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| Nature and Environment |
"Clean",
coal's dirtiest secret
Part1: An Ugly Overview Part 2: Almost Heaven Level, The Mechanics of Moving Mountains Part3: The Poor Are Always Downstream Part4: Seven simple steps to save Appalachia Carbon Dioxide is Not Pollution
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is not pollution and Global Warming has nothing to do with pollution. The average person has been misled and is confused about what the current Global Warming debate is about, greenhouse gases. None of which has anything to do with air pollution. People are confusing Smog, Carbon Monoxide (CO) and the pollutants in car exhaust with the life supporting, essential trace gas in our atmosphere, Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Salamanders Are Quietly Vanishing From Central American Cloud Forests Biologist David Wake: “Cold facts written on a piece of paper don’t convey the impact on my psyche when I went there,” he said. Species that could be seen 10 to 15 times an hour in the 1970s were 'completely gone'." Pesticides damaging male sexuality in all species
The male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans and wildlife, startling scientific research from around the world reveals.The research – to be detailed tomorrow in the most comprehensive report yet published – shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people. Gender-bending chemicals in our rivers grow
more potent
The cocktail of gender-bending chemicals entering rivers and streams is more potent and harmful than anyone realised, it has been revealed. Scientists have found an entirely new class of chemicals that is changing male fish into females – and which could be contributing to the soaring rate of infertility and defects in men. Scientists find world's biggest snake
Researchers have found fossils of the biggest known snake in the world, a discovery that could shed light on the climate of the tropics in the past. The scientists estimate the snake lived 58 to 60 million years ago and was around 13 metres long. The giant, found in northeastern Colombia, dwarfs modern pythons and anacondas which usually don't exceed 6-6.5 metres and are thought to be the largest living snakes. Antarctica Is Definitely Feeling the Heat
From Global Warming
Finally, researchers say they have conclusive proof that the icy southern continent is also heating up. In October, a separate group of researchers came to much the same conclusion using computer models, but the new study bolsters previous research with empirical evidence. The
Co-op today became the first UK supermarket to ban the use of a group
of pesticides implicated in billions of honeybee deaths worldwide. It
is prohibiting suppliers of its own-brand fresh produce from using
eight pesticides that have been connected to honeybee colony collapse
disorder and are already restricted in some parts of Europe.
North American tree deaths accelerate Trees
in the western United States and Canada are dying more quickly than
they used to. This subtle trend correlates with climate change in the
region, which has warmed by between 0.3 and 0.4 degrees Celsius every
decade since the 1970s.
West Coast Killer Whales Are Poisoned by
Pollution-Tainted Killer Salmon
Three
pods of killer whales in the Pacific Northwest have now earned the
unfortunate title of being the most contaminated wildlife on Earth,
according to a new study. These killer whales live in the coastal
waters near the U.S.-Canadian border and survive almost exclusively on
contaminated Chinook salmon. The salmon contain high levels of
polychlorinated biphenols (PCBs) and other industrial chemicals.
Pelicans fall out of sky from Mexico to
Oregon
Pelicans
suffering from a mysterious malady are crashing into cars and boats,
wandering along roadways and turning up dead by the hundreds across the
West Coast, from southern Oregon to Baja California, Mexico,
bird-rescue workers say.
Scientists baffled as mysterious
columns of coloured light appear in the night skies
Stunning images show mysterious columns of light streaming into the sky above the town of Sigulda in Latvia at the end of last month. Crops absorb livestock antibiotics, science
shows
For half a century, meat producers have fed antibiotics to farm animals to increase their growth and stave off infections. Now scientists have discovered that those drugs are sprouting up in unexpected places. Vegetables such as corn, potatoes and lettuce absorb antibiotics when grown in soil fertilized with livestock manure, according to tests conducted at the University of Minnesota. Arsenic In Pressure-Treated Wood : Hidden Danger In The Backyard Geoengineering: a bad idea whose time may
come
At the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), climate change scientists discussed the risks and benefits of deliberately altering Earth's climate through "geoengineering". The eleven speakers at the session laid out some radical and dangerous ideas for deliberately altering Earth's climate. They uniformly cautioned that the uncertainties and dangers of implementing any of these schemes was high, but that geoengineering may be necessary if efforts to control greenhouse gases fail and the climate begins to undergo rapid and destructive changes. ed: And if greenhouse gasses turn out not to be the source of the problem? Massive
swarms of jellyfish are a growing threat to swimmers, the fishing
industry, and even the nuclear power industry. The report
says more than 1,000 fist-sized comb
jellies can be found in a cubic yard (meter) of Black Sea water during
a bloom. They eat the eggs of fish and compete with them for food,
wiping out the livelihoods of fishermen
Are Modern Humans in Evolution's Fast Lane?
