By Lawrence Casiraya
INQUIRER.net

REMEMBER the blue Love Bus of yesteryears? Well, in today’s environmentally challenged times, green should be more “in”.

I was walking along Ayala Avenue the other day when I chanced upon a line of buses marked with the letters CNG, which, I learned after closer inspection, meant compressed natural gas.

Don’t expect to find these buses on Edsa, though. These buses belong to HM Transport and have been operating for two years now but these only take the Manila-Laguna-Batangas route. They were in Makati that day to bring some foreign dignitaries from Shangri-la Hotel to Malacanang.

HM Transport is one of several bus operators accredited by the government under the Department of Energy’s Natural Gas Vehicle Program for Public Transport program.

The DOE’s goal is to have at least 200 of these CNG-powered buses — most of which are made in China — operated by several operators.

The thing, though, with alternative fuels such as CNG is availability of refilling stations. Shell has established a refilling station along Mamplasan Exit in the South, sourced from the Malampaya gas fields in Palawan.

So how do these buses perform on the road? I hopped on one of these buses and got it straight from the driver’s mouth.

By Agence France-Presse

MEXICO CITY — Mexican scientists have turned the country’s national tipple tequila into diamonds, and are seeking applications for their discovery, with the crystals too small to be used in jewelry.

The tequila diamonds could be used to “detect radiation, coat cutting tools or, above all, as a substitute for silicon in the computer chips of the future,” Miguel Apatiga, one of three researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico who made the discovery this summer, told AFP Tuesday.

The scientists found that the heated vapor from tequila blanco, when deposited on a stainless steel base, can form diamond films.

They began experimenting some 13 years ago with synthetic diamonds — made by a technological process, as opposed to natural diamonds, produced by geological process — from gases like methane.

Later they produced diamonds from liquids, and then noticed that the ideal compound of 40 percent ethanol and 60 percent water was similar to the proportion used in tequila.

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By Anna Valmero
INQUIRER.net

ORTIGAS City, Philippines — Anticipating the growth in local demand for biofuel, Seaoil Philippines Inc. said it will increase its total number of filling stations from 114 to 500 units by 2011, an executive said.

Biofuel is an alternative fuel that blends natural substances like ethanol from sugar cane and coco methyl ester (CME) from coconut to regular gasoline and diesel.

Seaoil Philippines expects to grow their number of stations by 300 percent because of the anticipated increasing local demand following the signing of the Biofuels Act in 2006, which will become effective in February 2007, said Art Cruz, marketing director of Seaoil Philippines.

“The consumers are more mature than before in exploring alternatives available to them. The youth, which are more open-minded in trying the biofuel, is creating the growing demand for it,” he said.

The Biofuels Act mandates that 5 percent of the annual volume of gasoline fuel sold and distributed by each gasoline company in the country will comprise bioethanol. This will be required two years after the effectivity of the law or starting February 2009.

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By Anna Valmero
INQUIRER.net

MAKATI CITY, Philippines — Watch that sugar!

Diabetes is one of the most common non-communicable killer disease in the world especially in developing countries, a medical expert warned.

Death from the disease among people above 20 years of age will hit 301 million by 2025, of which 226 million will come from developing countries like the Philippines.

Diabetes ranks as the eighth common killer in the world and is the fourth leading cause of death in the Philippines, Dr. Rosa Sy who is an expert on endoctrinology, metabolism and nutrition during a recent forum on Diabetes Mellitus and Pre-diabetes.

Good news is diabetes is preventable.

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Alexander Villafania
INQUIRER.NET

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines took home the silver medal at the recently held World Robot Olympiad 2008 in Yokohama, Japan.

The Philippine team known as “Gracean Whizkids” from Grace Christian Elementary School beats 21 other schools.

The team is composed of Joseph Aldrin Chua, Edrich Hans Chua and Dominique Hannah Sy. They were coached by Melanie Tizon and Warren John Ong Pe.

Their project, dubbed “The G-Tech Robot Engineering a Better World,” included 12 different types of robots doing various types of activities to save the environment.

The Open Category required contestants to create robots under the theme, “Saving the Global Environment.”

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