By Mike Robbins
Hydrogen -- Star Gas, Everywhere, Yet Unseen. Sunlight is its Child.
(Haiku by Stephen Wetlesen)
July 25, 2013
After a three-decade delay,
the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency has
proposed the first controls
that would significantly
curb power plant discharges
of toxic coal ash and sludge
into the nation's waterways,
according to a report by
five national environmental
organizations.
Scientists say that the
release of large amounts of
methane from thawing
permafrost in the Arctic
could have huge economic
impacts for the world.
High levels of arsenic
in rice grown in certain
regions of the world
have been shown to cause
genetic damage in
humans.
A new study by
University of Manchester
scientists, working in
collaboration with
researchers at the
CSIR-Indian Institute of
Chemical Biology in
Kolkata, has proven a
link between rice
containing high levels
of arsenic and
chromosomal damage in
people who eat a lot of
rice as a staple.
Boulder City Council members
urged a "parallel track"
Tuesday night of moving
forward with condemning Xcel
Energy's distribution system
and analyzing the potential
of new energy efficiency and
renewable energy products
and services that Xcel could
provide.
A study from Rush University
Medical Center in Chicago
analyzed data from 121
participants in the Chicago
Health and Aging Project,
and found that a B12
deficiency may result in
brain shrinkage and problems
with thinking and reasoning.
Researchers found that
methylmalonate and
homocysteine, two indicators
of a B12 deficiency, were
linked with less brain
volume and more cognitive
problems.
The California Superior
Court of Alameda recently
required the state's
Department of Public Health
to proceed with setting a
standard to protect millions
of Californians from unsafe
levels of hexavalent
chromium, cancer-causing
chemical, in drinking water.
Carbon capture and storage
seems like a distant
concept. But some experts
are saying that aspects of
the tool are very much
within the nation’s grasp,
especially if such releases
are used for the purpose of
enhanced oil recovery.
If the midweek hump has you
in a contemplative spirits,
this stunning image of Earth
as pictured by the Cassini
spacecraft from Saturn, 898
million miles (1.44 billion
kilometers) away, may offer
a little context. The Earth
and the Moon appear to be
seemingly insignificant
specks from the perspective
of the spacecraft from its
orbit around the gas giant,
the second biggest planet in
the Solar System. But as it
turns out, Cassini is
actually talking us up.
Yesterday the South
Carolina Supreme Court
denied petitions for
rehearing in the case of
Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl,
filed by both the Cherokee
Nation and Cherokee Nation
citizen Dusten Brown. Brown
is an Iraq combat veteran
who has raised his daughter
for more than a year and a
half inside the Cherokee
Nation community of Nowata,
Oklahoma. Brown is currently
out of state at mandatory
National Guard training.
The European Union's
antidumping tariffs are
spurring price increases for
Chinese solar modules,
marking the end of a period
when available inexpensive
photovoltaic (PV) devices
enabled fast growth of
installations in the region,
according to research from
IHS.
A project operated by
China's largest coal miner,
Shenhua Group, has reduced
groundwater levels in a
region of Inner Mongolia and
discharged high levels of
toxic wastewater,
environmental campaign group
Greenpeace said on Tuesday.
"The CIA is funding a study
examining various ways
mankind can geo-engineer the
planet -- blocking or
limiting the sunlight that
reaches the Earth, stripping
carbon dioxide from the
skies, seeding the clouds
and so on. The project, a
panel called 'Geoengineering
Climate: Technical
Evaluation and Discussion of
Impacts,' is backed by the
National Academy of
Sciences, the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), NASA
-- and ... the CIA."
[editor's note: We've been
warned about this for a
while now
Climate skeptics have seized
on a pause in warming over
the past five years, but the
long-term trend is still
upwards. A recent slowdown
in the upward march of
global temperatures is
likely to be the result of
the slow warming of the deep
oceans, British scientists
said on Monday.
For the first time,
scientists have documented
an acceleration in the melt
rate of permafrost, or
ground ice, in a section of
Antarctica where the ice had
been considered stable. The
melt rates are comparable
with the Arctic, where
accelerated melting of
permafrost has become a
regularly recurring
phenomenon, and the change
could offer a preview of
melting permafrost in other
parts of a warming Antarctic
continent.
According to Navigant
Research, biofuel production
revenue will reach $7.6
billion by 2023, with $69
billion invested in new
production capacity
worldwide over the next 10
years. This is even as the
global expansion of advanced
biofuel production slows due
to delays in the development
of advanced biofuels, the
boom in fossil fuels
production in key markets
like the United States, and
a decline in global biofuels
investment.
The economic impact of the
melting Arctic ice cap due
to climate change could cost
the world more than $60
trillion, nearly the size of
the global economy in 2012,
according to a team of
British and Dutch
researchers.
The Minnesota Court of
Appeals on Monday upheld a
jury verdict awarding
damages to a trio of Wright
County dairy farmers whose
cows began producing less
milk because of stray
electrical currents from the
local power cooperative.
"A deal reached in Congress
to allow the United States
to ship arms to Syrian
rebels could spur other
nations to do the same,
blunting the military gains
of dictator Bashar Assad and
preventing him from crushing
the rebel movement. Syrian
rebels say the decision by
U.S. lawmakers to go along
with President Obama's plan
announced weeks ago to arm
their factions will give
them an edge."
Scientists at the University
of Bonn simulate that
seismic waves can be focused
like in a parabolic
reflector
A New Jersey Institute of
Technology professor known
for his cutting-edge work
with carbon nanotubes is
overseeing the making of a
prototype lab-on-a-chip that
would someday enable a
physician to detect disease
or virus from just one drop
of liquid, including blood.
Professors Reginald Farrow
and Alokik Kanwal, his
former postdoctoral fellow,
have created a carbon
nanotube-based device to
noninvasively and quickly
detect mobile single cells
with the potential to
maintain a high degree of
spatial resolution.
A train has derailed in
north-western Spain, killing
at least 77 of its 218
passengers and injuring more
than 100, officials in the
Galicia region say.
The privacy group,
representing 19 diverse
groups — including a gun
rights groups and a Los
Angeles church — claim the
NSA's PRISM and fiber cable
spying program violates
their constitutional rights.
Electric vehicle (EV) sales
doubled in the first 6
months of 2013 compared to
the same period in 2012,
according to the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE).
