fufor's unregelmässige news

Three-parent embryo formed in lab
Tuesday, 5 February 2008

Scientists believe they have made a potential breakthrough in the treatment of serious disease by creating a human embryo with three separate parents.

The Newcastle University team believe the technique could help to eradicate a whole class of hereditary diseases, including some forms of epilepsy.

The embryos have been created using DNA from a man and two women in lab tests.

It could ensure women with genetic defects do not pass the diseases on to their children.

It is human beings they are experimenting with
Josephine Quintavalle
Comment on Reproductive Ethics

The technique is intended to help women with diseases of the mitochondria - mini organelles that are found within individual cells.

They are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because they generate most of the cell's energy.

Faults in the mitochondrial DNA can cause around 50 known diseases, some of which lead to disability and death.

About one in every 6,500 people is affected by such conditions, which include fatal liver failure, stroke-like episodes, blindness, muscular dystrophy, diabetes and deafness.

At present, no treatment for mitochondrial diseases exists.

Genetic transplant

The Newcastle team have effectively given the embryos a mitochondria transplant.

We believe we could develop this technique and offer treatment in the forseeable future that will give families some hope of avoiding passing these diseases to their children
Professor Patrick Chinnery
University of Newcastle

They experimented on 10 severely abnormal embryos left over from traditional fertility treatment.

Within hours of their creation, the nucleus, containing DNA from the mother and father, was removed from the embryo, and implanted into a donor egg whose DNA had been largely removed.

The only genetic information remaining from the donor egg was the tiny bit that controls production of mitochondria - around 16,000 of the 3billion component parts that make up the human genome.

The embryos then began to develop normally, but were destroyed within six days.

Appearance

Experiments using mice have shown that the offspring with the new mitochondria carry no information that defines any human attributes.

So while any baby born through this method would have genetic elements from three people, the nuclear DNA that influences appearance and other characteristics would not come from the woman providing the donor egg.

However, the team only have permission to carry out the lab experiments and as yet this would not be allowed to be offered as a treatment.

Professor Patrick Chinnery, a member of the Newcastle team, said: "We believe that from this work, and work we have done on other animals that in principle we could develop this technique and offer treatment in the forseeable future that will give families some hope of avoiding passing these diseases to their children."

Dr Marita Pohlschmidt, of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, which has funded the Newcastle research, was confident it would lead to a badly needed breakthrough in treatment.

"Mitochondrial myopathies are a group of complex and severe diseases," she said.

"This can make it very difficult for clinicians to provide genetic counselling and give patients an accurate prognosis."

However, but the Newcastle work has attracted opposition.

Josephine Quintavalle, of the pro-life group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said it was "risky, dangerous" and a step towards "designer babies".

"It is human beings they are experimenting with," she said.

"We should not be messing around with the building blocks of life."

Mrs Quintavalle said embryo research in the US using DNA from one man and two women was discontinued because of the "huge abnormalities" in some cases.

Dr David King, of Human Genetics Alert, expressed concern about a "drift towards GM babies".
http://tinyurl.com/335vfz

Four more American drug planes seized
February 7, 2008
by Daniel Hopsicker

Four more American-registered drug planes have been seized from the 50-plane fleet of drug running aircraft amassed by Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.



Figures of interest in the transactions, the MadCowMorningNews has learned, include financial backers of two of this year's Republican candidates for President, as well as, unsurprisingly, an aviation company in St. Petersburg, FL. which can justifiably be called "one of the usual suspects."

Coincidentally or not, the American owners of the four planes (like the two busted earlier) were largely people and companies with 'special relationships' with U.S. political movers and shakers, including the CIA and the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.

Yet, despite this inconvenient fact, the FBI persists in referring to the aircraft's American owners as "legitimate aircraft brokers" and "unwitting sellers"

"This is Your GOP. This is your GOP... on drugs."

The Republican connection begins with the statement in court filings that the money to purchase the planes was laundered through a bank which is almost invariably described as “fast-growing” in admiring business news articles.

