A new Albertsons supermarket in the San Diego, California community of Clairemont is generating nearly 90% of the electricity it needs with a PureCell 400 kW fuel cell from UTC Power, a United Technologies Corp. The PureCell 400 system uses... Mike Millikin

Image Credit: Mehgan Murphy, National Zoo If you've been to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C. lately, you may have noticed that they've been working on the first stage of their "Elephant Trails" project- a bold initiative to build a complex of indoor and outdoor habitats for the zoo's Asian elephants that will allow the endangered animals to thrive. Phase I, which opened to the public yesterday, includes two new outdoor yards and an elephant barn, which is Read the full story on TreeHugger

Handmade is becoming big business -- reeeally big. Etsy -- the online marketplace for handmade items -- announced earlier this week that it has raised $20 million in venture capital financing and has now tripled its valuation at $300 million (not including the funding). With sales up a whopping 72% from last year, business is booming -- not to mention ex-Google exec Adam Freed being roped in as Etsy's new chief operating officer. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Discharge curves at different rates after charging at 1C. Credit: ACS, Lee et al. Click to enlarge. A team of researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca (Italy), and Stanford University have... Mike Millikin

Credit: Photos via facebook.com/meeteater. I like "Meet Eater," at least on Facebook. Not much happened after I hit the "Like" button to express my, um, admiration. Apparently, though, every time this plant makes a friend on Facebook, an electronic system delivers water and nutrients. No friends, no love? Dead plant. Unhappy Meet Eater....Read the full story on TreeHugger

Nikkei. Japan’s Marubeni Corp. will market energy-efficient coal-fired power plants in Asia, leveraging a bilateral emissions offset mechanism between Japan and other countries that enables Japan to receive carbon reduction credits in return for providing low-carbon technologies and equipment. The... Mike Millikin

A tiny baby seahorse was measured off the coast of Dorset, England. Image via the Seahorse Trust. It must have been like finding a needle in a haystack, but somehow, in murky water conditions, diver Neil Garrick-Maidment, the executive director of the Seahorse Trust, spotted a single 1.5-inch-long female baby seahorse "clinging onto a piece of seagrass" off the coast of Studland, Dorset -- a finding so rare he said it was "akin to seeing a Read the full story on TreeHugger

photo: Sara Novak Down here in South Carolina we're known for our southern fried chicken, but what about our southern fried fuel? In a move that could have a big time impact on the way Carolina views the deep fat fryer, city council officials are calling on local restaurants and residents to donate their cooking oil to be turned into biofuel to run the city's garbage trucks. Right now it's just a test run on one of the city's trucks, but if it's successful, it could make a dent in the city's garbage pickup carbon footprint. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

photo via Nike In an attempt to honor the 29 coal miners who tragically died last year at the Upper Big Branch coal mine, the West Virginia University Mountaineers have teamed up with Nike to create new football uniforms that have the mark of coal. The uniforms are white, but have coal dust on the pants and shoulders. The yellow strip on the hemet is said to represent a miner's headlamp. In the photo featuring the new uniform a player appears to be emerging from a strip mine, leav...Read the full story on TreeHugger