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As remain unpredictable and other environmental issues become a greater concern, there has been much more talk about electric cars. Yes, the electric car is real! Innovations in lithium ion batteries and the materials used to make them have increased the range of electric cars and decreased the amount of time needed to recharge them.

Various municipal and university fleets now have electric cars in use, however, the problem of recharging them still remains a valid concern. What is needed is an infrastructure for recharging them on the go. The problem with this is that many investors are hesitant in investing a huge amount of money in building a widespread system of recharging units for electric cars without being sure that it would pay off. On the other hand, consumers are reluctant about buying electric cars when there is a lack of places to “fill them up." At least there is a lot more talk about electric cars now than there was a decade ago. Analysts warn though that profits are years off. They give hybrid cars as an example - hybrids have been around for years but are still not profitable.

Despite rising gas prices, a global financial crisis, increasing unemployment rates, and numerous reports proclaiming that they cause cancer, cell phones remain as popular as ever, and the mobile phone industry is even expected to boom in the next five years! According to , although average revenue per user is expected to decline, the number of users will rise.

The reason? Growth in emerging markets for cell phones is astounding. An analysis conducted by predicted that the percentage of the world’s population that  uses of mobile-phones will increase to 80% in 2013 from the current 50% now, which amounts to 5.8 billion people. The expected number of cell phone users is expected to reach 4 billion this year alone!

President Bush achieved one of his top legislative priorities Wednesday, but the magnitude of the occasion may have been obscured by other news. What I’m referring to, of course, is the .

The nuclear deal is the of an initial joint statement between President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which was signed in 2006. For the past two years President Bush and Prime Minister Singh have trudged through domestic opposition, international hurdles, and legal bureaucracy to produce a finalized agreement. The pact allows full nuclear cooperation between the and , as well as opening up the Indian market to US nuclear technology suppliers. The necessity of the seal of approval by the Nuclear Suppliers Group also makes it a de facto recognition of India’s status as a legitimate nuclear power, despite their abstinence from the NPT.

Animal friendly products or the new thing on the market? Salads that are on a blue table or salads on a red table? Loaf of bread or sliced up bread? Cheese slices wrapped in plastic or not?

Dutch lab researchers try to figure out what people eat and how to influence their habits. They study the influences on eating in order to be able to find ways to make products more appealing and to direct consumers to healthier choices.

The $4.5 million of the Future is run by scientists of Wageningen University and Research Center, working with Sodexo, an international catering firm, and the Noldus software company, to answer questions from the food industry and behaviorists.

Although the current state of affairs seems predisposed in dealing with the global banking and equities crisis, another crisis has the potential to dominate our lives much more in the long-term - energy. The supply of fossil fuels will not last forever, and so the race for finding viable replacements to gas, oil, and coal before these become unaffordable to the average person is on.

The heart of business has been and always will be innovation. Therefore, it’s not hard to believe that numerous business schools have begun taking the lead in planning for a post-oil world. According to an article on , this is going to become an increasing trend.  Institutions such as Judge Business School at Cambridge University are committed to the movement away from dependence on fossil fuels. Judge recently held a three-day pioneering conference called Entrepreneurship for a Zero Carbon Society, which brought together the best minds in ecological entrepreneurship to share both ideas as well as business cards.

The credit crisis that has been a major issue in the lately has spread fear through European governments as they saw the need to step in with a flurry of major bank bailouts in different countries from Iceland to Germany. The governments of , , and the have been taking partial control of some of their national banks. Furthermore, the government of seized control of Glitnir bank – the third largest in the country. However, these rapid bailouts are not making banks in Europe feel more secure as they keep on refusing to lend to each other money for all but the shortest periods of time. Meanwhile, shares are falling heavily and the money markets remain frozen.

Think that the being in financial limbo has no repercussions on the rest of the world? You’d be thinking wrong. In , financial authorities have attempted to construct strong fiscal measures in an attempt to extricate the country’s stock market in the wake of the collapse of major U.S. financial institutions. Nigeria’s two chief government-operated financial policymakers, The Central Bank of Nigeria and the Securities and Exchange Commission have announced new policy measures they plan to enact in order to prevent this hemorrhage of assets in the Nigerian capital market. The plan includes measures set forth by the Central Bank such as reducing the Monetary Policy Rate, reducing the Cash Reserve Ratio, and reducing the Liquidity Ratio. Following three years of spiraling growth and high returns, the Nigerian market is now seeing prices crashing beneath initial quotation.

Never before has the American auto industry witnessed such a myriad of harmful factors that came about with the swiftness and magnitude of the present situation. The credit crunch, soaring gas prices, and an unprecedented collapse in demand for large trucks and SUVs all tangled together to create a perfect storm. The already ailing automakers are now struggling to cope with an 11% slide in U.S. sales so far this year. In the rest of the world, auto sales are either growing or experiencing a much more modest drop. Yet the financial collapse and rising oil costs are worldwide phenomena. So what makes the U.S. so much different?

Ask an American about French business practices, and you’ll probably hear about short work weeks, massive amounts of vacation time, and the penchant to go on strike every month or so. On a more social level, you might hear about free college, free healthcare, and rock-solid job security, but the average American might carefully note that this comes at the cost of sky-high taxes, layers upon layers of bureaucracy, and continually high unemployment.

With ever-increasing gas prices tempting empty wallets and bank accounts all around the world, commuters have been propositioned with a solution that gets them out of their car seats and onto their saddles. No, you will (hopefully) not see horses tied-up outside of your office next time you're at work. International businesses and governments are beginning to sell their constituents a new-fangled-old-school technology that has been proving itself popular both on the streets and in the market place: the bicycle.