Galaxy chocolate bars to be made with sustainably sourced cocoa by 2010

All Galaxy chocolate bars in the UK and Ireland will be made with sustainably sourced cocoa by 2010, its maker Mars have announced.

Around 160 million bars of the chocolate – Mars’ biggest seller in the UK – will carry the Rainforest Alliance Certified trademark seal by next year, the company said.

The move is part of a larger commitment by Mars to certify its entire cocoa supply as sustainably sourced by 2020.

In 2008, Mars Drinks achieved Rainforest Alliance certification for three Flavia coffee offerings.

Howard-Yana Shapiro, global director of plant science and external research at Mars, said: “Rainforest Alliance certification will make a positive difference for everyone involved from cocoa farmer to chocolate bar.

Continue reading.

Arctic Summer May Be Ice-Free in 30 Years

The Independent, Steve Connor: New studies show floating sea ice more vulnerable to sudden melting.

The frozen ocean of the Arctic might disappear far sooner than scientists have previously predicted with the first ice-free summer occurring within the next 30 years – three times earlier than estimated.

A study of computer models of the Arctic region has found that the vast expanse of floating sea ice that covers the region is far more vulnerable to rapid melting than earlier studies had assumed. The latest analysis found that virtually all the sea ice in the Arctic will have melted during the summer months by 2037, and that it may even disappear as soon as the summer of 2020. Previous studies had suggested that this was unlikely to happen until at least the end of the century.

An ice-free Arctic would spell disaster for the polar bear which uses the summer ice pack to hunt seals. It could also increase regional temperatures because open ocean absorbs more heat from sunlight than the reflective surface of the sea ice.

The latest study was carried out by scientists from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Washington in Seattle using the six most sensitive computer models of the Arctic region.

The findings, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, found that the ice cover was likely to melt rapidly in the next couple of decades, culminating in an open sea, except for a band of ice bordering the shores of northern Canada and Greenland.

Continue reading.

Virus Battery Could ‘Power Cars’

Viruses have been used to help build batteries that may one day power cars and all types of electronic devices.

The speed and relatively cheap cost of manufacturing virus batteries could prove attractive to industry.

Professor Angela Belcher, who led the research team, said: “Our material is powerful enough to be able to be used in a car battery.”

The team from MIT in the US is now working on higher power batteries.

Scientists at MIT used the viruses to build both the positively and negatively charged ends of a battery, the cathode and anode, the journal Science reports.

A battery typically has four key components – the anode and cathode, an electrolyte that flows between them and a separator to keep the anode and cathode apart.

Essentially, a battery turns chemical energy into electrochemical energy when an electron flow passes from the negative end to the positive end through a conductive chemical, the electrolyte.

Continue reading.