Oct 31 2010

Vietnam and Japan partner for rare earth mining and nuclear plant

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Vietnam has chosen to partner with Japan in mining rare earth minerals and building a nuclear power plant in the Southeast Asian country, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on Sunday, as Tokyo seeks to reduce its dependence on China. Japan, the world's third-biggest nuclear power generator, is also eyeing fast-growing markets to develop nuclear plants as electricity demand in the country is likely to stay flat or rise slightly due to its aging society and industries going abroad.
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Oct 30 2010

Florida Will Build Nation’s First High-Speed Rail Corridor

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As the Obama Administration pushes for high-speed rail networks across the country, Germany's Siemens has secured a place for its Valero ICE trains in the Sunshine State. Earlier this month, Siemens presented its vision of U.S. high-speed rail to the people of Florida with the "Future of Florida High-Speed Rail Tour," a traveling exhibit featuring a full-sized model of the Velaro high-speed train.
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Oct 29 2010

Innovation: Portable Breast Scanners

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A new portable scanner for detecting early signs of breast cancer has been developed at the University of Manchester by Professor Zhipeng Wu. The device works by radio frequency technology that can show the presence of tumors on a computer screen. The amazing thing is that it can show the image within seconds on the computer screen, rather than an x-ray mammography which takes minutes and can only be done at hospital or specialist care centers. This new technology can revolutionize the early detection for women with breast cancer.
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Oct 29 2010

Water Wars: Oregon Vs. Nestle

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Bottled water is a huge industry, and a profitable one. Last year it netted $10 billion in the US, but there are signs that the industry is slowing. Restaurants have turned away from pricey bottled water, and consumers have returned to tap water to save money. Nestlé is a huge player in the sector: its bevy of brands, which includes Perrier and Poland Spring, captures about 40% of the market. But recently Nestlé’s sales have taken a hit.
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Oct 29 2010

Antarctica Melting News

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The change in the ice mass covering Antarctica is a critical factor in global climate events. Scientists at the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences have now found that the year by year mass variations in the western Antarctic are mainly attributable to fluctuations in precipitation, which are controlled significantly by the climate phenomenon El Nino. Gravity data collected from space using NASA's Grace satellite show that Antarctica has been losing more than a hundred cubic kilometers (24 cubic miles) of ice each year since 2002. The latest data reveal that Antarctica is losing ice at an accelerating rate, too. How is it possible for surface melting to decrease, but for the continent to lose mass anyway? The answer boils down to the fact that ice can flow without melting.
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Oct 29 2010

Sierra Leone ends flag of convenience for fishing vessels

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Sierra Leone is closing its international shipping registry to foreign-owned fishing vessels in a move intended to reduce illegal catches in its seas and around the world, the fisheries minister said on Thursday. Officials said the West African country -- notorious as a so-called "flag of convenience" with minimum enforcement of maritime regulations -- was the first such nation in the world to implement the measure. "When these vessels fly our flag they go to the open ocean and there's nothing we can do about it," Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources Joseph Koroma told a news conference. "We are saying enough is enough, the buck stops here."
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Oct 28 2010

Mind Over Fat

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Scientists have revealed that an anti-obesity drug changes the way the brain responds to appetizing, high-calorie foods in obese individuals. This insight may aid the development of new anti-obesity drugs which reduce the activity in the regions of the brain stimulated by the sight of tasty foods. This is not unexpected since the brain is the center of many such sensory responses. For example in 2008, researchers at Tufts University School of Medicine and colleagues demonstrated a link between a predisposition to obesity and defective dopamine signaling in the mesolimbic system in rats. The new study at the University of Cambridge discovered that the anti-obesity drug sibutramine reduced brain responses in two regions of the brain, the hypothalamus and the amygdala, both of which are known to be important in appetite control and eating behavior. Their findings are reported today in The Journal of Neuroscienc
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Oct 28 2010

Indonesia disaster toll hits 377 as volcano erupts again

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Indonesia's Mount Merapi erupted on Thursday for the second time in a week, blasting vast plumes of ash into the sky, as the death toll from the initial eruption and a tsunami that hit remote western islands reached 377.
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Oct 28 2010

Picture: new monkey discovered in Myanmar

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Hunters' reports have led scientists to discover a new species of monkey in the northern forests of Myanmar. Discovered by biologists from the Myanmar Biodiversity and Nature Conservation Association with support from primatologists with Fauna & Flora International (FFI) and the People Resources and Biodiversity Foundation, the strange looking primate is a member of the snub-nosed monkey family, adding a fifth member to this unmistakably odd-looking group of Asian primates. However, the species survives in only a small single population, threatened by Chinese logging and hunting.
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Oct 28 2010

Vast Amber Deposit from India: New Trove of Fossils Suggests Global Distribution of Tropical Forest Ecosystems in the Eocene

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A vast new amber deposit in India has yielded 100 fossil spiders, bees, and flies that date to the Early Eocene, or 52-50 million years ago. These arthropods are not unique -- as would be expected on an island (which India was at that time) -- but have close evolutionary relationships with fossils from the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The amber is also the oldest evidence of a tropical broadleaf rainforest in Asia.
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