Tee-shirt that can charge a cellphone

AGENCIES

We have all been there, out with your mates when you need to make a call and your mobile phone battery dies. Well scientists at the University of South Carolina have come up with a solution to turn tee-shirts into chargers. By soaking them in chemicals and then drying them out in special conditions the fabric fibres could store electricity. It could lead the way for clothes that can charge phones and other devices.

One day our cotton tee-shirts could have more functions. For example, a flexible energy storage device that could charge a cell phone or an iPad.

Boy's Earth poem wins prize

A schoolboy from Worthing has scooped the top prize in the WWF youth poetry competition, The Future We Want. Children aged 11-14 were invited to write a poem about their hopes for the future of the planet, which could be anything from a wish for less pollution to better protection for animals. There were more than 300 entries to the competition, but it was won by schoolboy Charlie Harrison with his poem Our Precious Planet. Harrison was presented with an iPad plus £500 for his school St Andrews CE High School for Boys. The competition was held to mark the Rio+20 summit. (Read Charlie's winning poem below in Poesy)

Ice cream museum to open in Italy

A museum to celebrate the history and culture of ice cream is to open in Italy. The museum will showcase 10,000 photographs and documents of different ice creams derived from the country, as well as the first written recipe and around 20 ice cream-making machines. Ice cream historian, Luciana Polliotti said that the tradition of gathering snow and ice from mountaintops and using it to make sorbets and sherbets began 1,200 years before Christ. In the 17th century, making ice cream involved the blending and freezing of eggs and cream. Today, ice cream is still a very popular treat throughout the world.