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The Headlines:

Ikea to stop selling incandescents
2039 is looking hot
Whole Foods wants organic proof
“Cove” documentary screens in Japan
House of the future made of meat?

The Details:

Ikea to stop selling incandescents

Every college kid’s favorite furniture and housewares store is halting its sale of incandescent lightbulbs in January of 2011. Instead, IKEA will introduce a “retro-fit” halogen bulb that fits in a conventional socket and produces warm light with a third less electricity.

According to Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund, “By only putting good options on the shelf, retailers can make it easy for customers to do the right thing.”

Although CFLs and LEDs have had a hard time gaining acceptance and use in America, incandescents are already banned in Europe, where the Swedish Ikea company comes from. So it makes sense that they would follow in Europe’s footsteps in their American stores.

The United States federal government is only a year behind the store, however. The fed plans to begin phasing out incandescent bulbs in favor of LEDs and CFLs in 2012.

2039 is looking hot

If you thought the first week of July was awful, you’re going to hate the year 2039, and every year leading up to that, and every year following. That’s according to a study by a Stanford University research group.

The group studied the hottest U.S. temperatures from 1950-1999, then put them through multiple forecasting models that can simulate daily temperatures in the U.S. These models were based on the likely occurrence that carbon dioxide could raise temperatures 1.8 degrees Celsius.

“Using a large suite of climate model experiments, we see a clear emergence of much more intense, hot conditions in the U.S. within the next three decades,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, fellow of the Woods Institute for the Environment and the lead author of the study.

NASA data shows that global temperatures recorded from January through June 2010 were the highest ever.

The potential damage of such increases in heat are devastating. Temperatures that high could debilitate or even kill off crops such as corn, soybean, cotton and more. And the heat doesn’t just kill plants.

During the month of June, high temperatures in the U.S. killed five seniors in Maryland, four people in Philadelphia, four people in Dallas, and three people in Tennessee. According to the study, it’s only going to get hotter from here.

Whole Foods wants organic proof

June 1, 2011 is the deadline for the makers of so-called “organic” personal care products and cosmetics to prove that they truly are organic. Otherwise, Whole Foods will yank them from their shelves.

Makers of these products will have to prove third-party certification of meeting the United States Department of Agriculture National Organic Program (USDA NOP) standard, which is the current standard for organic food products.

Joe Dickson of Whole Foods said, “We believe that the ‘organic’ claim used on personal care products should have just as strong a meaning to the ‘organic’ claim used on food products, which is currently regulated by the USDA’s National Organic Program.”

“Cove” documentary screens in Japan

A few weeks ago we did a story on the intelligence of dolphins and whales and in that story we mentioned this year’s Academy Award winner for best documentary: The Cove. It’s a documentary about the annual slaughter of more than 20,000 dolphins and porpoises around Japan.

And now, the makers of the film have managed to get it screened in Japan. The Cove was pulled from Japanese theaters before being screened due to the bad light it sheds on Japan. And the filmmakers had a financial struggle to translate the film into Japanese.

But finally, they beat the odds this past weekend, screening the film in six theaters. Nationalistic protesters showed up, but did not stop people from watching the film.

The documentary will eventually be turned into a television series on Animal Planet.

House of the future made of meat?

We don’t have a poo story this week, but we think you’ll find this last story equally gross: the meat house of the future, with walls in which tissues, skin and bones replace insulation, siding, and studs respectively.

It’s called the In Vitro Meat Habitat. This gruesome project was envisioned and developed by Mitchell Joachim from the company Terreform. But before animal lovers get up in arms, Dr. Joachim says no animal will need to be killed to make this structure. All the flesh and bone and meat will be grown in a lab.

The good doctor is already growing himself a prototype out of pig skin cells in a recycled PET plastic scaffold. Although these times of environmental crisis call for extreme creativity and innovation, many people will no doubt think this goes a bit too far.

Asked about how he would make doors and windows, Dr. Joachim said he envisions sphincter muscles that can open and close.