The drug money was wired, usually from Mexico, to an account at Commerce Bank in Miami, whose Chairman, Dennis Nixon, is the South Texas Co-chair of John McCain’s campaign.

Nixon was also a Bush Pioneer and Ranger in George W. Bush’s two Presidential campaigns, raising $300,000 in one night for Bush’s re-election bid in Texas border town Laredo.

High-profile Texas businessman Dennis Nixon's bank is even— in one of the sales—involved on both ends. Money was wired from Mexico, first to an account at Commerce Bank in Miami, then on to International Bank of Commerce (IBC) in Oklahoma to complete the sale.

Dennis Nixon's International Bancshares of San Antonio owns both banks.

"Abuse of power comes as no surprise."

The second transaction with apparent Republican 'ramifications" involves a Grumman Albatross (N7027Z) seaplane apparently sold to the Sinaloa Cartel.

N7274Z, reported El Nuevo Herald, had been "purchased, with several twists between August to September 2006, from the HSBC bank in Mexico by Jorge Barraza, a resident of Tamil Nadu, Jorge Medina and Daniel Medina on behalf of Insured Aircraft Title Service in Oklahoma."

El Nuevo Herald identifies the plane with the “N” number N7027Z as a Beech King Air. However, the grand jury indictment identifies the plane only by its N number, N7027Z.

A check of FAA records revealed that that “N” number was assigned to a Grumman Albatross seaplane. An FAA spokesman told us, when we inquired, that that N number has been used exclusively by the Grumman Albatross for the past 15 years.

Moreover a reliable source in Fort Lauderdale stated to us recently that seaplanes have recently become all the rage in drug trafficking circles.

A seaplane would seem an excellent idea

The seaplane, or "warbird," as aircraft broker sites call planes decommissioned from the military, was owned by Jay Koven, whose construction company built Rudy Giuliani’s Emergency Command Center in Building 7 of the World Trade Center.

The decision to locate New York City's Command Center high above the one site in NYC which had already been attacked by foreign terrorists was controversial... even before it had to be abandoned on September 11.

According to “The Real Rudy,” a Giuliani expose in American Prospect magazine in September 2006, Koven and his partner gave $4,000 to Giuliani at a party given in 1998 at the behest of WTC lessor Larry Silverstein, at the Fifth Avenue home of his public relations guru.

Silverstein had signed the lease for the command center just two weeks earlier, not nearly enough time to avoid charges of a quid pro quo. And sure enough...

"Attendance was obligatory," recalled Jay Koven’s partner in Ambassador Construction. “The invitation meant we were expected to give a contribution.”

Queasy Rider

Concluded the magazine, “The timing couldn't have been queasier.”

We were somewhat surprised when Koven returned a phone call made to his home in Larchmont.

"The plane was not seized," he told us. "I still own the airplane. I can't really tell you anything, and I'm not at liberty to say more about what little I do know. But I can tell you... I'm just a normal guy with an airplane I'm trying to sell."

He gave the phone number for an aircraft broker who's currently advertising the Albatross for sale, and the broker confirmed that the plane has not been seized, and is for sale.

There are many who feel, and Mr. Koven may be one, and with some justification, that we are adrift on a vast sea, in a tiny boat, in a world we never made.

But what of the owner's of the other planes on the list?

"Round up the usual suspects... again."

At least one company involved in the sale of the four seized American planes can by now be justifiably called one of the “usual suspects.”

Amazingly, SkyWay Aircraft is once again among the drug running airplane’s sellers.

Skyway Aircraft, located at the small Alfred Whitted Municipal Airport in downtown St. Petersburg, is not to be confused with the notorious and now-defunct other SkyWay Aircraft, which owned the DC9 whose bust with 5.5 tons of cocaine aboard kicked off the scandal.

SkyWay’s owner, Larry W. Peters, has vociferously denied any involvement between his company and the other Skyway, Brent and Glen Kovar’s, which was located 15 minutes away at St-Pete Clearwater Int’l.

