Houses in this Colorado development are equipped with solar panels and energy-efficient features.

Imagine a truly green suburb, one in which energy-efficient homes are powered by rooftop solar panels and electric cars glide quietly down the streets. Businesses, energy experts, and scholars say low-carbon suburban living is not only possible, but on its way, though not in the short run. Some glimpses of the future:

— In Palm Springs, California, rooftop solar panels are standard in a new community of 42 energy-efficient homes built by Far West Industries of SunPower

Santa Ana. The homes sold quickly, at prices ranging from $600,000 to $700,000. Scott Lissoy, president of Far West, says: “If we’re building in the Coachella Valley, which is one of the hottest areas in California, we’re building with solar panels. It’s the right thing to do.”

— In Colorado, residents of Adams, Boulder and Denver counties are taking advantage of a group buying program called Solar Benefits Colorado that offers discounts on solar panels from a company called Sunrun and […]

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Workers at the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric power plant in El Chaco, Ecuador. Hydropower is the biggest non-polluting source of power generation.
Credit: [e]Stringer/Xinhua Press/Corbis

Renewables are finally becoming a globally significant source of power, according to a United Nations Environment Programme report released in March by Frankfurt School UNEP Centre and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Driven by rapid expansion in developing countries, new installations of carbon-free renewable power plants in 2014 surpassed 100,000 megawatts of capacity for the first time, according to the Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment report. It appears that renewable energy is now entering the market at a scale that is relevant in energy industry terms – and at a price that is competitive with fossil fuels.

The numbers are compelling. Renewables such as wind, solar and biomass […]

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Credit: www.ctrack.com

Adults with hypertension who do not have diabetes have a lower risk for developing the disease when taking their blood pressure medication at bedtime compared with adults who take the medication upon awakening, according to research in Diabetologia.

In a randomized, prospective, open-label, blinded endpoint trial, the researchers also found that adults who took antihypertensive medications at bedtime significantly decreased their ambulatory BP.

“Ingesting hypertension medications at bedtime, instead of upon awakening in the morning, improves asleep BP control and markedly reduces the risk of diabetes,” Ramón C. Hermida, PhD, director of the bioengineering and chronobiology laboratories at the University of Vigo, Spain, told Endocrine Today.

Hermida and colleagues analyzed data from 2,012 Spanish adults with hypertension but without diabetes (1,036 women; mean age, 53 years; mean BMI, 29 kg/m²; mean duration of hypertension, 6.8 years) who adhere to a routine of daytime activity and nighttime sleep. Participants were randomly assigned to ingest all BP-lowering medications upon awakening (n = 1,029) or to take the complete daily dose […]

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Credit: John Gress / Reuters

Among many moth-eaten perceptions about the American diet is one that links the disproportionate consumption of fast food to low-income families.

Back in 2011, a national study by a team at UC Davis concluded that as American salaries grow into the upper echelons of middle income, so does fast-food intake. “Low prices, convenience and free toys target the middle class— especially budget-conscious, hurried parents— very well,” wrote professor J. Paul Leigh, the senior author of the study. He adds that fast food is most popular among the people who are less likely to be obese.

But could that possibly be true? According to a 2013 Gallup study, the fries don’t lie:

[F]ast food is hardly the province solely of those with lower incomes; in fact, wealthier Americans—those earning $75,000 a year or more—are more likely to eat it at least weekly (51%) than are lower-income groups. Those earning the least actually are the least likely to eat fast food weekly—39% of Americans earning less […]

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Solar energy is a seriously underrated resource.

More power from the sun hits the Earth in a single hour than humanity uses in an entire year, yet solar only provided 0.0039% of the energy used in the US last year.

Visionaries like Elon Musk think that solar will become the biggest energy source by 2031, according to an interview with Tim Urban on Wait But Why.

But what would a world powered by solar look like?

The Earth would probably be littered with solar panels, right?

Wrong.

If solar is 20% efficient (as it has been in lab tests) at turning solar energy into power, we’d only need to cover a land area about the size of Spain to power the entire Earth renewably in 2030. (emphasis added)

This map, from the Land Art Generator Initiative, shows just how little space that really is:

Land Art Generator Initiative

And while it’s useful in the map to show the solar installations as a square bunched […]

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