Green-tech

Though we often refer to Tegenaria and Eratigena as house spiders, for most of the year nowadays we are actually far more likely to come across these species in our gardens, garages and outbuildings. These are areas where we tend to be far less scrupulous in our cleaning and tidying – and where there is therefore much more potential prey. If spiders are left undisturbed, females can live for several years and may stay in the same web complex throughout this time, repairing the sheet and enlarging the funnel as necessary. So, if house spiders are more commonly seen in locations other than our houses for most of the year, why do we see so many of them in our bedrooms, bathrooms and living rooms in autumn? The reason, as with so many activities involving animals, is sex. During spider season, male spiders are on the lookout for females and it is their romantic wanderings that bring them into our homes. In common with many different animals, it is male spiders that are the disper

One of America’s most widespread and costly environmental problems is nutrient pollution in its streams and waterways caused by excess nitrogen and phosphorus in the environment. Using existing technologies to remove nitrogen from wastewater in treatment plants in the Chesapeake Bay alone costs an estimated $8.2 billion. ARS scientists have come up with a game-changing water purification technology to remove nitrogen from wastewater at one-third the cost of existing technologies. ARS has teamed up with a commercial partner to expand use of the new technology in household septic tanks in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, where 52,000 septic systems need to be upgraded to be able to remove nitrogen. The new technology could cut the cost of these upgrades by two-thirds, saving up to $446 million in Maryland for septic upgrades. The technology is also being provided to NASA so that astronauts can use it to recycle wastewater in space. Kill The Crop Killers Organically Methyl