April 2 – 8, 2010 - This Week’s Top Eco News

Each week Green Guide Network puts the spotlight on the biggest, most interesting (to us), and the quirky environmental news stories that broke during the past week. Every Friday check back to see what went down that week in green news.

This week, Gidon Eshel of Reuters made an interesting case for avoiding grass-fed beef.  He uses simple biology and chemistry to explain why grass-fed cattle require more land and produce more greenhouse gases than feedlot cattle.

http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2010/04/08/grass-fed-beef-packs-a-punch-to-environment/

A Chinese freighter ran aground this week in the Great Barrier Reef, potentially threatening the reef's delicate ecosystem with leaking oil.  Fortunately, little oil has leaked so far due to seawater filling the tank.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/world/asia/08reef.html?ref=earth

A study by engineer Willett Kempton suggests that linking East Coast wind farms could one day provide enough energy to replace most of our existing energy infrastructure. While individual wind farms can be an inconsistent power source, linking farms spread along the coast could allow for a stable energy supply.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/04/east-coast-winds-would-support-a.html?sms_ss=email

The first multi-cellular organisms that can survive without oxygen were found in the Mediterranean this week. The discovery gives scientists hope that other multi-cellular organisms may exist in anoxic areas previously thought inhabitable.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20100408/sc_livescience/animalslivingwithoutoxygendiscoveredforfirsttime

UC Irvine scientist Kailen Mooney announced this week that birds may help stop global warming. How? By eating bugs, which reduces damage to plants and promotes plant growth.

http://greenoc.freedomblogging.com/2010/04/08/do-birds-help-curb-global-warming/21955/