Human tongue can taste “flavour” of carbon dioxide in fizzy drinks

October 15th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Arctic land and seas lock up as much as a fourth of the world's carbon dioxide, so the melting of Arctic ice can potentially alter climate, says a new study. Current levels of global warming could diminish or reverse this vast Arctic sink -- one of the world's biggest -- possibly upsetting expected rates of climate change.

October 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - You would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels as high as they are today, say scientists. Then "global temperatures were five to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today, sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland," said Aradhna Tripathi, who led the study.

September 24th, 2009 TORONTO - Capturing carbon directly from the air is the only way to prevent dangerous climate changes, says a pioneering Canadian scientist. University of Calgary scientist David Keith says governments need to earmark more research funding for technologies to capture carbon dioxide in surrounding air to save the planet.

August 28th, 2009 LONDON - The fizzy cola bottle has been voted Britain's favourite sweet of all time in a new survey. The fizzy bottles pushed their original cola to second place, with Rhubarbs and custards landing the third spot.

August 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists have devised a small, cheap, lab-on-a-chip sensor that quickly and accurately identifies sweetness. It can accurately identify the full sweep of natural and artificial sweet substances, including 14 common sweeteners, using easy-to-read colour markers.

July 26th, 2009 LONDON - This might come as a shocker to the milkman or cows, but Coca-Cola are to launch a range of fizzy milk drinks. Trials of the new product - Vio - started last month in New York where it is being marketed as a refreshment drink, and comes in four "natural" flavours - peach mango, berry, citrus and tropical colada.

July 23rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - An Indian-American physicist has devised a cleaner and more efficient way of capturing carbon dioxide from its polluting source, like coal-fired power plants. Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) researcher Amitesh Maiti has come up with a screening method that would use ionic liquids -- molten salt that becomes liquid under the boiling point of water (100 degrees Celsius) -- to separate carbon dioxide from its source.

July 21st, 2009 WASHINGTON - Advertisements that only mention taste and ignore other senses will be less effective, suggests a new study. Naturally, most food advertisements mention the taste of the food being marketed.

July 16th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The accidental discovery of a bowl-shaped molecule that pulls carbon dioxide out of the air paves the way for exciting new possibilities to deal with global warming. These possibilities include genetically engineering microbes to manufacture those carbon dioxide "catchers", said J.A.

July 5th, 2009 LONDON - Honeybee hordes form "bee balls" to mob and smother their predators, giant hornets, killing them within 10 minutes of trapping, scientists have observed. According to the journal Naturwissenschaften, honeybees use heat and carbon dioxide as part of their mechanism to guard themselves from their natural enemies.

June 23rd, 2009 LONDON - A new study on the effects of climate change on melting ice sheets has indicated that even if scientists could freeze-frame the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) as it is today, sea levels would still rise by 25 meters by 4000 AD. According to a report in New Scientist, Eelco Rohling of the UK National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton and colleagues conducted the study.

June 22nd, 2009 LONDON - A new study on the effects of climate change on melting ice sheets has indicated that even if scientists could freeze-frame the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) as it is today, sea levels would still rise by 25 meters by 4000 AD. According to a report in New Scientist, Eelco Rohling of the UK National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton and colleagues conducted the study.

June 19th, 2009 LONDON - Your birthplace not only decides your accent but also what you like to eat and drink, a new study has shown. If scientists from the University of Nottingham are to be believed, people's culinary preferences could be broken down like regional accents and are highly dependent on an area's history.

May 30th, 2009 MANILA - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) expressed concern Saturday over the unabated increase of carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles in the region's developing countries. The Manila-based bank said that while developed countries are still responsible for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector, emissions from developing countries in Asia are growing rapidly.

March 24th, 2009 LONDON - If you've grown up on the most famous instant snack- Pot Noodle - and have a thing for kebabs, then here's an ultimate combo for you: the doner kebab flavour Pot noodle. In what we can call the marriage of two of Britain's less celebrated food products, the Unilever, the food giant behind Pot Noodles is bringing out a flavour that champions the Turkish lamb dish.