We are more different genetically from people living 5,000 years ago than they were from Neandrithals. The findings may lead to a very broad rethinking of human evolution, especially in the view that modern culture has essentially relaxed the need for physical genetic changes in humans to improve survival. The
Ten Biggest Energy Myths
There has never been a more important time to invest in green technologies, yet many of us believe these efforts are doomed to failure. What nonsense, writes Chris Goodall of The Guardian. Ocean currents can power the world A revolutionary device that can harness energy from slow-moving rivers and ocean currents could provide enough power for the entire world, scientists claim. The technology can generate electricity in water flowing at a rate of less than one knot - about one mile an hour - meaning it could operate on most waterways and sea beds around the globe. Colorado River may face fight of its life The Colorado River has endured drought, large-scale climate changes, pollution, ecological damage from dams and battles by seven states to draw more water. Now the life vein of the Southwest faces another threat: Energy companies are sucking up the Colorado's water to support increased development of oil, natural gas and uranium deposits along the river's basin. The Earth's 6th Great Mass Extinction is Occurring as You Read This As long ago as 1993, Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson estimated that Earth is currently losing something on the order of 30,000 species per year -- which breaks down to the even more daunting statistic of some three species per hour. Some biologists have begun to feel that this biodiversity crisis -- this "Sixth Extinction" -- is even more severe, and more imminent, than Wilson had supposed. Organic
Beekeepers Reporting Zero Losses
With all the frightening news over bee losses throughout the world, it appears that one tiny minor piece of information was overlooked: the losses are occurring in colonies besieged with chemicals and artificial additives. Organic bees are fairing quite nicely, thank you. Wild Bees Possibly Infected By Commercially Bred Bees Scientists
Begin to Decode Whale Speak
Solar FluxAustralian scientists studying humpback whales sounds say they have begun to decode the whale's mysterious communication system. They say they’ve already identified male “pick-up lines” as well as motherly warnings. Court rules for Navy in dispute over sonar, whales The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that military training trumps protecting whales in a dispute over the Navy's use of sonar in submarine-hunting exercises off the coast of southern California. Princeton Team Challenges Darwin: Evolution Not Random? A team of Princeton University scientists has discovered that chains of proteins found in most living organisms act like adaptive machines, possessing the ability to control their own evolution, which appears to offer evidence of a hidden mechanism guiding the way biological organisms respond to the forces of natural selection, provides a new perspective on evolution. "The discovery answers an age-old question that has puzzled biologists since the time of Darwin: How can organisms be so exquisitely complex, if evolution is completely random, operating like a 'blind watchmaker'?" said Chakrabarti, an associate research scholar in the Department of Chemistry at Princeton. "Our new theory extends Darwin's model, demonstrating how organisms can subtly direct aspects of their own evolution to create order out of randomness." The
Vanishing Sunspot Mystery: What Does it Mean for Earth's Climate?
Dark spots, some as large as 50,000 miles in diameter, typically move across the surface of the sun, contracting and expanding as they go. These strange and powerful phenomena are known as sunspots, but now they are all gone. Not even solar physicists know why it’s happening and what this odd solar silence might be indicating for our future. The last time this happened was 400 years ago -- and it signaled a solar event known as a "Maunder Minimum," along with the start of what we now call the "Little Ice Age." War and Sunspot Cycles: A Form of Electromagnetic Pollution Could cycles of war, peace be tied to cycles of the sun? Every 10–11 years, the number of sunspots found on our closest star rise from 0 (as it is currently in 2008) to a high of over 400. While the sunspots themselves don’t affect Earth, the solar flares and other disturbances emanating from our sun during increased sunspot activity result in an increased number of particles (electrons and protons) and harmful light radiation (ultraviolet and x-rays), known as solar wind. Sun's protective bubble is shrinking New data has revealed that the heliosphere, the protective shield of energy that surrounds our solar system, has weakened by 25% over the past decade and is now at it lowest level since the space race began 50 years ago. Scientists are baffled at what could be causing the barrier to shrink in this way and are to launch mission to study the heliosphere. During the time it takes you to read this article, something will happen high overhead that until recently many scientists didn't believe in. A magnetic portal will open, linking Earth to the sun 93 million miles away. Tons of high-energy particles may flow through the opening before it closes again, around the time you reach the end of the page. Over the last few years, the evidence that sunspots on our sun are directly related to climate change on earth has been steadily increasing...The earth’s magnetic field, which acts as a shielding, is altered by the sun’s activity, which, in turn, is indicated by means of the number of sunspots. As the earth’s magnetic shield varies, so the cloud cover varies. Few sunspots mean a weaker earth shield, which means more cosmic rays, which mean more clouds, which mean a cooling earth. |