Mr. Boisjoly wrote a portentous memo six months before the Space Shuttle Challenger’s explosion, warning that if it was too cold, seals connecting sections of the shuttle’s rocket boosters could fail. February 3rd, 2012 | Comments Off

The European Commission has begun a period of consultation on a dedicated legislative instrument on invasive alien species (IAS) (27 January to 12 April). It welcomes contributions from all citizens and stakeholder organisations to the new instrument which it aims to develop by 2012. The Commission adopted a Communication "Towards an EU Strategy on Invasive Species (2008)" to address the gap in legislation on IAS. Last year, the Commission outlined its aim to ensure that "by 2020, Invasive Alien Species (IAS) and their pathways are identified and prioritised, priority species are controlled or eradicated, and pathways are managed to prevent the introduction and establishment of new IAS". The focus of the latest consultation is on the policy measures that are now being considered based on the input and feedback from all relevant stakeholders since the start of the process in 2008. February 2nd, 2012 | Comments Off

The Alfred Toepfer Natural Heritage Scholarships 2012 are now open for applications!. The award provides three young European conservationists with €3 000 to undertake a study visit to one or more protected area located in a European country other than his/her own. They are awarded by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation and the EUROPARC Federation. The deadline for applications is 11 May, 2012. January 31st, 2012 | Comments Off

Operating on money and equipment scrounged from the public and from Silicon Valley millionaires, a band of astronomers recently restarted the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. January 29th, 2012 | Comments Off

Turtles are a common 'poster child' of worldwide conservation efforts. However, exotic species of turtle, such as the common slider (Trachemys scripta), are amongst the most damaging invasive species in Europe. LIFE-Trachemys (LIFE09 NAT/ES/000529) successfully captured 4 600 sliders from wetlands in Valencia in 2011. This represents three times more captures than the preceding year. January 23rd, 2012 | Comments Off

Hundreds of moon rocks and other stuff from space have been lost, destroyed, stolen or remain unaccounted for, according to inspectors. January 22nd, 2012 | Comments Off

There’s a strong bang-for-the-buck argument to be made for ocean-depth missions. January 21st, 2012 | Comments Off

Ten European companies have pledged to reduce their impact on biodiversity, as part of a LIFEplus project, the European Business and Biodiversity Campaign (LIFE08 INF/D/000022). The companies representative of a broad range of sectors – include a car producer, airport manager, a large travel agency and a producer of outdoor products – have all successfully implemented a ‘Biodiversity Check’ offered by the 2010-2012 project. January 19th, 2012 | Comments Off

Sharing best practices on European river restoration is one of the main goals of the LIFEplus Information and Communication project; RESTORE (LIFE09 INF/UK/000032). It was also the topic of a successful workshop hosted last November, by the partnership project in Slovenia. The workshop, held in November 2011 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, looked at “Experiences on reaching consensus on river restoration good practices, as a means to support delivery of European policy goals.” It was facilitated by the Environment Agency (England and Wales), The River Restoration Centre (UK), Wetlands International, CIRF (Italy) and SYKE (Finland) as part of the ongoing RESTORE partnership. January 18th, 2012 | Comments Off

Officials said on Tuesday that they were looking into whether powerful American radar systems might have caused the failure of a $170 million scientific probe headed toward Mars. January 18th, 2012 | Comments Off