A field trial of LED light fittings in social housing says the new technology can deliver huge energy savings, reduce costs and makes residents feel safer. The study, carried out by the Energy Saving Trust (EST), measured the performance of more than 4,250 LED light fittings installed at 35 sites. The EST said it carried out the trial because an increasing number of LED lights were now commercially available. It is predicted the technology could dominate the lighting market by 2015. “LEDs promise to be the way forward for the whole sector, to be honest. There are so many benefits: they can be smaller, brighter; it is one of those rare technologies where the trial has shown it performs better than the lighting systems it is replacing but, at the same time, using less energy.” (BBC.co.uk)

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When it comes to green production, “Warner Bros. is extremely conscious about that and works with the physical production people to try and do as much as possible, making sure that everything that can be recycled is,” says Susan Downey, producer of “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” which stars her husband, Robert Downey Jr. and opens Dec. 16. “Most movies are made digitally,” adds producer Joel Silver, pointing out that filmmaking has become a cleaner, less wasteful business. Co-producer Lauren Meek shares some specifics. “As part of the Warner Bros. Green Initiative, Greenshoot were brought in to consult and assist the production in lowering the carbon footprint of ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ and to help implement more sustainable production practices in conjunction with and to complement the Green initiatives already set out by Warner Bros. Over a six-month period, the crew of ‘SH2’ worked to make the production more sustainable and with help, education and guidance more environmentally conscious. (HuffingtonPost.com)

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Electronics giant Sony has demonstrated a battery that runs on shredded paper and produces water as a waste product. At the Eco-Products conference in Tokyo, Sony had a group of kids put paper in a solution of water mixed with enzymes that break down the cellulose and generate current. In the demo, it powered a small fan. Sony’s spokeswoman told Agence France-Presse that the mechanism is similar to the one used by termites to digest wood. In this case, though, the enzymes eat the paper and make electrons and hydrogen ions. The latter mix with air and produce water, while the electrons make a current just like any other battery.If Sony’s bio battery works, it will be a welcome change from the current battery technology, which uses chemicals that are sometimes pretty toxic and for which recycling can be complicated. Even though lithium-ion batteries aren’t classified as hazardous waste, throwing billions of batteries a year into landfills is a less than optimal solution from an environmental perspective. (DiscoveryNews.com)

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At Kmart stores across the country, Santa seems to be getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers’ layaway accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn’t afford, especially toys and children’s clothes set aside by impoverished parents. Before she left the store Tuesday evening, an Indianapolis woman in her mid-40s had paid the layaway orders for as many as 50 people. On the way out, she handed out $50 bills and paid for two carts of toys for a woman in line at the cash register. “She was doing it in the memory of her husband who had just died, and she said she wasn’t going to be able to spend it and wanted to make people happy with it,” Deppe said. The woman did not identify herself and only asked people to “remember Ben,” an apparent reference to her husband. (NYDailyNews.com)

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Sometimes it takes a lot of people to do a little thing for a lot of other people for whom it is a really big thing. The Infant and Child Learning Center’s annual Christmas party, being held today in the SUNY Downstate Medical School’s gym is one of those things. It’s a two-hour long affair for children 5-years old and younger featuring clowns, face painting, Christmas ornament making, presents and a coveted picture with Santa Claus. Presents are handed out in bags as the children, close to 500 of them, leave the party. “It’s a lot of work but worth it in the end,” she said. “It’s very nice to see the kids and their parents so happy.” (NYDailyNews.com)

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The flag of American forces in Iraq has been lowered in Baghdad, bringing nearly nine years of US military operations in Iraq to a formal end. Only about 4,000 US soldiers now remain in Iraq, but they are due to leave in the next two weeks. At the peak of the operation, US forces there numbered 170,000. The symbolic ceremony in Baghdad officially “cased” (retired) the US forces flag, according to army tradition. It will now be taken back to the USA. President Barack Obama, who came to office pledging to bring troops home, said on Wednesday that the US left behind a “sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq”.In a speech in North Carolina to troops who have just returned, Mr Obama hailed the “extraordinary achievement” of the military and said they were leaving with “heads held high”. (BBC.co.uk)

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After seven unsuccessful attempts to undergo a routine double-lung transplant, Nancy Block became in October the second patient so far at New York-Presbyterian Hospital to successfully undergo a revolutionary experimental approach to lung transplantation that could offer more viable lungs to more patients like Block who are on the recipient wait list. The technique, called “ex vivo” — or, outside the body — involves taking the lungs that were removed from the donor and placing them in a transparent case, where they are hooked up to a pump and ventilator. The lungs are closely monitored for up to four hours as they are nourished with nutrients and antibiotics and pumped with oxygen. In the traditional lung-transplant approach, the lungs are assessed in the deceased donor’s body before being removed. If the lung is considered viable, it is stored in cold temperatures within a short window of time before the transplant. But the new preservation technique “revives” the lungs in a transparent box by gradually warming the lungs to normal body temperature, and the organ is reinstated in an environment as if it is in the body. The lungs are assessed and reconditioned in the operating room until the final minute before being placed in the recipient’s body.(ABCNews.com)

