An old-fashioned, punk rock light bulb, yesterday.

You might be saving the penguins whenever you turn on an energy-saving light bulb, but some new research has shown that you’re increasing the chance of barking your shin on an unidentified object that lurks ahead of you in the gloom.

That’s because the starch-coated boffins at Engineering and Technology magazine (no, us neither) have decreed that energy-efficient light bulbs lose on average 22% of their brightness over their lifetime, making them as useful as a plastic sneeze or a runaway dog.

The boffins tested 18 of the miracle bulbs over a 10,000 hour period to come up with the results, during which time three of the bulbs stopped working altogether! Traditional bulbs lose no more than seven per cent of their brightness but usually only last for 2,000 hours.

So, are we prepared to put up with this light-loss tomfoolery or should we go back to ye olde bulbes, killing countless penguins as we screw Mother Earth like she’s some kind of giant second-hand sex doll? Well? Eh??

[BBC]

'Hi. I'm still alive thanks to my friends at Google.'

Google have gotten all ‘philanthropic’ on our asses today with the UK launch of their new ‘PowerMeter’ electricity consumption contraption/service that we previewed earlier in the year. They claim they’re doing it save the planet and all of its innocent dying penguins, but doubts have been expressed over whether its just another way for them to clutch our personal data into their big Googly bosom. Who knows?

It works like this – the citizen (you for example) buys a self-installable AlertMe Energy kit and subscription (£69.00 for the hardware and then £2.99 per month). Then, hey presto, they can keep tabs on their energy consumption data on PowerMeter, as part of their iGoogle home page.

A link-up with the new breed of smart meters is also on its way. Research has shown that household energy bills fall by around 10% whenever consumers have more of a grasp on their energy use. Which is an enormous boon, and we’re always on the look out for enormous boons.

Google – saving the lives of penguins since 2009.

Tesco are cocking their snook at greenhouse gases, and global penguin-murder by introducing a widespread ‘Buy One Get One Free… Later’ offer in their supermarkets.

Customers who don’t opt to take the ‘free’ item from BOGOF offers will be given a voucher that will last for months – they can then go back and claim their ‘free’ item at a later date. The plan is aimed at reducing the amount of waste that customers experience, and Tesco’s leader, Terry Leahy explained the scheme further…

“As one small, new step we will adapt our ‘buy one get one free’ offers in perishable foods to give our customers a new opportunity – ‘buy one get one free – later.’ So customers will be able to get that other salad or vegetable or yogurt when they want it and when it will be used, not all together when it may – in the end – go to waste.”

Wow – what a guy. Of course, cynics will say that it’s a win-win situation for Tesco and that customers will forget to go back for their free cucumbers or Pepperami or will mislay the vouchers by mistake. But what do cynics know about anything? We say that if this environmentally-visionary move saves the life of just ONE penguin, then it’s worthy of the Nobel Penguin Prize.

[Thanks to HotUKDeals member rosecaitlin for the original tip-off]