photo: Leo Freitas via flickr According to preliminary data from Brazilian NGO Imazon and Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE), deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is down 16% over the past twelve months, with 1,488 square kilometers (574 square miles) of forest cleared. All that tree felling resulted in 95....Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image: MSN.com
I'm admitting it: I have a great big dude crush on Mark Ronson. The British musician/producer has put together some of the best pop music the world's heard in a while, and I can't DJ a party without spinning his recut of Britney Spears' Toxic (with Tiggers, ODB, and the Daptones horn section). Ronson's upcoming release, Record Collection, includes a track called Bike Song, and the video is a beautiful thing. Ronson, Spank Rock, and Kyle Falconer bring the city's bikes t...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Example of a sweat bee -- Metallic colored sweat bee species are diverse, and difficult to identify to which species a specimen belongs; photo via zackzen Researchers Jason Gibbs who was working on a study of sweat bees discovered a new species while commuting from downtown Toronto to York University. It is one of 19 new species he found while examining 84 species of sweat bees in Canada -- so named because they are attracted to perspiration -- which are common in North America. His study goes a long way in cataloging a variety of bee that has proven a "nightmare" to study. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

TreeHugger has reviewed many different, greener things to do with our bodies after we have shuffled off the mortal coil, from freeze-drying to composting . Now an English company offers a new option: Have your ashes pressed into vinyl record albums. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image credit: M. D. Vaden of Oregon Deep in the forests of northern California is a grove of trees unlike any other in the world. Within only a few acres lies an incredible density of old-growth redwood trees—including many of the world's largest trees. It's called the Grove of Titans and its location is a secret. Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image via Stanford University Fresh, clean, drinkable water is an increasingly rare thing on this planet, especially in places that are suffering through catastrophes like floods or must deal with high levels of pollution without the resources to set up water treatment facilities. But a project from Stanford University researchers could see cheap, simple filtration devices distributed through developing nations. How simple? Well, it's just a piece of cotton cloth coated in nanotubes that filter out nearly all bacteria at a rat...Read the full story on TreeHugger

map: Wikipedia The Canadian tar sands industry-government group Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program doesn't much like a recent report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that tar sands projects are responsible for elevated levels of water toxicity downstream from projects. RAMP's Fred Kuzmic maintains that any to...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo by Jaymi Heimbuch The University of Notre Dame is taking the use of e-readers in classrooms seriously, embarking on a one year study of how the devices integrate into classrooms. The first course to have students use an iPad instead of any text books is Project Management, a class with 40 students that will not only use the iPad as a book, but will also be encouraged to use it for everything else in daily life and report back their impressions (hmmm, could that possibly have been at Apple's request?). Apple is making a big push to turn iPads into the next big thin...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Russian rock star Yury Shevchuk sings in Moscow's Pushkin Square at an Aug. 22 demonstration to protect Khimki Forest. Photo via RFE/RL. Russian authorities are not known for responding to popular protests, but when one of the country's most famous musicians and one of the world's biggest rock stars added their voices to the angry demonstrations against building a highway through an ancient oak forest near Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image credit: Fully Charged Robert Llewellyn has been busy once again. Having road tested of the BMW Mini-E, explored fast electric car charging, and reviewed the Nissan Leaf, the cult British TV presenter and comedy actor has also been trying out some more unusual EV's. From a fully electric Range Rover SUV, through...Read the full story on TreeHugger

photo: Martin Abegglen via flickr All the regulatory paper shuffling required to get the 240 MW Cape Wind project started is finally coming to an end. As Renewable Energy World reports, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that the state can give the project a "composite certificate" superseding local regulatory agencies, some of which do not look favorably on the wind f...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image credit: Joe Plommer/The Mule Bar Girls April may believe we need more girls on bikes, but there is no doubt that gender politics and cycling can be an explosive mix. When I wrote about podium girls—or the practice of bike races employing female cyclists to look pretty and kiss men—the response from our readers was mixed to say the least. Some felt it was just part of the culture, others fe...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Total global electrified vehicle sales. Pike forecasts that PHEV and BEV sales will reach just over 1 million units in five years (1,081,294 vehicles in 2015), with PHEVs accounting for 44% of that amount. Source: Pike Research. Click to enlarge.... Mike Millikin

Images via Tina Sparkles Electronic clothing is something that continually fascinates some designers. From circuit board boxers to keyboard purses to blinking bicycling sweaters, there's just something about turning electronics into fashion. But Tina Sparkles does it w...Read the full story on TreeHugger

A C-17 Globemaster III based at Edwards Air Force Base is conducting flight tests to see how it performs with different combinations of biofuels. The C-17 Globemaster lifts off. Source: USAF. Click to enlarge. The aircraft was powered by 50%... Mike Millikin

All Images by B. Alter: Jrumchai Singalavanij With ecological and sustainable fashion growing more popular, it's important that students be interested and involved in this area: they are the future. In which case we are in luck: at this year's Royal College of Art Summer Graduate show there are some fascinating new designers on their way up. Jrumchai Singalavanij is committed; she makes all of her creations out of recycled bits from the textile industry and transforms them so that they can be woven. Her pieces are fa...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Nissan North America and the state of Hawaii formed a partnership to promote the development of electric vehicles, and an electric-vehicle charging network, throughout the state. The partnership, which was announced at the Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo... Mike Millikin

Siemens Industry, Inc. has joined A2BE Carbon Capture LLC’s “Algae@Work Alliance Network,” which was formed to develop and deliver turnkey algae production systems. The Algae@Work Alliance Network is made up of corporations, researchers and institutions. The Alliance Network collaborates to... Mike Millikin

The fully integrated and dedicated Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) option, available this fall for Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana full-size vans (earlier post), will be priced at $15,910 MSRP, according to GM. Pricing for the all-inclusive CNG option includes a... Mike Millikin

Map of California air basins and PM2.5 monitoring network. Source: ARB. Click to enlarge. Approximately 9,000 people in California are estimated to die prematurely each year as a result of exposure to fine particle pollution, according to a new report... Mike Millikin