And no wonder. The Kovar’s SkyWay increasingly looks like nothing more than an elaborate front for drug smuggling.

But being (undeservingly?) tarred with the same name, if not the same brush, may not be Peter’s biggest problem.

His SkyWay sold a Cessna Conquest II (N5113S), suspected of being used to fly drugs from South America to Africa, according to a report in the Tampa Tribune, making this the third plane “sold” by Larry Peters' hapless SkyWay Aircraft to “buyers” later determined to be drug traffickers.

No three strikes law, apparently, applies.

Bible Institute: Good book provides good 'cover'

The very first plane seized was an older Beech King Air (N1100M) exported to Venezuela on October 23, 2006. The plane was supposedly owned by a company in Doral, located northwest of Miami, close to Miami International Airport, called Plans and Parts Enterprises LLC, but the State of Florida’s Division of Corporations has no company doing business in the state listed by that name.

Another of the three Beech King Airs (N50AJ), may have been flown by controversial Moody Bible Institute’s Summer Institute of Linguistics, widely accused in the Latin American press of being funded by American intelligence, and suspected of involvement in the 2003 CIA-backed coup in Haiti.

The plane also made numerous flights to Albert Whitted (KSPG) Airport, the small St. Petersburg airport where SkyWay Aircraft is located.

It is apparently owned by Communications International Inc, a telecom company in Vero Beach, FL. But as recently as 2004 it may have been flown in South America by the Moody Bible Institute. It is pictured on the website of Robert Peterson, one of Moody’s pilots, but it is unclear whether he was flying it for Moody.

Nasty Venezuelans keep pulling Uncle Sam's chain.

News of four new planes seized—three Beech King Air twin-engine turbojets and a Grumman Albatross seaplane decommissioned by the U.S. military—was first revealed in a story last Friday in Spanish-language El Nuevo Herald.

Under a headline loosely translated as “US dismantles flotilla of drug trafficking planes,” the paper unearthed documents filed in Federal Court in Miami last October revealing new details of what apparently is an ongoing U.S. multi-agency operation to dismantle the huge fleet of American-registered aircraft amassed by the Sinaloa Cartel during the past several years.

The main actor, at least in the court filings and criminal complaint, appears to be Venezuelan businessman Pedro Benavides Jose Natera, who ran a system used to purchase American planes for use by Mexican drug cartels which the FBI characterizes as "a complex international money laundering scheme."

The 51-year old Benavides, who goes on trial in Miami next month, is charged with laundering drug profits to buy U.S. aircraft to smuggle cocaine, using accounts at Commerce Bank in Miami to acquire aircraft for the drug trafficking organization (DOT.)

Mexican newspapers reported over the weekend that Judicial Police in Mexico City may have become aware of the scheme as early as 1998, when they arrested “Cambio de Change Puebla” owner Pedro Alatorre after one of the "customers" at his money exchange overnight went from financial transactions totaling $100,000 per month to over $800,000 per week.

Alatorre, who began rubbing elbows with Mexico City’s elite as a tennis pro at a racquet club there, spent five months in jail at the time before being released.

Maybe its the red beret. Raspberry might be better.

The ringleader of the operation was... you guessed it. A Venezuelan...

Drug kingpin Carlos Ayala Lara, according to the FBI, was responsible for funneling money from drug traffickers in Venezuela installed to indicted Sinaloa cartel money man Pedro Alatorre Damy’s chain of money exchanges at major airports in Mexico, Cambio de Change de Puebla.

Reported El Nuevo Herald, “The traffickers are operating in Venezuela and Mexico. Several planes have already been confiscated, others are under observation, and there have been numerous arrests of suspects in Mexico and the United States.”

In the court documents, FBI agent Michael Hoenigman cites “a confederation of individuals" whose job was to scout out U.S. aircraft desired by Venezuela-based drug traffickers, and then buy them for use in ferrying cocaine shipments around the globe.