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At birth, Melinda Star Guido was so tiny she could fit into the palm of her doctor’s hand. Weighing just 9 1/2 ounces — less than a soda can — she is among the smallest babies ever born in the world. Most infants her size don’t survive, but doctors are preparing to send her home by New Year’s. Melinda was born premature at 24 weeks in late August and spent the early months cocooned in an incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit in Los Angeles. Almost every day, her 22-year-old mother sits at her bedside and stays overnight whenever she can. Despite the hurdles, Melinda lived to her original Thursday due date. She is believed to be the second-smallest baby to survive in the U.S. and third smallest in the world. (ABCNews.com)

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Ten-month-old conjoined twin girls from Chile face perhaps the most grueling fight of their young lives as they recover from separation surgery that doctors successfully completed early Wednesday, all while the entire nation watched on TV and the Internet. Doctors separated the girls at the thorax, abdomen and pelvis, according to the Associated Press. The Luis Calvo Mackenna Hospital in Santiago said surgeons are now closing up each girl’s wounds. The babies, named Maria Paz and Maria Jose, have undergone previous operations to separate their legs, urinary tracts, pulmonary systems and other body parts. But Maria Paz and Maria Jose have already defied some of the biggest odds, and their parents believe they will defy the others as well. “We are going to come out of this,” Navarrete said, “and it will be wonderful when we are together.” (ABCNews.com)

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An infectious disease expert from Queen’s University has helped develop a disinfection system that could revolutionize methods for sterilizing hospitals all over the world. “This is the future, because many hospital deaths are preventable with better cleaning methods,” said Quinte Health Care’s new Chief of Staff, Dr. Dick Zoutman, in a university press release. “It has been reported that more than 100,000 people in North America die every year due to hospital-acquired infections at a cost of $30 billion. That’s 100,000 people every year who are dying from largely preventable infections.” Zoutman’s new method involves pumping a vapor mixture of ozone and hydrogen peroxide into a room to completely sterilize it. Everything from the floors, walls and drapes to mattresses, chairs and other surfaces are left disinfected. The technique was inspired by how Mother Nature kills bacteria in humans. For example, when an antibody attacks a germ, it produces an ozone and a small amount of hydrogen peroxide, generating a highly reactive compound that kills bacteria, viruses and mold. “It works well for Mother Nature and is working very well for us,” said Dr. Zoutman. (DiscoveryNews.com

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Doctors call the condition hemispatial neglect, and some studies estimate that 20 to 50 percent of stroke patients struggle with this lopsided condition. It happens most often when a stroke damages the right half of the brain. A group of Italian researchers reported today that using magnets to stimulate the nerve cells of the brain can help remedy the condition. The treatment is called transcranial magnetic stimulation, and happens when doctors place a large electromagnetic coil against the scalp, creating electrical currents in one part of the brain. Koch and his colleagues studied whether using magnetic stimulation would help rebalance the activity on both sides of the brain. They tested 20 patients with hemispatial neglect, giving magnetic stimulation to 10 patients and a sham treatment to the other 10 patients. After two weeks, the patients who were magnetically stimulated performed 16 percent better on tests measuring their behavioral inattention, and their test scores improved by 23 percent after one month. The patients with the sham treatment showed no improvement. (ABCNews.com)

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A camera capable of visualising the movement of light has been unveiled by a team of scientists in the US. The equipment captures images at a rate of roughly a trillion frames per second - or about 40 billion times faster than a UK television camera. Direct recording of light is impossible at that speed, so the camera takes millions of repeated scans to recreate each image. The team said the technique could be used to understand ultrafast processes. The process has been dubbed femto-photography and has been detailed on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab’s website. “There’s nothing in the universe that looks fast to this camera,” said Andrea Velten, one of the researchers involved in the project. (BBC.co.uk)

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The Department of Environmental Protection has selected WeCare Organics to transport the sludge generated during wastewater treatment to rural Pennsylvania. Until June 2010, the toxic substance was handled at a stinky facility in Hunts Point, the Bronx. The DEP terminated its $30 million per year contract with the New York Organic Fertilizer Company in 2010 to save money and requested bids for a new five-year contract. The proposed deal with WeCare would cost roughly $11 million per year. “We are looking forward to moving forward with a new contract and are thrilled to save money for the agency,” said Carter Strickland, DEP commissioner. Strickland said the WeCare deal would mean longer truck trips, but fewer polluting trips through city neighborhoods. “The good news is that we will continue to have cleaner air,” said Maria Torres of the Hunts Point Monitoring Committee. (NYDailyNews.com)

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A young seal pup which was discovered among a field of Orkney sheep after the recent storms which battered Scotland is being nursed back to health. The seal was found some distance away from the shore in Holm, on the east coast of the Orkney mainland, last week. Christened Snowy, she is now said to be making good progress at Orkney Seal Rescue. (BBC.co.uk)

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At age 100, Ray Nauroth still remembers the names of his regulars and knows their favorite cocktails. He works three nights a week at the Gold Slipper, an old-fashioned supper club in Dunlap Iowa, tucked away in the southwest corner of the state. Nearly 700 customers gathered Friday to toast Nauroth’s centennial birthday as he worked the crowd, shaking hands like a politician. His boss, Nick Behrendt, offered a week-long $19.11 special to celebrate the year of Ray’s birth. For that price, customers got two 8-ounce sirloin steaks and a trip to the Slipper’s bountiful salad bar. Nauroth said he loves his job “because it gets me out of the house.” (ABCNews.com)

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