Feb 24 2014

COLLEGIATE CORNER: Fossil Fuels vs. Renewable Resources

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Fossil fuels have been the main source of the energy all over the world. They increase the amount of CO2 emissions, and the emission of CO2 is a great cause of global warming in the atmosphere, destroying the atmospheric layers. What can we do to lower the demand of fossil fuels and become more eco friendly with renewable energy resources? The percent of US transportation sector consumption is 95.4% fossil fuels (Article 3), and this shows the reliance of the US on fossil fuels. As the Institute for Energy states, "Fossil Fuels make modern life possible" and that the only reason that our modern society works and the privileges we get are all due to the fact of fossil fuels (Article 3). Need I remind you: fossil fuels are limited and could go out?
Categories: News
Feb 24 2014

Why did the toad cross the road?

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Have you given any thoughts to toads lately? They may not be the first creature that comes to mind when considering animal advocacy. Indeed, the mating ritual of amphibians is not usually a concern because most toads manage to travel from their wooded habitats to a body of water for mating all by themselves and without human intervention.
Categories: News
Feb 24 2014

Is Weird Winter Weather Related to Climate Change?

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This winter’s weather has been weird across much of the Northern Hemisphere. Record storms in Europe; record drought in California; record heat in parts of the Arctic, including Alaska and parts of Scandinavia; but record freezes too, as polar air blew south over Canada and the U.S., causing near-record ice cover on the Great Lakes, sending the mercury as low as minus 50 degrees Celsius in Minnesota, and bringing sharp chills to Texas.
Categories: News
Feb 23 2014

U.S. Supreme Court To Hear Argument Over EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Regulations for Stationary Sources

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On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument in six consolidated challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency's ("EPA’s") decision to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases ("GHGs") from stationary sources under certain provisions of the Clean Air Act (the "CAA"). The cases come from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which dismissed the challenges in 2012 on the ground that the petitioners lacked standing.
Categories: News
Feb 23 2014

Empathetic Elephants

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When an elephant sees another in distress, he consoles him. He touches him to calm him down, using his "trunk to gently touch [his] face." He may also put his trunk in the distressed elephant's mouth, much like a chimpanzee will put a hand into a distressed compatriot's mouth. One author of the study that made this finding (which was published in Peer J on February 16, 2014), Dr. Frans de Waal, says elephants "get distressed when they see others in distress, reaching out to calm them down, not unlike the way chimpanzees or humans embrace someone who is upset." They also make a high-pitched chirping sound to comfort each other. Sometimes a whole group of elephants will surround and chirp to a distressed individual.
Categories: News
Feb 21 2014

Experts develop low-cost solar panels by recycling rare metals

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Swedish firm Midsummer, a leading supplier of production lines for cost effective manufacturing of flexible thin film CIGS solar cells, has developed a unique process to recover leftover rare metals such as indium and gallium when manufacturing thin film CIGS solar cells.
Categories: News
Feb 21 2014

New Tool Will Help Revolutionize Forest Monitoring

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World Resources Institute (WRI) yesterday announced the release of a tool that promises to revolutionize forest monitoring. The platform, called Global Forest Watch and developed over several years with more than 40 partners, draws from a rich array of "big data" related to the word's forests and translates it into interactive maps and charts that reveal trends in deforestation, forest recovery, and industrial forestry expansion. Global Forest Watch is the first tool to monitors global forests on a monthly basis, allowing authorities and conservationists to potentially take action against deforestation as it is occurring.
Categories: News
Feb 20 2014

Peru’s Manu National Park sets new biodiversity record

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Peru's treasured Manu National Park is the world's top biodiversity hotspot for reptiles and amphibians, according to a new survey published last week by biologists from the University of California, Berkeley, Southern Illinois University in Carbondale (SIU-Carbondale) and Illinois Wesleyan University. The park, which encompasses lowland Amazonian rain forest, high-altitude cloud forest and Andean grassland east of Cuzco, is well known for its huge variety of bird life, which attracts ecotourists from around the globe. More than 1,000 species of birds, about 10 percent of the world's bird species; more than 1,200 species of butterflies; and now 287 reptiles and amphibians have been recorded in the park. "For reptiles and amphibians, Manu and its buffer zone now stands out as the most diverse protected area anywhere," said study coauthor Rudolf von May, a postdoctoral researcher in UC Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.
Categories: News
Feb 20 2014

Just How Clean is Natural Gas?

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Just the other day I hopped on a natural gas bus to head to downtown Oakland, enjoying one of the East Bay’s many environmentally-friendly public transit options. But how friendly was that bus to the birds, the bees and the trees?
Categories: News
Feb 20 2014

Wind farms have longer operational life than previously thought

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New wind farms have a longer economic lifespan than gas-turbine power stations, according to fresh research that also dismisses claims that ageing wind installations are a bad investment. The UK has a target of generating 15 per cent of the nation's energy from renewable resources such as wind farms by 2020. There are currently 4,246 individual wind turbines in the UK across 531 wind farms, generating 7.5 per cent of the nation's electricity.
Categories: News
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