DOE's most recent pricing
data -- eGallon, a quick and
simple way for consumers to
compare the costs of fueling
electric vehicles vs.
driving on gasoline -- shows
that prices rose slightly to
$1.18 from $1.14 in the
latest monthly numbers, but
remain far below the $3.49
cost of a gallon of
gasoline.
"Behind the mosque that has
become the focal point of
the Muslim Brotherhood's
protests, members of a
dissolved parliamentary body
convened yesterday to do
business. The speaker sat at
a table covered with blue
cloth, next to an Egyptian
flag and underneath a banner
reading 'Shura Council,' the
name of the upper house of
parliament that held
legislative power under
former President Mohamed
Morsi, who was ousted by the
military on July 3.
With Duke Energy's
smokestacks on Mountain
Island Lake as a backdrop,
environmental advocates
blasted U.S. utilities
Tuesday for "poisoning" the
nation's waterways with
toxic metals from coal ash.
Opponents of a coal-fired
power plant planned for
southwest Kansas said
Tuesday that developers of
the nearly decade- old
project still face obstacles
in completing the work
despite legislation approved
by the U.S. House.
As the race to the mass
market continues it seems as
though the thoughts of
electric vehicle drivers are
now turning towards charging
stations in their area. If
you read the motoring press
you will see much focus upon
battery journey capacity
when in reality there are
now more charging stations
than ever before, with
recharging times now falling
dramatically, a 30 minutes
recharge while you shop
could be all it takes to get
you home.
Executive Recycling Inc. was
fined $4.5 million and its
CEO was sentenced to 30
months in prison after the
government alleged the
company told customers it
was recycling electronics
domestically while actually
sending it overseas to
developing countries.
Facebook said Monday that
its Prineville data center
used 153 million kilowatt
hours of power in 2012, more
than twice what it used the
year before. It consumed as
much power as roughly 13,000
homes -- more than every
household in Crook County
(which has 8,700
households.)
The agency defied its own
panel’s recommendation
against approval
because slight benefit is
not worth the risk of
suicide (and, we might add,
addiction).
How can Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernanke
justify his decision to
approve another round of
"quantitative easing" by
citing the lack of an
assured recovery in the U.S.
economy?
How can he
pretend that his decisions
to continue or discontinue
the wholesale printing of
money and to maintain or end
interest rates near zero
percent have anything to do
with unemployment or the
inflation rate?
There were many Native
heroes and many who
resisted; here are a few
from the 1700s and 1800s:
A gas well fire in the Gulf
of Mexico that started
Tuesday night after the
operator failed to keep
control of the well is still
burning out of control,
according to U.S. Coast
Guard officials and the
companies involved. Efforts
continue to regain control
of the well and extinguish
the fire.
For the second straight
week, Freddie Mac reports
that U.S. rates improved,
with the average 30-year
fixed rate mortgage falling
0.06 percentage points to
4.31% nationwide.
Have President Obama’s
federal investments in the
green energy movement
succeeded in lifting the
nation out of recession
while at the same time,
ushering in whole new
enterprises? Not
surprisingly, the answers to
this question depend on
one’s philosophical bent.
A troublesome greenhouse
gas could be an energy
source, say Dutch scientists
describing a new method for
producing electricity from
carbon dioxide.
Reporting their work in
the American Chemical
Society's journal
Environmental Science &
Technology Letters, they
describe technology that
would have CO2 react with
water or other liquids and,
with further processing,
produce a flow of electrons
that produce electric
current.
Growing up in a polluted
environment does not improve
one’s ability to resist the
health effects and diseases
of pollution. In fact,
according to water and
health researcher Sharon
Kleyne, the exact opposite
is true. People who grow up
in a clean environment have
the highest pollution
resistance.
A shallow-water Gulf of
Mexico drilling rig on fire
because of a ruptured
natural gas well has
partially collapsed, U.S.
regulators said on
Wednesday.
Militants riding on pick-up
trucks opened fire on a
checkpoint in northern Iraq
on Wednesday, killing nine
policemen, police said.
Reports that the High
Frequency Active Auroral
Research Program (HAARP) had
been shut down permanently
were apparently a bit
premature. According to
HAARP program manager James
Keeney, the facility is only
temporarily off the air
while operating contractors
are changed. So why does
anyone care? Despite being
associated with various
natural disasters over the
past two decades by the
conspiracy fringe, HAARP is
in reality a facility for
studying the ionosphere.
Let's take a look at the
goings on at HAARP – past,
present, and future.
Fortunately for
astronauts, lighting surge
isn't one of the electrical
problems they're likely to
encounter in space. On
Earth, however, lighting
surge protection is vital.
Most transients induced by
nearby lightning strikes
result in an electromagnetic
disturbance on electrical
and communication lines
connected to electronic
equipment.
Devices that protect
against these transients
must have a fast response
time and must be able to
dissipate a large amount of
energy. Devices typically
used to protect against
lighting surge damage
include metal oxide
varistors (MOVs), TVS
diodes, and gas discharge
tubes (GDTs). Protection
thyristors and TVS diode
arrays are often used for
telecom/datacom
applications.
Can
increasing energy efficiency
stabilize the economy and
create jobs? That’s the
claim of the Alliance to
Save Energy, a “national
consortium of energy
experts, businesses, and
government leaders.”
Apple is
taking responsibility for
the death of an iPhone 5
user
The story goes that Ma
Ailun, a 23-year-old Chinese
woman, was charging her
iPhone 5 when she picked up
an incoming call and
received an electric shock
that ultimately killed her.
Ma Ailun was a former flight
attendant for China Southern
Airlines who was planning
her August 8th wedding. Some
sources say she answered the
phone while taking a bath
last Thursday.
A severe drought in the
Southwest is devastating
crops and farm
communities—and sending a
warning about climate
change.
The operator of Japan's
stricken Fukushima nuclear
power plant said on Monday
that contaminated ground
water had likely been
flowing into the sea,
acknowledging such a leakage
for the first time.
Take me out to the ball
game. To recycle.
The home of the Dayton
(Ohio) Dragons, Fifth Third
Field, is recycling about 15
tons of materials each month
or 41% of the facility's
total waste stream,
according to Rumpke
Consolidated Companies Inc.
A Louisiana agency sued 97
oil companies - including BP
Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp,
Chevron Corp and Royal Dutch
Shell Plc - in state court
on Wednesday for allegedly
damaging hundreds of miles
of sensitive wetlands by
cutting through them with
pipelines and transportation
canals.
