BUILDGREEN PRESENTS
October 2011
Around the world
A look at some of last month’s wackier stories emerging from the world’s ‘green’ industries
BRITISH STUDY REVEALS VEHICLE EMISSIONS CAN CAUSE HEART ATTACKS According to a recent study from the British Medical Journal, the inhalation of vehicle emissions can actually increase the likelihood of a heart attack, even up to six hours after exposure. To find a correlation between this serious medical emergency and air pollution, researchers from London’s School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analysed nearly 80 thousand heart attack victims and compared the time and location of the attacks with records of ambient air pollution maintained by the UK National Air Quality Archive.
OIL COMPANY IN COPENHAGEN ENCOURAGES CYCLING Bike-friendly Copenhagen inspired even a giant oil company like Norway’s Statoil to be cyclist-friendly. The company set up a bicycle care station in one of its gas stations that allows cyclists to clean their bikes and tune them up. BGreen hopes such stations will soon be found everywhere in all cities.
BARCELONA HOLDS ITS LAST BULLFIGHT Barcelona finally held its final bullfight before a sold-out crowd numbering near 20,000. Centuries after Spanish-style bullfighting first emerged in the Catalonian capital of Barcelona, this brutal sport has now been banned. Many of the fight’s viewers voiced their disappointment over the new legislation. However, animal rights supporters lauded Catalonia’s parliament for being the first in mainland Spain to outlaw what many consider the blatant and unjustifiable torture of animals.
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LONELY AUSTRALIAN JELLYFISH PRODUCES 200 CLONES Marine biologists at Australia’s Townsville aquarium recently discovered that an injured Cassiopea jellyfish that had been kept alone in a tank suddenly and inexplicably produced some 200 youngsters. The scientists suspect that each of the tiny new jellyfish is actually a clone of the original. “Jellyfish clone very easily. When some jellyfish are cut in half, you get two jellyfish,” explained aquarist Krystal Huff.
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UNITED KINGDOM
NORWAY
SPAIN
AUSTRALIA