Cloning has received its fair share of controversy and glowing cats, but it does have its advantages. One of these advantages is the ability to preserve. That is the idea behind New York City's project to clone "historical" trees from Central Park. Details in the full article.

After the World Trade Center collapsed, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) implemented a residential cleanup program in Lower Manhattan during the years 2002 and 2003. According to the agency's report back then, only a "very small" number of air samples taken in those areas showed unsafe levels of asbestos.

However, the Government Accountability Office is now saying that EPA misled the people with its report. While it is true that the air samples have low levels of asbestos, EPA didn't mention at all that the said samples were taken after the cleanup. This may sound not important to you but it is for the residents of the area.

During the last cleanup program, only 295 residents and apartment building owners took part in the latest cleanup when it should have been around 20,000. The people are not to blame because as Senator Hillary Clinton pointed out, "residents are understandably reluctant to participate in what they consider to be a waste of time."

If EPA has provided the real score with the asbestos problem, we believe that the people of Lower Manhattan would be more than willing to help. In addition to this, Clinton added that "a Senate appropriations subcommittee had included $55 million in the 2008 budget proposal for screening and treatment of people exposed to ground zero dust."

Some known asbestos-related disorders include asbestosis, disease of the lining of the lung (pleura), and lung cancer.

Starting July, New Yorkers might just find themselves living in a greener place -- literally. That's because July is the targeted month for the implementation of New York City's pledge of planting one million new trees by the year 2017.

A lofty ideal, eh? But noble, too. After all, Mayor Michael Bloomberg recognizes the fact that in two decades' time, New York's population would have already ballooned to another million. And this will certainly cause more problems not only for the environment but for the general infrastructure of the city as well.

The Mayor's office have been brainstorming on this project for a year now, along with 127 other environmental proposals. For example, it is also the Mayor's plan to plot out certain parts of Manhattan that will have motorists charged extra for driving through it. It's not an easy way to make more bucks for City Hall, mind you. The whole point is cut down the stressful Manhattan traffic and unfriendly pollution.

So how will this green project go about? Their gameplan is basically to plant 23,000 trees every year, for the next decade, throughout the city's streets with the goal of "having a tree in every single place where it is possible to plant a street tree," explains Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff. Of course, they'll also be planting more trees in parks and public lots. As for the private sector, they are fully encouraged to join in on this quest by unleashing their green thumbs as well in their own private yards.

The Bloomberg administration has currently allocated US$ 11 million for their forestry programs, but will not stop there. Reportedly, they are ready to shell out another US$ 35 million annually to sustain this environmental-friendly platform.

While mathematicians are known to act more like lone wolves when working out a tough mathematical problem, it took the combined minds of 18 mathematicians from America and Europe working for four years to finally detail a vast and exceedingly complex numerical "structure" called E8.

According to the Telegraph, the team used a mixture of theoretical mathematics and intricate computer programming to successfully map E8, which is an example of a Lie (pronounced "Lee") group. Lie groups were invented by the 19th century Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie to study symmetry.

This breakthrough could have unforeseen implications in the fields of mathematics and physics in the years to come. Prof Jeffrey Adams, Project Leader, at the University of Maryland, said that this achievement is "significant both as an advance in basic knowledge, as well as a major advance in the use of large scale computing to solve complicated mathematical problems."

"While mathematicians have known for a long time about the beauty and the uniqueness of E8, we physicists have come to appreciate its exceptional role only more recently," said Hermann Nicolai, Director of the Albert Einstein Institute in Potsdam, Germany. "Yet, in our attempts to unify gravity with the other fundamental forces into a consistent theory of quantum gravity, we now encounter it at almost every corner."

The Telegraph reports that the result of the E8 calculation is 60 gigabytes in size, enough to store 45 days of continuous music in MP3 format. According to calculations made by the E8 team, if all the numbers were written out in small type, they would cover an area the size of Manhattan.

One of the most gentle and threatened marine mammals are making their presence felt.

An endangered manatee was seen recently in Greenwich Bay off the coast of Warwick. The marine mammals usually hang out in the warm waters of Florida and the Carolinas. A dispatcher of the Department of Environmental Management mentions that the endangered animal looks "healthy".

Some are even speculating that the manatee seen in Rhode Island could also be the one seen earlier this month near Manhattan Island, New York. All three species of manatees are protected by the Endangered Species Act. Florida wildlife experts counted 3,116 in their annual survey in February.