The operation—or at least the publicity surrounding it—seems aimed directly at Venezuela. Authorities from both the United States and Colombia allege Venezuela has become a sanctuary for Colombian drug traffickers, which Venezuela denies.

Its a war on some drugs. Not theirs.

But evidence in the case of one of the two planes already caught, the Gulfstream business jet which went down in Mexico in September carrying four tons of cocaine, indicated that the plane never touched down in Venezuela.

Instead, it took off from the Medellin International Airport in Rio Negro, Colombia, currently the strong-hold of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

The four seized planes join two CIA-and Dept. of Homeland Security-linked planes already linked to the Sinaloa drug fleet. A DC-9 (N900SA) registered to former SkyWay partner Frederic Geffon’s Royal Sons Inc from St. Petersburg FL was busted in Mexico carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine, and a Gulfstream II business jet (N987SA) crash-landed carrying 4 tons in September in the Yucatan after failing to land at airports in Cancun and Merida.

Finally, another bank cited in the court filings for moving Sinaloa cartel drug money is HBSC Bank in Mexico City. Curiously, this is also the bank used by Chinese drug trafficker Zhenli Ye Gon, whose Mexico City home was discovered to be stuffed with over $200 million in cash.

Ye Gon claimed he was merely “holding” the money, which literally filled his home in Mexico City, for Mexican politicians, who threatened him with death if he demurred. What U.S. and Mexican officials are hoping to avoid is the question...

Who can say 'no' to a deal like that?
http://tinyurl.com/29ej3s

Natural Security vs National Security
January 29, 2008

“A new book due to come out shortly caught my eye today. Natural Security: A Darwinian Approach to a Dangerous World, is the result of more than two years of investigation and debate by a multidisciplinary group of scientists and security experts lead by Duke University’s Raphael Sagarin and international security expert Terence Taylor.

The book explores the myriad ways that biological organisms have found to protect themselves from the threats posed by predators, disease, and other dangers in the environment. “Arms races among invertebrates, intelligence gathering by the immune system and alarm calls by marmots are just a few of nature’s successful security strategies that have been tested and modified over time in response to changing threats and situations,” Sagarin said. “In our book, we look at these strategies and ask how we could apply them to our own safety.”

According to early reviews the book explores how evolutionary models and ideas can be applied to threats ranging from terrorism to natural disasters and the spread of disease.

It sounds like a fascinating premise and I look forward to reading the book. I think that the current popularity of popular books on cross-disciplinary studies is a wonderful thing. My bookshelves are full of books like Albert-Laszlo Barabasi’s Linked; Candace Pert’s Molecules of Emotion; Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness and more.

We’ve reached a wonderful point in world culture where the proliferation of new knowledge and ideas combined with the searchability and availability of information are coming together in an absolutely wonderful way. Not only are we discovering more pieces of information every day, we also have a much better ability to see how they fit together.

And the fit is often surprising.

A report last year by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) confirmed what most Americans already suspected. Despite heightened awareness and tightened restrictions, “the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) cannot possibly control all potential threats to airport security. ”According to Raphael Sagarin “Biological organisms inherently understand this. They realize they can’t eliminate all risk in their environment. They have to identify and respond to only the most serious threats, or they end up wasting their resources and, ultimately, failing the evolutionary game.

Here’s the important thing folks, right from the expert – Mother Nature. It is impossible to eliminate risk.

So why is our society so obsessed with doing just that? From soccer moms to news reporters and trial attorneys, eliminating (not minimizing) risk is the key issue in modern life. We worry that satellites will fall on our heads, pit bulls will attack us or that we’ll die of bird flu – when it is far more likely that we’ll die on the toilet, be killed by a loved one or succumb to a common flu virus (even though statistics say that the latter three are much more likely than the first). The unknown scares us. This is an evolutionary advantage, or at least it used to be. But that fear of the unknown is an ancient piece of our psyches that we focus too much on today, largely because politicians and the media find it convenient to hype issues that focus on fear rather than facts.H. L. Mencken had it right when he said that “the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety), by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”There’s a great quote in this new book that hits this issue head on: “Whether you’re dealing with al Qaeda or an emerging pathogen, studying animal behavior teaches us basic principles of survival,” Sagarin said. “You can’t eliminate all risks, so you have to focus on the big ones, while adapting to minimize risk from the rest. You have to be aware of your environment, understanding that it’s constantly in flux. And when it comes to adapting and responding to threats, a centralized authority can get in the way. Individual units that sense the environment, with minimal central control, work best.” Are we the enemy, or is the enemy a government and media that control us by playing on our fears?
http://tinyurl.com/2emr73

