The world’s first commercial wave farm went live at the end of September in Agucadoura, located off the coast of northern Portugal. Designed by Pelamis Wave Power, the farm employs three Wave Energy Converters - snakelike, semi-submerged devices that generate electricity with hydraulic rams driven by waves. This first phase of the new renewable energy farm is rated at 2.25 MW with 3 machines, and the the second phase will add an additional 25 machines to bring the capacity to 21 MW – enough to power 15,000 homes!

(via Inhabitat)

Britain looks very different from the skies. From a bird’s eye view of the nation, its workings, cities, landscapes and peoples are revealed and re-discovered in new and extraordinary ways.

Cutting edge technology allows you to see through cloud cover, navigate the landscape and witness familiar sights as never seen before.

Previous estimates, dating to the 1980s, put the number of western lowland gorillas at less than 100,000. But the animal’s numbers were believed to have fallen by at least 50 percent since then due to hunting and disease, researchers said. The newly discovered gorilla population now puts their estimated numbers at between 175,000 to 225,000.

This is excellent news. If you haven’t read Nat Geo’s “Who Murdered the Virunga Gorillas” published in last month’s Magazine, you should.

Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro has seen dramatic glacial retreat between 1976 (left) and 2006. The mountaintop glacial area has decreased 80 percent since the early 20th century, says a UN atlas released on June 11, 2008.