For years, those of us
who have tried to warn the
American public that Big
Brother monitors all
Internet users were
demonized, vilified and
ridiculed.
Now, the mainstream media
has proven us correct.
A trio of Obama
scandals has forced the
corporate media admit its
own reports are nothing more
than the
government-controlled
talking points and not the
product of a free and open
press.
If you have been
following the news lately
you’ll notice there are 3
government scandals that the
media is focusing on 1) The
DOJ spying on the AP
reporters 2) Benghazi gate
3) IRS targeting of activist
groups.
While each of these are
truly a damning indictment
of the widespread corruption
in our now gone rogue
federal government, combing
these three stories reveals
an even bigger story which
is recurring open admission
by the media that the news
they report is being
controlled government.
Mexico's rough western state
of Michoacan, producer of
avocados and waves of
migrants, is proving just as
painful a thorn in the side
of President Enrique Pena
Nieto as it was for his
predecessor, Felipe
Calderon.
The San Bernardino County
Board of Supervisors on
Tuesday extended a temporary
moratorium on commercial
solar energy projects by 10
months, 15 days in order to
set design standards and
land-use parameters for such
projects.
The widely followed
Markit PMI report of China's
manufacturing for July was
disappointing, coming in at
an 11 months low.
Growth across
developing economies has
become a problem, and China
is no exception.
The MTM Special Ops RAD
watch includes an integrated
Geiger-Müller tube for
measuring harmul ionizing
radiation
Last night I got to enjoy my
first harvest of green beans
from my backyard garden—and
let me tell you, it was
delicious. I proudly took to
Facebook to share my delight
in eating something I had
grown myself.
Then
I stopped for a minute. Why
is it so spectacular that I
grew my own food?
In the first half of 2013,
renewable energy sources,
including biomass,
geothermal, solar, water,
and wind, accounted for
24.93 percent of all new
domestic electrical
generating capacity -- a
total of 2,144 MW --
according to the Federal
Energy Regulatory
Commission's (FERC) Office
of Energy Projects.
A new federal, local and
private partnership has been
announced by U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA)
Secretary Vilsack and U.S.
Department of the Interior
(Interior) Secretary Sally
Jewell that will reduce the
risks of wildfire to
America's water supply in
western states.
"Under a cost-saving plan by
the U.S. Postal Service,
millions of Americans
accustomed to getting their
mail delivered to their
doors will have to trek to
the curb and residents of
new homes will use
neighborhood mailbox
clusters, the agency said
Tuesday. The Postal Service
has been quietly phasing in
the change with some aspects
starting in April, and it
has given no timeline for
the shift. It's unclear if
delivery to the door will be
eliminated entirely."
President Obama on Wednesday
suspended delivery of four
fighter jets to Egypt this
week, the administration’s
most visible response to the
turmoil that followed a
military coup early this
month. The hold on four
F-16s manufactured by
Lockheed Martin marks the
first interruption of
Washington’s robust
defense-aid pipeline to
Egypt, which has turned the
Arab world’s most populous
country into a regional
military powerhouse."
[editor's note: They're
still not admitting that the
coup was a coup and that the
delivery would be a blatant
violation of US law, but at
least they're holding off -
Rather than detecting
exhaled fat particles, the
device detects the levels of
acetone on one’s breath.
Although primarily produced
in the blood when fat is
broken down, acetone is also
expelled through alveoli in
the lungs and is therefore
present in exhaled breath,
making it a good indicator
of when the body has begun
to break down fat.
-
People who reported
being cheerful, relaxed,
satisfied with life and
full of energy had a
one-third reduction in
coronary events like a
heart attack, according
to new research
-
Those with the highest
risk of coronary events
enjoyed an even greater
risk reduction of nearly
50 percent
-
All of your feelings,
positive or negative,
create physiological
changes; stress, for
instance, is
increasingly being
viewed as a
cardiovascular risk
marker
-
It’s not always easy,
but you actually can
choose to be happy and
more optimistic -- and
enjoy significant health
benefits as a result
I had my last visit with my
doctor yesterday. He's
young, at least by doctor
standards, but he's had it
with all the implications of
ObamaCare and is quitting
his practice.
On
August 3rd,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will
officially step down as the
President of Iran. He
will be replaced by Hassan
Rouhani, though the Islamic
Republic will still
ultimately be ruled by the
so-called “Supreme Leader,”
the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
A few days later, the leader
of Russia will arrive in
Tehran on a formal state
visit.
C1 event observed.
There are currently 5
numbered
sunspot regions
on the disk. Solar
activity is expected to be
very low
with a chance
for a C-class flares and a
slight chance for an M-class
flare on days one, two, and
three (26 Jul, 27 Jul, 28
Jul).
"Scientists say that the
release of large amounts of
methane from thawing
permafrost in the Arctic
could have huge economic
impacts for the world. The
researchers estimate that
the climate effects of the
release of this gas could
cost $60 trillion (£39
trillion), roughly the size
of the global economy in
2012. The impacts are most
likely to be felt in
developing countries they
say. The research has been
published in the journal
Nature."
The Rubbee's polyurethane
roller engages the rear
tire, making a motor-only
speed of 25 km/h possible
Data from satellites have
been used a lot recently to
monitor the loss of ice from
ice sheets in Antarctica and
Greenland. Having these data
is relatively recent,
however. It would be better
if the data existed for a
longer period so more
accurate predictions of
future rates of ice loss or
accretion could be made.
Today, the House is going to
vote on blocking the NSA
from collecting metadata on
American citizens. Edward
Snowden revealed that NSA
collects information on
every telephone call place
by an American specifying
where it originated, what
number was called and how
long the call lasted.
The House will vote on an
amendment to the Defense
Appropriations Bill to ban
the NSA from collecting this
data on calls entirely
within the US.
The two farms will combine
to power more than 1,500
homes in Lenoir County, with
solar panels warranted for
25 years. Gerry Dudzik, COO
of Carolina Solar Energy,
said the panels -- more than
24,000 at each location --
should last much longer than
that, though. There will
also be maintenance in case
one breaks beforehand.
With the exception of magic,
the process of levitating
objects generally relies on
magnetism or electric
fields. However, sound waves
can also be used to cancel
out the effects of gravity
to suspend objects and
droplets of liquid in mid
air. For the first time,
researchers at the Swiss
Federal Institute of
Technology Zurich (ETH) have
been able to control the
movement of such levitating
objects.
