Jan 18 2011

Oil giant plans new platform near feeding ground of critically endangered whale

and has no comments yet.
Sakhalin Energy Investment Company – part owned by Shell – has announced plans to build a major oil platform near crucial feeding habitat of the Western North Pacific gray whale population. Only around 130 whales of the critically endangered Western population exist today, and their primary feeding habitat – off Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East – is already besieged by multiple oil and gas exploration and development projects.
Categories: News
Jan 18 2011

Many wells in Vietnam’s Red River delta contaminated

and has no comments yet.
More than a quarter of drinking wells in Vietnam's densely-populated Red River delta contain unsafe levels of arsenic that can cause cancer, neurological problems and hypertension, researchers warned on Tuesday. In a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they also said 44 percent of the wells in the delta carried levels of manganese that exceed World Health Organization guidelines. "About 7 million people are at a considerable risk of chronic arsenic poisoning. This is particularly worrying because groundwater is the main source of drinking water throughout the delta," lead author Michael Berg wrote in an email to Reuters. Arsenic contamination of groundwater occurs in many countries, like Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Chile, China, Hungary, India, Mexico, Peru, Thailand and the United States.
Categories: News
Jan 17 2011

Inflammation and How It May be Controlled

and has no comments yet.
Inflammation is a protective attempt by the organism to remove the injurious stimuli and to initiate the healing process Scientists have identified a protein that acts as a "master switch" in certain white blood cells, determining whether they promote or inhibit inflammation. The study, published in the journal Nature Immunology, could help researchers look for new treatments for diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis that involve excessive inflammation. Inflammatory responses are an important defense that the body uses against harmful stimuli such as infections or tissue damage, but in many conditions, excessive inflammation can itself harm the body. In rheumatoid arthritis, the joints become swollen and painful, but the reasons why this happens are not well understood.
Categories: News
Jan 17 2011

Eating Insects ‘Could Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions’

and has no comments yet.
Dining on crickets, locusts, or even cockroaches, instead of cattle or pigs, could ease both food insecurity and climate change, according to researchers.
Categories: News
Jan 17 2011

How Green Jobs Are Fueling The Recovery

and has no comments yet.
Creating new well-paying jobs to spur the economic recovery remains a central concern globally and in the US. The Great Recession has left many professionals and their families struggling to make ends meet for over two years. This jobless recovery is likely to be the longest recovery since the Great Depression. Furthermore, the convergence of automation and globalization have resulted in permanent changes in jobs across many industries. For instance, manufacturing and construction jobs are today more technical and requiring more education than 20 years ago. Due to the same pressure of automation and globalization, middle management jobs are also disappearing.
Categories: News
Jan 17 2011

A Lot of What We Do Impacts the Sea

and has no comments yet.
Habitat alteration, simply put, is a change to a particular environment. What is unclear from its designation, however, is the adverse affect changes — big or small — have on the broader environment and related plant and animal life. According to The Nature Conservancy, habitat alteration, along with invasive species, are the two main causes of fish extinction.
Categories: News
Jan 17 2011

Amount of carbon absorbed by ecosystems each year is grossly overstated, says new study

and has no comments yet.
According to a new paper published in Science, current carbon accounting methods significantly overstate the amount of carbon that can be absorbed by forests, plains, and other terrestrial ecosystems. That is because most current carbon accounting methods do not consider the methane and carbon dioxide released naturally by rivers, streams, and lakes.
Categories: News
Jan 17 2011

The Earth’s shrinking snow and ice cover may increase the rate of Global warming

and has no comments yet.
Shrinking ice and snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere is reflecting ever less sunshine back into space in a previously underestimated mechanism that could add to global warming, a study showed. Satellite data indicated that Arctic sea ice, glaciers, winter snow and Greenland's ice were bouncing less energy back to space from 1979 to 2008. The dwindling white sunshade exposes ground or water, both of which are darker and absorb more heat. The study estimated that ice and snow in the Northern Hemisphere were now reflecting on average 3.3 watts per square meter of solar energy back to the upper atmosphere, a reduction of 0.45 watt per square meter since the late 1970s.
Categories: News
Jan 16 2011

Nearly 600 killed, many still missing in Brazil floods

and has no comments yet.
Dozens of flood survivors desperate for news of missing relatives lined up outside a morgue in the town of Teresopolis on Saturday as criticism grew of authorities' response to one of Brazil's worst natural disasters which has killed nearly 600 people. Nearly four days after rains sparked floods and massive landslides, officials in this scenic mountain town are still struggling to cope with the scale of the catastrophe. The steadily rising death toll in the region north of Rio de Janeiro hit 591 on Saturday, Brazil's Civil Defense agency said, and President Dilma Rousseff declared three days of national mourning. Cemeteries in Teresopolis have been overwhelmed by the number of bodies and Brazilian media reported that residents in isolated areas have been forced to bury victims themselves.
Categories: News
Jan 15 2011

EU to block mackerel from Icelandic fishing boats

and has no comments yet.
The European Union has decided to block Icelandic fishing vessels carrying mackerel from landing at its ports in an escalation of a dispute over fishing quotas. The European Commission, the executive of the 27-member EU, formally notified the European Economic Area of plans for the ban, the final step before enforcing it. "We have informed the EEA joint committee that we will implement the landing bans without further delay," commission spokesman Oliver Drewes told Reuters.
Categories: News
1 ... 62 63 64 65 66 ... 192