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Global efforts to try and improve energy, water and food supplies are becoming increasingly necessary. But they are being dealt with on an individual basis where they should be solved in an integrated manner according to Professor Michael E. Webber, deputy Director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin in the US.

Clever Desalination
Solar-powered desalination is one way of reducing the huge energy costs of getting fresh water from sea water. But the waste product – salt - is still environmentally damaging. A new idea is to use more solar power to treat the waste magnesium salt and turn it into an alkaline that can be used to reverse the acidification of the oceans caused by increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Music and the Brain
The idea of controlling things with our minds is moving from science fiction to science fact. Think of thought-controlled artificial limbs and mind-controlled computer interfaces. But at the BioMusic Festival in Plymouth in the UK, scientists are taking it one step further – linking brains to music. And the brains are not necessarily human. Reporter Roland Pease gets to duet on the piano with a slime mould.

Mum’s Voice and Babies Brains
Babies born prematurely are more than twice as likely to have difficulty hearing and processing words, than those carried to full-term. It’s thought that it’s because brain regions that process sounds aren’t sufficiently developed at the time of delivery. Now, in an unusual study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week, the results suggest that recreating a womblike environment with recordings of a mother's heartbeat and voice could potentially correct these deficits.

(Photo: The Kay Bailey Hutchison desalination plant in El Paso, Texas. Credit: Jeffrey M. Phillips/Webber Energy Group)