At the heart of the machine
is new water filtration
technology (used for the
first time in this machine)
which was developed by HVR
and The Royal Institute of
Technology in Stockholm
called Membrane
Distillation. The system
uses a plastic cassette in
which the water to be
filtered is heated into
vapor and circulated between
two membranes, the other
sides of which are cold.
It's the resulting
difference in pressure that
forces the vapor through the
membranes, causing, HVR
says, the "absolute
separation of all
non-volatile substances."
Of the more than 4,000
infractions reported, less
than 1 percent (.09 to be
exact) received an
enforcement action (that
would be less than 40 of
4,000). Compare this the
EPA, who has an enforcement
rate of 16 percent for
similar infractions by
companies under the Clean
Water Act.
Once black with oil, the
Kalamazoo River runs clear
now. But EPA orders dredging
and says it will be years
before the spill's long-term
effects are known.
As I walk out of my co-op
I'm reminded of the source
of this modern food miracle:
a nearby service station
sells gasoline for $3.67 per
gallon, and diesel for 30
cents more. This is pricy
compared to what these fuels
cost a decade ago, but they
still provide astonishingly
cheap energy.
Factory farms are
increasingly
biohazards—biological
breeding grounds for
dangerous bacteria and
viruses. Concentrated
Animal Feeding Operations
(CAFOs)—informally known as
“factory farms”—pollute our
air, waterways, and bodies.
Poultry- and cattle-waste
has devastating effects on
waterways and often
contribute to algae blooms.
"Global investment into the
renewable energy sector is
likely to remain subdued in
the near time. Yet over the
long term, the sector will
be more attractive, as
technology improves and
costs decline," said Jane
Allen, DTTL global leader,
renewable energy. "In the
meantime, investors need to
choose their spots wisely,
because it's not going to
get any easier anytime
soon."
The view from Spring Hill
Beach includes pieces from a
complicated puzzle: large
wind turbines, tiny birds
and David.
Day and night, through
wind and rain, David watches
over piping plovers, a bird
species listed as threatened
on the Atlantic Coast under
the federal Endangered
Species Act.
Two of the Washington
Redskins most celebrated
players of all time came out
Tuesday in favor of changing
the contentious name.
US biomass-based diesel
production in June climbed
4.67% on the month to 146.52
million gallons, data
released Thursday through
the US Environmental
Protection Agency's
Moderated Transaction System
website showed.
US coal production totaled
about 20.0 million st in the
week that ended Saturday,
the Energy Information
Administration said
Thursday.
This
production estimate, based
on railcar loadings, is 2%
higher than the previous
week's estimate and 1.6%
above the estimate for the
comparable week in 2012, EIA
said.
"The House today narrowly
defeated an amendment to a
defense spending package
that would have repealed
authorization for the
National Security Agency’s
dragnet collection of
phone-call metadata in the
United States. The amendment
to the roughly $600 billion
Department of Defense
Appropriations Act of 2014
would have ended authority
for the once-secret spy
program the White House
insists is necessary to
protect national security.
... The vote was 205-217."
The U.S. program that pays
farmers to idle fragile
cropland soon will protect
the smallest amount of land
in a quarter-century, the
government said on Monday,
the result of several years
of sky-high commodity prices
that have encouraged farmers
to plant as much as
possible.
The US Environmental
Protection Agency's
decisions to abandon
investigations after initial
conclusions of groundwater
contamination from hydraulic
fracturing in Wyoming, Texas
and Pennsylvania has damaged
public perception of
fracking and hurt the US oil
and gas industry, House
Republicans said at a
subcommittee hearing
Wednesday.
New research shows that 43
percent of customers are
less than satisfied with
their electric utility. That
is according to Shelton
Group, a marketing
communications firm in the
sustainability and energy
efficiency sectors, who also
found that nearly 25 percent
say there is nothing their
utility could do to earn a
perfect customer
satisfaction score.
Researchers at Brown
University have shown that
some Martian valleys appear
to have been caused by
runoff from orographic
precipitation -- moisture
carried part of the way up a
mountain and deposited on
the slopes. Valley networks
branching across the Martian
surface leave little doubt
that water once flowed on
the Red Planet. But where
that ancient water came from
-- whether it bubbled up
from underground or fell as
rain or snow -- is still
debated by scientists. A new
study by researchers at
Brown University puts a new
check mark in the
precipitation column.
The patch works by blocking
mosquitoes' ability to
detect carbon dioxide in our
breath, which is the bugs'
primary way of finding you.
Best part, it's nontoxic:
The company says the active
ingredient is considered
safe by the Food and Drug
Administration and can be
used by young children and
pregnant women --
populations most affected by
malaria in many countries.
Federal court rulings
against utility coal
operations have been hailed
as a victory by various
environmental groups.
However, after a review of
the Environmental Protection
Agency's proposed coal plant
water pollution standards
sent to the White House'
Office of Management and
Budget (OMB), these same
environmental groups claim
that the OMB "caved to
industry pressure and took
the highly unusual and
improper step of writing
new, weaker options into the
draft rule prepared by the
EPA's expert staff."
Coal-fired power plants,
many operating with expired
permits, have become the
largest source of toxic
water pollution in the
United States, finds new
research released Tuesday by
a coalition of environmental
and clean water groups.
"Africa's economic growth is
being held back by confusion
over who owns vast swathes
of agricultural land,
according to a World Bank
report. The continent is
home to half of the world's
usable uncultivated land,
yet has the highest poverty
rate. But the Bank said
farmers' inability to prove
ownership, legal disputes
and land grabs had held back
cultivation. Land governance
needs to be improved if
Africa is to fully exploit
its resources and create
jobs, it said."
"Yemen's president on
Tuesday pardoned a
journalist who was jailed
for three years on charges
of helping al-Qaida and U.S.
born militant cleric Anwar
al-Awlaki. The case of the
reporter, Abdelela Shayie,
received international
attention. President Barack
Obama put pressure on
Yemen's former president in
2011 to keep him in
custody."
July 23, 2013
Hundreds of Iraqi inmates
escaped after insurgents
armed with mortars and
machines guns launched
coordinated late-night
assaults on two
high-security prisons,
sparking gun battles that
left dozens of people dead,
officials said Monday.
[Many of these inmates are
thought to be Alqaida.]
According to Freddie Mac's
weekly survey of 125 banks
nationwide, the average
30-year fixed rate mortgage
fell 0.14 percentage points
to 4.37% last week. The rate
is available to borrowers
with "prime" credit willing
to pay 0.7 discount points
at the time of closing.
