butadiene styrenes ( ABS ), as well as short glass reinforced nylons and polyesters. "In addition to the significant weight and cost advantages over typical materials used in similar applications, this Celstran  PP  LFRT offers high stiffness, strength, toughness and low warpage while providing wide design latitude, colorability and a much better surface finish out of the mold," said Simone Orosco, Development & M

SABIC's Innovative Plastics strategic business unit is presenting the low moisture absorption of Ultem*  polyetherimide  ( PEI ) foam for composite aircraft structures. Ultem resin's low-moisture absorption is critical in that it helps address two major aircraft OEM challenges: reducing weight for fuel conservation and emissions reduction, and lowering systems costs while delivering equal or better performance than traditional materials. Low moisture absorption combined with the proven flame-smoke-toxicity (FST), dielectric, acoustic and thermal performance of Ultem foam underscores the pioneering work of SABIC in engineering superior, world-renowned thermoplastic solutions for the aircraft industry. "By replacing competitive materials such as polymethacrylimide (PMI) with Ultem foam, OEMs and tiers can meet their environmental goals and industry challenges, while lowering systems costs by streamlining processing and extending the application's useful life," sai

Scientists at a Chinese university said Monday they can use rice to make albumin, a protein found in human blood that is often used for treating burns, traumatic shock and liver disease. When extracted from rice seeds, the protein is "physically and chemically equivalent to blood-derived human serum albumin (HSA)," said the research in the US-published Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The findings could lead to a breakthrough in production of HSA, which typically comes from human blood donations. The demand for the blood protein is about 500 tons per year worldwide, and China has faced worrying shortages in the past. The rice method was devised by scientists at Wuhan University in China and colleagues from the National Research Council of Canada and the Center for Functional Genomics at the University at Albany in New York. First, they genetically engineered rice seeds to produce high levels of HSA. Then, they worked out a way to purify the protein from the se

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500165_162-20126356/body-parts-manufacturing-future-may-be-now/ CBS News)   Synthetic body parts sound like something out of a science fiction novel, but body parts that can be used in humans are actually being made and used. A medical professor in England has developed a new nano-plastic that has enabled a world first in organ transplantation and opened the door to "off-the-shelf" body parts.  CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips remarked that professor Alex Seifalian's work might well be the start of a whole new medical industry. While the technique is not yet approved in the United States, Seifalian's London lab is already getting body part orders from other countries around the world. "60 Minutes" on growing body parts Phillips, who recently visited Seifalian's lab, reported that you might think you'd stumbled onto a film set for a re-make of "Frankenstein" in which the synthetic parts are manufactured. Bu