NEW POLAR BEAR IN TOLEDO ... A male polar bear cub born in December at the Toledo Zoo finally has a name! The zoo announced that the cub born Dec. 3 will be called Siku, which means "ice" in the Alaskan Inupiaq language. The name was suggested by fourth-grader Isaiah Rexford of Harold Kaveolook School in Kaktovik. The zoo worked with the World Wildlife Fund, Polar Bears International and the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management to collect the name suggestions. Get all of Siku's photos, videos and updates here.

THE LITTLE VAN THAT CAN ... Federal Express is rolling out four purpose-built all-electric trucks in the Los Angeles area starting in June in an initiative to introduce more efficient buggies into its delivery fleet. The trucks, built by Navistar and assembled in Indiana, are designed with a range that allows many FedEx Express couriers to make a full eight-hour shift of deliveries before their vehicles need recharging. The electric vehicles will join 1,864 other alternative-energy vehicles already in service at FedEx operations around the world. The London fleet will get 10 new all-electric trucks and another four such vehicles are slated for Paris, where FedEx introduced specially designed courier vehicles in 2009 that are part-bicycles, part-electric scooters, to ferry packages around the city’s central district. Couriers can pedal up to 15 mph in the 10-foot-long Parisian vehicles with an occasional assist from tiny electric motors that get up to 40 miles per charge. Cargo capacity is 330 lbs. FedEx Chairman, President and CEO Frederick W. Smith told a congressional subcommittee April 28 that his company’s introduction of electric and alternative energy vehicles in its fleet reflects his personal conviction that U.S. dependence on foreign oil is “the biggest single threat to the nation’s economy and national security.” Plus, electric miles are cheaper and cleaner than gasoline miles, Smith told the lawmakers, citing the 90+ percent efficiency of electric motors, which far outshine the best internal combustion engines, which have efficiency ratings of only 25 to 27 percent.

OLDEST OIL SPILLS ARE UNDERGROUND ... The world's largest and oldest piles of asphalt have been found on a sea floor basin off Santa Barbara, Calif. The six-story-tall "volcanoes" of "crumbly, tarry stuff found 700 feet down are not a highway department waste dump. Rather, they are “the result of natural oil seepage from the sea floor over tens of thousands of years," explains Larry O'Hanlon from Discovery.com. Even more surprising, rather than being an oily death trap, the mounds have been verified to host a bevy of animal life. The 35,000-year-old volcanoes have also been called potential "treasure troves of ancient sea organisms," said David Valentine of the University of California at Santa Barbara and lead author on a paper about the discovery in the latest issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. Read more at Discovery.com.

ROUND 1 OF WIND FIGHT ENDS ... Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved the first offshore wind farm in the United States Wednesday, ending what's been categorized as a nearly decade-long political battle over installing turbines in the waters just off Cape Cod. Proponents say the move has set an example for offshore development elsewhere in the nation. But the subject remains highly controversial. Opponents, like the American Bird Conservancy, claim the project could "reduce prime offshore sea-duck foraging habitat" and have data that suggests "that loons will likely abandon the area for years to come, and there may be significant impacts to endangered Roseate Terns, which breed in nearby Buzzard's Bay and feed in Nantucket Sound." Would you support an offshore farm in your sea-side community? Comment below or email me!

OFFSHORE DRILLING THE NEW PINK ELEPHANT?... President Obama visited two alternative energy sites this week - one wind power, one biofuel - and news outlets picked up on the fact that offshore drilling did not make the cut during his most recent speech addressing the administration's energy initiatives. In his March announcement the President said "the bottom line is this: Given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth and produce jobs and keep our businesses competitive, we are going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy." This coincided with the administration's proposition to allow oil and gas drilling for the first time in large zones off the East Coast and the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Is Obama playing it safe, and rightly so, or is the Gulf oil spill providing a prime opportunity to play both sides of the fence? I want to know what you think.

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