During a significant
weather event, a water
utility's level of
preparedness can mean the
difference between temporary
inconveniences and serious
health and environmental
consequences.
The scientific community
widely believes that climate
change impacts include
rising sea levels that
contribute to increased
destruction during severe
storms, as well as increased
droughts that severely
impact agriculture,
businesses, fire protection
and drinking water supplies.
Earth continues to hit
temperature and greenhouse
gas milestones—just a couple
of months ago, multiple
stations measured carbon
dioxide concentrations in
the atmosphere of 400 parts
per million, the highest in
several million years. Many
studies have tried to
estimate how much and how
rapidly the two great ice
sheets covering Greenland
and Antarctica might
melt—and the one reassuring
point has been the apparent
relative stability of the
eastern (and, by far,
larger) half of the
Antarctic Ice Sheet. Now, a
new study of past melting in
East Antarctica suggests
that over the long haul, the
"stable" ice sheet may be
more vulnerable to warming
than thought.
-
Canadian beekeepers have
reported millions of
bees dying just after
corn seeds, treated with
neonicotinoid
pesticides, were planted
-
An estimated 25,000
bumblebees were recently
found dead in an Oregon
parking lot, just a
short time after trees
in the area had been
sprayed with a
neonicotinoid
insecticide
-
The state of Oregon has
banned 18 such
pesticides pending an
investigation into bee
deaths; the European
Union has also banned
the pesticides for two
years to further study
their impacts on bee
populations
-
Beekeeping organizations
and beekeepers have
filed a legal action
against the EPA for
recently approving
sulfoxaflor, a similar
pesticide to
neonicotinoids
The Worldwatch Institute is
assisting the Caribbean
Community (CARICOM) in
developing a more strategic
approach to implementing
renewable energy and energy
efficiency measures in the
region, or Caribbean
Sustainable Energy Roadmap
and Strategy (C-SERMS).
A Chilean indigenous
group will likely ask the
Supreme Court to review a
lower court decision on
Barrick Gold Corp's
Pascua-Lama gold mine,
because the ruling does not
go far enough to protect the
environment, a lawyer
representing the group told
Reuters on Thursday.
The appeal will probably
also seek a re-evaluation of
the suspended $8.5 billion
project and ask that Barrick
present a new environmental
impact assessment study, a
potentially lengthy and
costly process, the lawyer,
Lorenzo Soto, added.
A series of earthquakes in
Gansu Province in
northwestern China set off
landslides and building
collapses in an impoverished
mountainous region Monday,
killing at least 89 people,
injuring more than 600,
damaging tens of thousands
of homes and prompting
President Xi Jinping to
order “all-out rescue
efforts.”
If a Russian intelligence
agent revealed secrets
against his own government
and then came to the U.S.
requesting asylum alleging
the probability of
persecution and torture by
the Russian authorities if
deported, there is no way
that our government would
comply with requests and
diplomatic demands that he
be returned.
Arab Gulf states have
raised concerns about the
safety of an Iranian nuclear
power station built in an
earthquake-prone coastal
area.
The concerns
about the Bushehr plant,
which officially opened in
2011, were raised during a
meeting of the 35-nation
board of governors of the
International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) in Vienna,
Austria, last month (3-7
June).
The reactor lies on the
north-east coast of the
Arabian Gulf. Any leak of
radioactive material could
therefore affect coastal
regions of Bahrain, Kuwait,
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the
United Arab Emirates and
Oman's Musandam Peninsula.
Millions of US children
are taking powerful
mind-altering drugs, often
before they’re even old
enough to attend school.
Oftentimes the side
effects are far worse than
the conditions, such as
attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD) for which they’re
prescribed, and rival
illegal street drugs in
terms of their dangerous
risks to health.
In children, the
long-term effects are often
largely unknown, while in
the short term, we’ve seen
shocking increases in
violent and aggressive acts
committed by teens taking
one or more psychotropic
drugs.
With the problem getting
increasingly worse
instead of better, now is a
perfect time to view Gary
Null’s excellent
documentary, The
Drugging of Our Children.
A biological reserve set
aside by the Dominican
government just four years
ago to protect rare birds
and iguanas is now being
bulldozed for an
agricultural settlement.
On the afternoon of July
16, the Dominican Agrarian
Institute, a government
agency, moved bulldozers and
other heavy equipment into
place to start dismantling
part of the protected area
called Loma Charco Azul
Biological Reserve.
Severe levels of dryness
persisted in the nation's
midsection, south and in the
western half of the country,
though the land area
suffering from the worst of
it was shrinking, according
to a weekly drought report
issued on Thursday.
The U.S. Drought Monitor,
issued by state and federal
experts, said drought areas
in the "moderate to
exceptional" range reached
46.13 percent, up from 44.85
percent a week ago. But the
numbers reflected an
increase in moderate and
severe levels and a decrease
in the worst levels of
extreme and exceptional
drought.
A greater than normal
warming occurred from 1966
until 2002 but no
measurements confirm an
increase in CO2
emissions, whether
anthropogenic or natural,
had any effect on global
temperatures. As a matter of
fact, all atmospheric gases
and dust in our atmosphere
cools our planet, they
doesn't warm it[1].
There is very strong
evidence that anthropogenic
emissions of
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
were the only cause of the
near recent abnormal
warming. CFCs were used
primarily in air
conditioning units. Acting
in accordance with an
international treaty called
the Montreal Protocol
(1987); the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) mandated the
phase-out of CFCs (R-22)
through the Clean Air Act.
The panel tasked with
amending Egypt's
constitution following the
army's ouster of President
Mohammed Morsi began its
work Sunday as the
military-backed interim
leadership forged ahead with
its fast-track transition
plan aimed at bringing the
country back to democratic
rule.
While appealing for
consensus and
reconciliation, Egypt's new
government has pushed the
transition in the face of
opposition from Morsi's
supporters who denounce the
military coup that overthrew
the Islamist leader and
reject the new political
order that has replaced him.
Mr Morsi has been held at
an undisclosed location
without charge since he was
removed from power on 3
July.
At least three people
were killed in clashes on
Monday between opponents and
supporters of the former
president.
Mr Morsi's Muslim
Brotherhood movement has
refused to recognise the new
military-backed
administration and continues
to hold almost daily street
protests.