Inside Britain's happiest eco-town
Wednesday, 6 February 2008

Never mind solar panels and protesters – one new low-carbon development is designed above all to build a sense of community. Donnachadh McCarthy finds peace and love



It's not every day that you glimpse a vision of the future. And it's all the more surprising for this vision to consist of a group of houses made not with hi-tech steel, glass and concrete, but with an altogether more old-fashioned material: wood. As the road ahead bends and the new houses come into view, it's hard not to be thrilled at the thought that finally someone's really thinking about what an eco-village should be.

It is not simply that the design of The Wintles is a beautiful combination of local vernacular and modern aesthetics. You get the sense that there is something else special about these homes. Absent are the regimented lines of modern, soulless housing estates. Instead, about 12 houses of various shapes and sizes are clustered in a circle around a small communal green.

With me is Bob Tomlinson, the man who thought up the masterplan for this site, just outside Bishop's Castle, in Shropshire. For him, eco-thinking runs deeper than the inclusion of solar panels and windmills strapped to chimneys. For a start, there's all that wood, which isn't just there to create a groovy rustic vibe. Many eco-developments, once closely examined, prove to be little more than houses with concrete-riddled designs, higher levels of insulation than normal and a token cycle park. And that's really not in the spirit of things – the concrete industry accounts for 5 per cent of total global carbon dioxide emissions (that's even more than aviation).

But more than just selecting the right materials, a sense of healthy community is one key feature Tomlinson tried to build into The Wintles. Tomlinson feels that modern estate housing does not encourage people to put down roots and create good communities. The modern habit of moving home, on average, every seven years comes at a huge cost to the environment. Not only does it damage human relationships, but a huge amount of waste is created in the constant redecorating and refurnishing generated by this housing carousel.

"We are using this site as a test bed for a revolution in eco-building," says Tomlinson. "The old village has been around since the time of the Domesday Book, and it was the fact that it has been successful as a community for so long that inspired us to look at the reasons for its success." Tomlinson is passionate in his belief that an eco-town must not only be built using the latest low-carbon technologies but must also engender a sense of place, to be a town that will work from one generation to the next and be able to feed and clothe itself from local products.

A real community, he says, requires a full range of households and homes that are suitable for both shy people and extroverts and those of varying incomes. Uniquely, the development contains about 12 acres of shared woodland, orchards and allotments, which he believes is one of the most important eco-aspects of the development. When you realise up to 30 per cent of our carbon footprints arise from food production, you can see he has a point.

He says that, historically, Bishop's Castle already had some of these attributes. "The layout of the old town encourages a sense of community. Because its main street is so steep and has awkward corners, it's hard to navigate for cars, which means more people walk. So the locals bump into each other and catch up." It has a fairly high density of residences, with many two- and three-storey terrace houses with only very small gardens, or none at all. The residents did, however, have medieval "burgage plots" beside the village where they could grow fruit and vegetables.

So when the Living Village Trust, which he helped set up in 1993, was looking for a site in Bishop's Castle, Tomlinson thought it should reflect the same community principles that had helped Bishop's Castle to survive successfully over the centuries. The first step was to buy a failed pub in the village, The Six Bells, and to relaunch it with a micro-brewery producing its own ale and to use the plot beside it to build five eco-houses. The Wintles development is the latest phase of the process. Some of the eco-houses here are built already, and more are on their way.

