Home to a green-minded people and government, Norway exports the dirty stuff to the rest of the world. The result is a contradiction

On the shores of a glittering fjord, in the shadow of craggy mountains, right at the heart of Norway, stands a new factory belonging to a firm called NorSun. Inside, blond technicians in goggles tease metres-long crystals out of vats of liquid silicon and slice them into the thinnest of wafers, to be used in solar panels. The power for the factory is as pristine as the surroundings: it comes from a nearby hydroelectric plant. “It’s a nice idea,” says Cecilie Holst, one of the employees, “making solar panels with clean energy.”

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Electric propulsion provides some excitement amid the gloom

THE sombre mood at this year’s Detroit motor show manifested itself most visibly in the austerity of the exhibitors’ displays, and Chrysler’s in particular. Over the years the smallest of America’s Big Three manufacturers has introduced new models by driving a sport-utility vehicle through the plate-glass windows of the Cobo Hall, dropping a pickup from the roof and firing a minivan through the air. But having just received a life-saving government bail-out, Chrysler did not want to appear extravagant. Gone were the over-the-top stunts and computer-controlled fountains. Instead it opted for a simple exhibit that resembled a giant showroom.

A beacon in the darkness

General Motors (GM), the recipient of its own bail-out, also opted for the corporate hair shirt. Ford, the strongest of the Big Three, was careful not to appear too flashy. And even the Japanese carmakers, wary of reviving protectionist sentiments, took a low-key approach. Only the Germans were in a party mood. Some carmakers, including Nissan, Land Rover and Porsche, did not attend the show at all—understandably, given the collapse of America’s car market during 2008.

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Biologists debate the scale of extinction in the world’s tropical forests

A RARE piece of good news from the world of conservation: the global extinction crisis may have been overstated. The world is unlikely to lose 100 species a day, or half of all species in the lifetime of people now alive, as some have claimed. The bad news, though, is that the lucky survivors are tiny tropical insects that few people care about. The species that are being lost rapidly are the large vertebrates that conservationists were worried about in the first place.

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London - Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate the same amount of harmful carbon dioxide as boiling an electric kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.

A typical search generates about seven grammes of CO2 whereas an electric kettle generates about 15 gm, a newspaper quoted a Harvard University physicist as saying.

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