Astronomers believe that there's a strong possibility that life could exist on the icy Saturn's moon called Enceladus. This is due to several findings pointing out at several organic molecules and icy crystals. See the image that made NASA and the astronomers believe after the jump!

Ever wonder if there's life outside planet Earth? If so, then you might probably be interested by the new found information by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Ideally, this planet should be filled with carbon monoxide, but in reality the astronomers were able to detect water vapor. More information in the full article.

The bioengineers of University of California Davis have found a way to process leftover food and convert them to biogas. How? They give these scraps to specific microbes placed in giant tanks.

The organisms then devour the food literally and their digestive process is the one responsible for the conversion. The biogas produced by these microbes, which is mostly made up of methane and hydrogen, can be burned to generate electricity or be compressed into liquid to power specialized vehicles.

An industrial-sized demonstration unit capable of producing 300,000 to 600,000 liters of biogas a day has been running at UC Davis since last October. While the bioengineers still don't fully grasp how the microbes convert solid food into biogas, they are currently trying to sequence the genomes of the said organisms to make more-productive bioreactors.

"Sequencing these organisms will give us a better idea of who the players are so we can better control the conditions or improve the design to further improve conversion of waste into biogas", commented UC Davis bioengineer who developed the system Ruihong Zhang.

Using organisms to convert waste into biogas isn't entirely new at waste water treatment plants. However, the big difference in this system is that it allows solid materials to be converted directly to methane and hydrogen.

Leftover-powered SUVs anyone?

Rumors about KFC chicken being artificial may have been debunked, but man-made animal food products aren't impossible to produce. Some researchers from the Netherlands believe that killing a lot of animals isn't good for the environment, and meat created through scientific methods is more efficient.

Only thin layers of cells have been produced by these Dutch scientists so far, but success would mean a lot to Mother Earth.

Everything involved in the process of slaughtering animals and sending them to retailers have a negative effect to the world. If artificial meat was created, methane produced by animals will be reduced, as well as other harmful materials expelled into the air.

Meanwhile, the US is doing their own research: NASA is trying to figure out a way to make meat for astronauts. The question is, even if this becomes successful, will people actually eat artificial meat? The scientists believe that some would definitely avoid unnatural food, but the demand will be high enough.

It sounds like an Earthworm Jim storyline, but this is a cold fact: Cow farts are helping hasten global warming which will melt the polar ice caps and destroy human life as we know it. The cows may yet get the last laugh against corned beef -making humans.

The methane released when cows exorcise their unclean spirits actually contribute four percent to the total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which traps heat in the planet and raises temperatures above normal levels. A change in a degree or two can disrupt most ecosystems. German scientist Dr. Winfried Drochner, however, is not about to let that happen.

Drochner and his team of animal nutrition experts have developed a pill the size of a human fist that can alter the bovine specie's digestive process in such a manner that the methane does not exit the cow as a fart, but stays in and boosts metabolism in the beast.

The pill dissolves in the first of the cow's four stomachs and stays there for about a month, slowly releasing components that influence the innards of the beast. In tests conducted by the team, they found out that the decrease in farts and increase in metabolism actually leads to a better and tastier yield of cow milk and meat.

The only thing the scientists are trying to figure out now is how to outsmart the cows in ingesting the huge pill. We also hope they develop one for humans. Think of the possibilities!

Aside from using manure as a fertilizer, can you think of more creative uses for them? And of course, that doesn't hurling it in the general direction of that neighborhood bully.

Anyway, researchers from Michigan State University and the US Department of Agriculture are finding new - and a bit wacky - ways of recycling wastes from ranches and farms. First solution? Turn them into floorboards. Fiberboard to be exact. Sawdust is used as an ingredient in fiberboard, which in turn is used for making furniture, flooring and storage shelves. They are suggesting that the sawdust be replaced with the fiber after-product of processed manure.

Manure processing or treatment, called anaerobic digesting, is currently one of the solutions to the manure problem, as there is about 1.5 to two TRILLION pounds of it annually in the US alone. The manure is sterilized and processed to get the methane (for biogas) plus the end product smells fine. But the process is expensive, along with other disposal methods that cost around US$ 200 per cow annually. Though it's not surprising that the idea has its set of detractors. Steve Fowler, an economist with the Composite Panel Association said, "Is this something you’re going to bring into the house?"

Anyway, there already are ways to dispose of the by-product of the process including potting soil and animal bedding. It maybe just a matter of time before deodorized manure - just the fiber, of course - finds its way into household use.