Fundamental to the vision of The Wintles is that a neighbourhood should consist of no more than 70 households, made up of clusters of about 10 to 12 homes. Tomlinson believes such clusters of homes require no formal committees to run themselves or to manage their shared woodland and orchards. As for the buildings themselves, they are wooden-framed and have good levels of high-performance insulation made from recycled paper (called Warmcel). By positioning bigger windows on the south side of the houses, they make the most of the sun to heat and light them. Hot water comes from solar power. And concrete use is kept to a minimum in the foundations.

These small steps all add up. In a study carried out on previous Living Villages developments, the two things that reduced the households' carbon footprints the most were the wood-burning fires for heating and successful car clubs.

Despite the sound design of the homes, not everyone could see the logic. The banks that lent the money insisted on central heating being put in, even though the homes were heated perfectly well by wood-burners. The heating engineers would not sign off the properties without insisting on radiators being installed upstairs, even though, due to the very high insulation, they were unnecessary. The water company insisted on Living Villages taking external liability for any problem with the rain-harvesting system, which caused further problems with the banks. And the council insisted on the approach road being wide enough for two refuse trucks to pass – even though this is deepest Shropshire.

But do the houses work? Tomlinson's theory about the design facilitating social intercourse is proven as we walk around The Wintles. One resident, David Clarke, comes to his front door and he invites Tomlinson and myself inside. Soon he is telling us about how much he loves his new home. "The way the houses are arranged in a circle is really important to us, as you see the neighbours all the time and so we got to know them really easily. You end up spending loads more time talking and you quickly find out if people are ill and need some help."

With Clarke's feet bare, in the depths of winter, it was obvious he was not feeling cold – his wood burner was blazing cheerfully in the living room. Did he need to use the central-heating, which is fuelled by LPG (liquid petroleum gas), which the bank insisted on being installed? "We only used it once last year when the temperature dropped to minus 10 degrees. LPG is too expensive compared with our wood-heater."

On the downside, Clarke feels the north-facing hallway is a bit dark. But the real proof of the pudding is in his parting comment: "I would now find it very difficult to move to a house that doesn't have eco-features."

As we continue to stroll around the development, passing the site where the builders are busy constructing the next two circles of housing, Tomlinson chats about the trust's journey so far and I begin to get an idea of how much our institutions need to change if we are to reduce our CO2 emissions. The hurdles he has had to overcome show how hard pioneering eco-housing can still be. He went through three architect firms but failed to get one that could translate his ideas about community eco-sustainability into physical structures.

So where does the Living Villages Trust go from here? Tomlinson is derisive about how some planners are disastrously moving again towards residential tower-blocks. He says that studies have shown that the higher one lives in a tower block, the more time one is likely to spend in a psychiatric unit.

Tomlinson is determined to take the successful Bishop's Castle model into Britain's major towns and cities. Living Villages is already at various stages of negotiations for building another 2,000 eco-homes across Britain. He says the Scottish authorities are far ahead of England when it comes to understanding the issues around community eco-sustainability.

Heading back to catch the train, I can only think that, with Living Villages demonstrating in real life that all these theories work, hopefully it will not be long before English planners are also singing from The Wintles' eco-community hymn sheet. It would also be a big step forward if banks stopped insisting on central heating, the plumbers didn't press for extra radiators, and that instead they all started to learn from Tomlinson's example.

Properties in the final phase range from £299,000 for a three-bedroom home to £500,000 for a five-bedroom home (www.livingvillage.com)

The Living Villages ethos

* An eco-community should have no more than 10 to 12 households; the wider neighbourhood should have only 40 to 70 households.

* Homes must be designed to accommodate a full range of households and types of people.

* Front doors should face each other on a circular communal area.

* Cars should be banned from the front-door area and not be allowed to drive directly through the development.

* Developments should have land set aside for woodland, orchards and allotments.

* The houses should be ultra-energy efficient, include passive solar design and wood-burners for heating.

* Designs should reflect the local vernacular and be made as much as possible from local materials.

* The design should encourage residents to stay for their lifetime and work for the next generation of their family, too.

