A young Nepali climber is seeking to popularise a toilet fashioned from a plastic bucket with a lid to promote eco-friendly climbing on Mount Everest.

Hundreds of climbers flock to the world's tallest peak at 8,850 metres every year, with many simply squatting in the open or hunching behind rocks as the Everest base camp has no proper toilet facilities.

Dawa Steven Sherpa, who led an eco-Everest expedition in May to collect trash dumped by previous climbers, said his team used a plastic bucket as well as a gas-impervious bag designed to safely contain and neutralise human waste and keep in odour.

Mr Sherpa's team, during its month-long expedition, picked up 965 kilos of cans, gas canisters, kitchen waste, tents, parts of an Italian helicopter that crashed 35 years ago and remains of the body of a British climber who died in 1972.

In addition, his team also brought down 65 kilos of human waste produced by its 18 members, which it handed over to a local environment group at the base camp for management.

Preparing for sea-level rise

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered preparations for rising sea levels from global warming, a startling prospect for the most populous US state with a Pacific Ocean coastline stretching more than 1,290 kilometres.

Recorded sea levels rose 18 cm during the 20th century in San Francisco, Mr Schwarzenegger said in the executive order for study of how much more the sea could rise, what other consequences of global warming were coming and how the state should react.

California is considered the environmental vanguard of government in the United States, with its own standards for car pollution and a law to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, the main gas contributing to global warming.

"The longer that California delays planning and adapting to sea level rise the more expensive and difficult adaptation will be," Mr Schwarzenegger said, ordering a report by the end of 2010.

Russian pawn shops booming

Pawnbrokers in the Russian capital are enjoying the global credit crunch.

The world's worst economic crisis for 80 years has hit Russia hard. Its stock market has dived by over 70 per cent since May and the government has promised to spend $200 billion (€158.6 billion) propping up its main banks and businesses.

But for Vadim Karashuk, head of Moscow's 16 state-owned pawn shops, business is good.

"We're lending out more cash now than ever because the banks are giving less credit," he said, flicking a gold cigarette lighter between his fingers during an interview at his spacious central Moscow office.

He estimated his shops now loan around $200,000 a day - about 15 per cent of the total for all Moscow's state and private pawn shops - compared to about $130,000 two months ago.

Copper socks against bacteria

Copper socks? Copper towels? How about copper subway poles? These are only a few of the ways Chile, the world's biggest copper producer, is utilising the red metal which is more commonly found in the construction and auto sectors.

Used since ancient times to make tools, weapons and plumbing systems, Chilean innovators are experimenting with ways to exploit copper's bacteria- and fungus-fighting characteristics.

"Public transport systems, where germs can be transmitted and there are large numbers of people, are a potential market for applications for surface-metal copper," said Jurgen Leibbrandt, head of market development for the Chilean state copper giant Codelco.

"In clothes there is another venue... where it has excellent anti-fungus qualities," he said.

Scientists say the power of copper to fight germs lies in the fact that copper ions separate on contact with bacteria and cause irreversible damage to the bacteria's cells.

Company plans lunar cemetery

A US funeral business that specialises in launching cremated human remains into Earth's orbit has begun taking reservations for landing small capsules of ashes on the moon, announced the company's founder.

"Celestis's first general public lunar mission could occur as early as 2010 and reservations are now being taken," said Charles M. Chafer, Celestis founder and president. "We can send up to 5,000 individual capsules to the lunar surface," he said.

The company hopes to install a cemetery on the lunar surface to hold cremated remains of the dead, or a smaller symbolic portion of them, which one day could be visited by relatives of the deceased, said Mr Chafer.

For transportation, Celestis has made deals with two other US private space companies, Odyssey Moon and Astrobotic Technology, which are currently working on making commercial flights to the moon.

'Second Life' ends couples'first marriage

A woman is to divorce her husband after discovering he was having a virtual affair within the online game Second Life, newspapers reported over the weekend.

Amy Taylor, 28, met her husband David Pollard within the game in May 2003, and six months later, she moved into his home in Cornwall.

The couple married in July 2005, while their Second Life avatars Dave Barmy and Laura Skye - younger, slimmer versions of their real-life selves - also held an online ceremony for their virtual friends.

After a rare break from the computer, however, Ms Taylor returned to find her 40-year-old husband in an intimate, albeit virtual, position with an online prostitute within Second Life, which she said was the "ultimate betrayal".