New radar images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which is currently orbiting the Saturn moon Titan, provide new evidence of seas that could be the largest liquid formations reported on the planet's surface. Cassini's instruments have picked up these dark features near Titan's north pole, and one amazing feature is that one of the larger dark areas have been measured to be approximately 100,000 square kilometers (39,000 square miles) - out-sizing America's Lake Superior, which stands at 82,414 square kilometers (31,820 square miles). The image on the left shows this comparison.

"We've long hypothesized about oceans on Titan and now with multiple instruments we have a first indication of seas that dwarf the lakes seen previously," said Dr. Jonathan Lunine, Cassini interdisciplinary scientist at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

It is hypothesized that these seas are composed of methane and ethane - the most abundant gas in Titan's clouds and atmosphere - which have been condensed into liquid form due the much colder polar temperatures on Saturn. At the moment, however, these formations are yet to be verified as liquid-filled by the Cassini-Hyugens team.

Meanwhile, the image on the right shows a similar and much larger dark feature that was captured by Cassini's imaging cameras. According to NASA's reports, this dark area stretches for more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles). If verified to be liquid-filled, this other sea will stand to be almost as large as the Earth's Caspian Sea which measures 3,626,000 square kilometers (1,400,000 square miles).

Further Cassini flybys are being planned for the dark areas in May to verify if these formations are indeed liquid-filled.

It doesn't look like it does anything, but the picture on your right actually takes trash and turns it into energy. Some scientists over at Purdue University created this "tactical biorefinery," a generator that uses refuse as a main fuel source.

According to the scientists, the whole thing was made due to a request from the US military. The tactical biorefinery, however, can serve more than military purposes, such as in providing emergency power for relief operations and hospitals.

While diesel actually starts the process of creating power, the trash is what really gets the whole contraption going:

The machine separates food material into a bioreactor that uses the yeast ferments to create ethanol.

Other materials go to a gasifier and are converted into propane gas and methane, which then fuel the diesel engine that creates electricity. 

Purdue scientists also mention that the device may actually be more environmentally friendly, as the biomass-powered generator takes less diesel to run, and because plants absorb carbon dioxide, which is supposed to be one of its byproducts.

As environmental awareness spreads, people are finding more alternatives to our energy needs. The cheaper and more accessible the fuel sources are, the better.

Well, ranchers have now discovered a new use for cattle manure - aside from fertilizer. Ever wonder why manure smells nasty? It gives off a rank gas called methane which can be used as fuel. Producing ethanol from corn and other biofuels uses too much coal and natural gas so methane can be used as an alternative.

In February, the first methanol closed-loop system plant will begin operations. They will keep cattle in the plant and collect the manure. The methane is harnessed to generate power for the entire plant. The corn and grain would then be used to get ethanol and finally the byproduct (wet grain) of ethanol production would be used to feed the cattle. Efficient, don't you think?

If everything goes well, the plant as well as the environment will see great results. Livestock produce a lot of greenhouse gas, and the plant could produce alternative-fuel for less.

Plans to harness landfill are also under way. Energy for less is something that would benefit all of us, including the environment.

Here on Earth, the common notion is that a lake is a body of water surrounded entirely by land. But imagine a lake on Saturn's largest moon, the Titan. The planet itself being so far away from the Sun, it comes as no surprise that the temperature there would be much lower. On Titan, it is 90 degrees Kelvin, in fact.

Surely, this has an effect on the kind of elements present there. If you are to think that nothing else but a body of water can be a lake, then you are highly mistaken. Because on Titan, over 75 lakes ranging in size from about a mile and a half to 40 miles across have been detected, and they are not filled with water. Instead, cradled in the lakes as liquid is methane. Here on Earth, it is a form of gas. But out there, it's clearly liquid.

Dr. Ellen Stofan of the Proxemy Research in Washington DC, as well as a member of the Cassini Radar team explains this as being caused by the really low temperature on the moon. They also believe that the lakes have another kind of hydrocarbon compound of some sorts in them, called ethane.

Interestingly enough, although the chemistry is apparently different on Titan, the lakes' behaviour do resemble their Earthly counterparts. Says Stofan, "The methane-ethane would become transparent, the way water is on Earth, it would be behaving like water, the lakes could have small waves on the surfaces." What also got them into thinking that these are, in fact, lakes is the way that other channels feed into then, their shapes, shorelines, and all of those geological aspects of the lake.

The team's discovery is featured in this week's journal "Nature".