Energy shares have
underperformed the broader
market starting in April
when crude oil prices
touched the lows for the
year. Stock valuations
clearly responded to the
downside. On the up-side
however, in spite of the
recent sharp rally in crude,
energy shares continue to
lag.
Crews working to contain a
massive wildfire in Southern
California on Saturday were
hoping cooler weather and
possible rain showers would
help them gain the upper
hand against a blaze that
has forced the evacuation of
5,600 residents.
The White
House’s climate
action plan aims to
transform the U.S.
electricity system in the
coming decades. The
President directed the
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) to develop and
implement standards to
reduce carbon dioxide
pollution from power plants,
double renewable energy in
the United States by 2020,
and open public lands to an
additional 10 gigawatts of
renewable energy
development, enough to power
more than 6 million homes.
Exploration and
production companies are
under pressure to reduce the
amount of freshwater used in
dry areas like Texas and to
cut the high costs of
hauling millions of barrels
of water to oil and gas
wells and later to
underground disposal wells.
To attack those problems,
oilfield service companies
like Halliburton, Baker
Hughes and FTS
International, are treating
water from "fracked" wells
just enough so that it can
be used again. Smaller
companies like Ecosphere
Technologies Inc have also
deployed similar methods.
After a year of
monitoring the aquifer near
a drilling site in western
Pennsylvania, DOE
researchers could find no
traces of the fluids that
are laced with chemicals and
injected thousands of feet
below the surface, the
Associated Press reported on
July 19. In other words, the
chemicals stayed where they
were injected, 8,000 feet
underground, rather than
rising to pollute the
aquifer, the DOE told the
wire service.
Fukushima Radiation Leaks
Rise Sharply, Officials Are
Baffled As to Why
Bad as the situation is
at Fukushima, it's gotten
worse.
Perhaps you've heard that
radiation levels of the
water leaving the Fukushima,
Japan, nuclear power plane
and flowing into the Pacific
Ocean have risen by roughly
9,000 per cent. Turns out,
that's probably putting a
good face on it.
The sizzling temperatures
aren't bothering students in
a summer gymnastics program
at Oakdale Elementary
School, nor do they affect
staff working at Olympia
North Elementary School in
Danvers.
Both buildings are in
school districts that
pioneer use of geothermal
energy systems, using heat
pump systems and energy from
the ground to heat and cool
the buildings.
The NSA
admitted their analysis of
phone records and online
behavior far exceeded what
it had previously disclosed.
"The fact that you now see
members of both political
parties increasingly angry
over the fact that they were
misled and lied to by
top-level Obama
administration officials,
that the laws that they
enacted in the wake of 9/11
— as broad as they were —
are being incredibly
distorted by secret legal
interpretations approved by
secret courts, really
indicates exactly that
Snowden’s motives to come
forward with these
revelations, at the expense
of his liberty and even his
life, were valid and
compelling,"
Because space heating in the
winter and air conditioning
in the summer represent the
most significant drivers for
peak electricity demand the
ability to use the energy
stored in the earth to
"clip" these peaks is very
significant.
Capitol Hill is buzzing
about a new bill that aims
to provide long overdue
protections for America’s
imperiled pollinators. Rep.
John Conyers (D-MI) and Rep.
Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) will
be introducing the Save
America’s Pollinators Act,
calling for the suspension
of neonicotinoids, a class
of systemic pesticides that
are killing bees.
-
Preventive measures to
avoid getting bit by
insects such as
mosquitoes include:
avoiding the outdoors at
dawn and dusk—especially
when sweaty—draining
stagnant water sources,
planting marigolds
around your yard,
installing bat boxes
-
The following can be
used to repel bugs:
Vick's Vaporub®;
cinnamon leaf oil; clear
liquid vanilla extract
mixed with olive oil;
citronella soap and 100%
pure citronella
essential oil; catnip
oil
-
Most commercial insect
repellants contain a
chemical known as DEET,
which should be used
with caution, if at all.
Many studies have found
DEET to have harmful
effects
-
Herbs and other natural
agents can help soothe
itchy bites, such as:
aloe vera, calendula,
cinnamon, chamomile,
lavender, Neem oil, tea
tree oil, basil,
peppermint, lemon and
lime, and baking soda
mixed with witch hazel
-
Using either ice or heat
are other options that
can help ease the
discomfort associated
with bug bites. Research
has shown that locally
administrated heat leads
to fast amelioration of
symptoms such as
swelling, pruritus, and
pain
Astronomers everywhere have
been warning about the
severe rise in solar flares
that is expected for 2013.
Even NASA has issued
warnings for this, concerned
that they could cause major
disruptions on a worldwide
basis. Part of the problem
is that we’re really not
sure what kinds of effects
the solar flares are going
to cause or how serious
those effects will be.
Throughout the bitter
dispute surrounding Adoptive
Couple v. Baby Girl, there
have been a pair of anxious
eyes watching as events
unfolded in the last year,
helpless to do anything
about it.
According to the National
Association of REALTORS® and
its June Existing Home Sales
report, more than 5 million
homes were sold on a
seasonally-adjusted,
annualized basis last month
as competition for homes
remains high.
More than half of homes
sold last months were listed
for less than 30 days.
Buyers have bid home prices
up as housing remains a
bright sector in the U.S.
economy.
Iran has finalised a major
contract to export gas to
neighbouring Iraq, worth 3.7
billion dollars a year,
local media on Monday quoted
a deputy oil minister as
saying. It was unclear how
the transaction would be
conducted as Iran''s access
to the global banking system
is targeted by international
sanctions over its nuclear
ambitions.
When Gina McCarthy steps
into her new role as
administrator of the
Environmental Protection
Agency she will face an army
of lawyers trying to sway
the agency as it writes
rules on power-plant
emissions that will form the
centerpiece of the Obama
administration's
climate-action plan.
At least some of those
lawyers are likely to lead
legal challenges against the
rules once they are issued.
The pharmaceutical
industry has “mobilised” an
army of patient groups to
lobby against plans to force
companies to publish secret
documents on drugs trials.
Drugs companies publish
only a fraction of their
results and keep much of the
information to themselves,
but regulators want to ban
the practice. If companies
published all of their
clinical trials data,
independent scientists could
reanalyse their results and
check companies’ claims
about the safety and
efficacy of drugs.
Nine
people working at a Colorado
farm were injured by a
lightning strike Thursday,
two of them critically and
four seriously, a fire
official said.
The incident came as two
other lightning strikes in
Colorado and Montana left
people injured, and as
firefighters battled
lightning-sparked wildfires
across the West.
