BP to build $800 million Kansas wind farm in 2012

(Reuters) - BP  announced plans on Monday to build an $800 million wind farm in Kansas next year, providing a lift for the U.S. wind power industry as its outlook dims with the looming expiry of federal tax credits.


The 419-megawatt Flat Ridge 2 wind farm will include 262 General Electric turbines spinning about 43 miles southwest of Wichita, BP said, in what will be the largest installation for both the state and BP Wind Energy.

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Manufacturing may help fight off new recession

Manufacturing grew more quickly in September as production and hiring increased, suggesting that factories would help keep the economy from slipping into a new recession. Other data on Monday offered more good news for the struggling U.S. recovery, with strong demand for new motor vehicles putting sales on an upward track and construction spending unexpectedly rebounding in August.

"That hardly sounds like an economy flat on its back. The economy is still moving forward. But no one should confuse direction with speed," said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania.

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Radiation-loving Fungi Can Remove Toxic Waste

When Russian scientists sent a robot into the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 2007, the last thing they expected to find was life. Inside the most radioactive areas of the breached core was a group of common fungi collectively referred to as "black mold" growing on the reactor walls.

These molds were growing in one of the most hostile environments on the planet, with radiation levels high enough to give a lethal dose in minutes. But these fungi weren't just growing, they were thriving.
A researcher at New York's Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Arturo Casadevall, investigated these resistant molds and helped to identify several distinct species.

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