The best new green homes

By Eeve Middleton

Millfield Eco Projects, Kingston St Mary, Taunton, Somerset

What makes it green?

An 18 eco-property development, Millfield uses timber and the latest carbon-neutral technology to build each house. The walls and roof are insulated to the highest standard with cellulose fibre made from recycled paper, allowing the walls to breathe and stopping fungus and decay.

The interiors include appliances of the highest energy-efficiency, and there are triple-glazed windows and low-energy lighting. The heating for each house is provided by a pump system that uses the earth's natural heat to warm up the interior. The properties also collect and utiltise rain water.

Where's the "wow" factor?

The development nestles on the edge of Somerset's Quantock Hills – an area of outstanding natural beauty.

From £275,000 for a three-to four-bedroom detached house (01823 451 256; www.millmeadow.co.uk).

Trelowarren, Mawgan, nr Helston, Cornwall

What makes it green?

Trelowarren isn't just any eco-development – its 15 properties are situated in the grounds of Sir Ferrers Vyvyan's 1,000-year-old estate in West Cornwall. The luxury timeshares – all restored from old outbuildings – are set in a listed landscape of beautiful woodlands and stunning beaches. Marketed as "responsible eco-tourism", they meet the highest standards of construction to the design of environmental architects Gale & Snowden. All materials used come from sustainable sources as close to the estate as possible. The interior of the properties are furnished with organic paints and textiles.

Where's the "wow" factor?

Daphne du Maurier was so taken with Trelowarren after staying with the Vyvyans that it became the inspiration for her novel Frenchman's Creek.

From £10,000 for a 25-year-lease (01326 222 105; http://www.trelowarren.co.uk)

Ecos Homes, Langport, Somerset

What makes it green?

Situated in the lea of the Polden Hills, the site for these eco-homes was formerly (and rather aptly) used as an apple store. The houses – three terraced three-bed houses and two four-bed detached houses – are tucked away in a conservation area and have minimal impact on the environment. External features include durable weatherboarding, triple-glazed windows, a rainwater harvesting system, and solar electric panels. The inside of the property is just as innovative, with energy-efficient graded appliances and wood-pellet stoves. The properties are built to level five of the Government's sustainable homes criteria – the highest being level 6, equivalent to zero- carbon.

Where's the "wow" factor?

The gardens have been landscaped to support wildlife and provide residents with space to grow produce.

From £399,950 for a four-bedroom detached house(01458 259 400; www.ecoshomes.co.uk)

Yours South Lynn, South Lynn, Norfolk

What makes it green?

The fourth of only seven UK "millennium communities" as designated by the Government, this eco-housing development offers equal priority to pedestrians, cyclists and motorists. It also has streets designed to reduce traffic speed and safe areas for children to play. The houses are built with timber frames, have increased insulation and are soundproofed so noise pollution is kept to a minimum (a bonus with the safe play areas around). The insulation in each property means that 40 per cent less CO2 is emitted. The developer has also included segregated recycling bins and facilities in kitchens for separating waste.

Where's the "wow" factor?

There are open spaces designed to encourage wildlife and increase biodiversity, and free bikes for each home.

And there are plans to generate power from renewable resources.

From £134,950 for a two-bed flat (0845 257 2135; www.yourssouthlynn.co.uk)

Ecostessey Park, Costessey, Norfolk

What makes it green?

Ecostessey Park is a development of 22 zero-carbon eco-chic townhouses. Each property is built with innovative ecological technologies, and is designed in a contemporary idiom.

The houses have solar-powered water heating using photovoltaic panels, high-insulation windows and doors, internal party and external walls, roofs and floors. Internally there are heat-recovery and filtered air systems, rainwater harvesters, recycling containers, waste compactors, and low-energy light bulbs. The development utilises green wind-farm electricity and smart meters to monitor electrical use. Window glass is self-cleaning.

Where's the "wow" factor?
The setting: it's a private estate on the banks of the River Tud.
http://tinyurl.com/2cxkx9