A newly-discovered
vulnerability on SIM cards
could allow hackers to
access personal information
including text messages,
voicemail and location data.
Monsanto Co said on
Wednesday it will withdraw
all pending approval
requests to grow new types
of genetically modified
crops in the European Union,
due to the lack of
commercial prospects for
cultivation there.
Bumblebees imported from
Europe infected with
parasites pose a serious
threat to the UK’s wild and
honey bee populations,
according to a new study.
Each year, more than a
million bumblebee colonies
are imported by countries
across the globe to
pollinate a variety of
crops, with the UK alone
importing between 40,000 and
50,000.
A new artificial heart built
partly from cow tissue could
save the lives of hundreds
of thousands of people
languishing on transplant
lists, one of the nation’s
top cardiologists tells
Newsmax Health.
Researchers in France
recently announced they
would begin human
testing of an artificial
heart that is in part
fashioned from cow
tissue. The hope is that
the new device will
prove comparable to a
natural human heart in
pumping efficiency and
durability.
A heat wave that hit New
York last week led to a new
record demand for power
usage in the state,
according to the New York
Independent System Operator
(NYISO). The operators
recorded an average peak
load of 33,955 MW between 3
p.m. and 4 p.m. last Friday,
which passed the previous
record of 33,939 MW set in
2006.
Just when nuclear energy
industry has revived itself,
it has gotten knocked on its
butt, again. A new study is
predicting that it won’t get
back up, saying that some
recent major nuclear
closures and ‘uprate’
cancelations are just the
beginning.
From pizza delivered to a
cancer stricken child to
coffee purchased in advance
for strangers to acts that
transform entire
communities, the concept of
“paying it forward” has
taken hold – and experts say
it brings pleasure to all
sides.
The phrase, popularized
by a book and movie of the
same name starring Kevin
Spacey, refers to the act of
doing good deeds – without
expecting anything in return
– in the hopes that it will
make a difference in others’
lives.
Two Kenya Wildlife Service
officers were killed in two
separate gunfights with
suspected poachers Thursday
while responding to a
poaching incident within the
Kipini Wildlife and
Botanical Conservancy in
Tana River County.
“It’s one thing to
listen to someone talk about
a plant but quite another to
go out and identify, harvest
and eat that plant,”
observes Steve Dahlberg,
director of the White Earth
Tribal and Community College
USDA Extension Service
Office. He and his staff
have organized the Summit
since its beginnings eight
years ago.
As China pushes an
aggressive expansion of
nuclear power it is running
into a major stumbling block
- a breakdown of trust,
post-Fukushima, in official
assurances of public safety.
A plan to build a $6
billion uranium processing
plant in the southern
province of Guangdong was
canceled this week after
about a thousand people took
to the streets demanding the
project was scrapped over
public health and
environmental fears.
Cash holdings are an
increasingly large component
of US commercial banks'
balance sheets. This
demonstrates the fact that
thus far the Fed's monetary
expansion is not producing
the "optimal" result. Banks
are not growing the non-cash
portion of their balance
sheets fast enough to offset
these rising reserves. A
more optimal policy would be
able to take that into
account.
Previously owned home sales
fell unexpectedly in June as
tight supply and increasing
rates for mortgages
imperiled the real-estate
market recovery in the U.S.
Sen. Barbara Boxer sought
Thursday to rally support
for federal action to
curtail greenhouse gas
emissions, eliciting
testimony that catastrophic
climate change is under way
and Republican denials that
the atmosphere is warming.
The Indiana-based Save our
Crops Coalition, a group of
farmers who grow
conventional and organic
crops, filed a comment with
the U.S. Department of
Agriculture this week,
asking the department to
expand its review of
soybeans and cotton that
Monsanto is developing and
are currently awaiting
federal approval.
It may seem as if the poor
remain poor, the rich stay
rich, and the middle class
has nowhere to go. It may
appear as if we are not
doing as well as our parents
did. But each of these
statements is disproven by a
new study issued by Pew
University. Instead, Pew
found a churning with the
rich moving down and the
poor moving up in about
equal numbers. It is as
easy to escape the poverty
of the bottom fifth as it is
to fall out of the wealth of
the top fifth.
-
Only 5 percent of people
washed their hands
properly, in a way that
would kill infection and
illness-causing germs,
according to new
research
-
Simply rinsing your
hands with water, or
giving a quick scrub
with soap, is not enough
to remove germs; you
need to scrub all areas
of your hands with plain
soap for 15-20 seconds,
then rinse under running
water, to be effective
-
Over-washing your hands
can lead to cracks in
your skin that provide
an easy entrance for
disease-causing germs;
it’s particularly
important to avoid
over-washing your hands
in arid environments or
winter
-
Actively building up and
nurturing your immune
system, and the makeup
of beneficial
microorganisms in your
gut, works in tandem
with hand washing to
help you avoid getting
sick
"The House will consider
legislation that would cut
off funds for the National
Security Agency's
surveillance programs and
imposes limits on the
operations. ... One
amendment would bar the NSA
from collecting records,
including telephone call
records, unless the
individual is subject of an
investigation."
If you're on horseback and
desperate for a Quarter
Pounder, you are out of
luck. A woman in the United
Kingdom found this out the
hard way over the weekend,
when she tried to ride a
pony through the
drive-through at a
Manchester McDonald's. The
restaurant said it couldn't
serve her that way, so she
took the next logical step:
She brought the pony into
the restaurant, where it
promptly pooped on the
floor, the BBC reports.
It's no secret that the
world's population growth is
heavily skewed by region —
so much so that the changes
expected for the next
century will radically
change the world as we know
it.
But according to
projections recently revised
by the United Nations
Population Program, those
changes will come even
faster than we thought.
July 19, 2013
Scientists say lava flow and
ash and gas emissions have
intensified at a second
Ecuadorean volcano,
Reventador, as the full-bore
eruption of the Tungurahua
cone continues.
It might be wise to steer
clear of vegetables from
Japan’s Fukushima area for,
oh, say a few hundred years.
A Korean website assembled
this image collection of
produce from towns and
villages surrounding the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
power plant. And they are
NOT pretty pictures.
Did you know the USA spent
more than 150 billion
dollars on nutritionally
deficient high calorie food
annually? And that just in
the U.S there are 300,000
fast food restaurants?
A technology for generating
electricity from coal
without pollution achieves a
milestone.
Coal is abundant and cheap,
but burning it is a dirty
business. This week
researchers at Ohio State
University announced a
milestone in the development
of a far cleaner way to use
the energy in coal—a process
called chemical looping that
has the potential to reduce
or eliminate a wide range of
pollutants, including carbon
dioxide and smog-forming
nitrogen oxides
A Beaver County store clerk
with a real gun thwarted a
robbery by a suspect armed
only with a BB pistol.
reexamined the standard
cross-cultural sample, the
main repository for
behavioral data on forage
bands, and found little
evidence for large-scale
conflicts or wars. Instead,
the majority of incidences
of lethal aggression in
these societies were
homicides driven by a
variety of factors relevant
at the individual or family
scale.
Geothermal heat pumps have
long been on the fringes of
modern day HVAC equipment.
The latest estimates put
market penetration at less
than 1% of the overall
housing market. This was
easily explained twenty
years ago. Oil was cheap,
geothermal technology was
still working out its kinks,
and a wide ranging and
professional installer
network was just beginning
to form. These barriers kept
geothermal from being an
automatic consideration when
upgrading a residential
heating system.
An Arizona county judge
has ruled renewable energy
credits should not be given
to projects that burn trash
to produce energy.
The July 16 ruling ended
a lawsuit filed last
September by the Sierra Club
that challenged a decision
by the Arizona Corporation
Commission, a five-member
group that regulates the
state's utilities, that an
energy-from-trash project
qualified as renewable
energy.
Arizonans for Electric
Choice & Competition (AECC),
a diverse group of Arizona
opinion leaders serving as a
voice for consumers and
businesses in favor of
opening the state’s
electricity markets to
competition, today announced
the launch of its website,
www.azelectricity.com.
On paper, the assets of
failed solar company
BlueChip Energy may have
been worth $19 million, but
Tuesday's auction brought
bargain-basement prices.
Bidders fetched pallets
of solar panels, laminators,
conveyors, assembly lines
and other manufacturing
equipment at liquidation
prices not likely to repay
the millions of dollars owed
by BlueChip.
-
Using brain imaging,
researchers confirm that
highly processed
carbohydrates stimulate
brain regions involved
in reward and cravings,
promoting excess hunger
-
Previous research has
demonstrated that
refined sugar is more
addictive than cocaine,
giving you pleasure by
triggering an innate
process in your brain
via dopamine and opioid
signals
-
Food manufacturers have
gotten savvy to the
addictive nature of
certain foods and
tastes, including
saltiness and sweetness,
and have turned
addictive taste into a
science in and of itself
-
Refined carbohydrates
like breakfast cereals,
bagels, waffles,
pretzels, and most other
processed foods quickly
break down to sugar,
increasing your insulin
levels, which eventually
leads to insulin
resistance
-
To protect your health,
I advise spending 90
percent of your food
budget on whole foods,
and only 10 percent on
processed foods
In the summer of 2007,
Tropical Storm Erin stumped
meteorologists. Most
tropical cyclones dissipate
after making landfall,
weakened by everything from
friction and wind shear to
loss of the ocean as a
source of heat energy. Not
Erin. The storm intensified
as it tracked through Texas.
It formed an eye over
Oklahoma. As it spun over
the southern plains, Erin
grew stronger than it ever
had been over the ocean.
You can't always believe
what you read in the papers.
Earlier this week, it was
reported that Housing Starts
dropped sharply in June,
with some experts positing
that the housing market was
getting its come-uppance;
that this year's gains were
too fast, too soon. What was
missed in those headlines,
though, was relevance.
Yes, Housing Starts
dropped in May 2013 but once
we isolate the Housing
Starts data for
single-family homes -- the
dominant home type for
buyers like you and me --
the report looks much
different.
Single-Family Housing
Starts are 12% above the
year-ago period and,
furthermore, U.S.
homebuilders are prepping
for a blowout close to the
year.
More car buyers are going
electric or opting for a
hybrid vehicle to cut their
fuel costs, and new-car
shoppers are finding a
greater selection of new and
updated eco-friendly models.
U.S. sales of hybrid,
plug-in hybrid and
battery-only autos rose at
least 23 percent in the
first half of 2013 to more
than 287,000, based on data
compiled by Bloomberg.
No mention of tariffs on
European suppliers -- yet --
as both sides still try to
negotiate out of a trade
war.
The Chinese Ministry of
Commerce has formally
decided to levy antidumping
duties on imported
solar-grade polysilicon from
U.S. and Korean suppliers,
turning up the heat yet
again in the broader trade
disputes simmering between
several key markets for
solar energy.
Citizens Advisory Board
members voted on Monday to
take a position against
storing spent fuel in the
interim at the Savannah
River Site following a
discussion that grew heated
at times.
Members of the Citizens
Advisory Board's waste
committee polled 22 members
and delivered a vote of
12-to-10 after giving their
individual thoughts on the
issue.
Deer Trail, Colorado
(population 600 or so) is to
vote on a local ordinance
that would allow drone
hunting licenses and
bounties for shooting down
UAVs, according to ABC
affiliate KMGH-TV.
Those with a valid drone
hunting license will be
rewarded US$100 if they
present "identifiable parts"
of UAVs "known to be owned
or operated by the United
States federal government,"
the draft ordinance states.
An American Indian child
at the center of a custody
suit that went to the U.S.
Supreme Court should be
returned to the
Charleston-area couple
seeking to adopt her, South
Carolina's highest court
ruled on Wednesday.
In a 3-2 decision, the
state Supreme Court ruled
that Matt and Melanie
Capobianco are the only
party properly seeking to
adopt the 3-year-old girl
named Veronica in South
Carolina and ordered a
Family Court to finalize the
couple's adoption.
A series of recent
cyberattacks used basic
tools to break into power
company networks and
threaten their automated
systems, according to a memo
sent by the Department of
Homeland Security.
In the memo, sent to
electric and nuclear sector
CEOs and obtained by the
Houston Chronicle, the
department, for the second
time, urged energy companies
to beef up security after
recent physical and online
attacks threatened serious
damage to infrastructure and
equipment.
The Democratic message
machine is bent on
characterizing the GOP's
alternative immigration
proposal, which would
require sealing the border
before granting
legalization, as something
that will kill the chances
for immigration reform.
Unless the soft standard of
the Senate bill -- that the
government is trying to seal
the border -- is adopted and
legalization linked to a
successfully sealed border,
the Democrats want to claim
that immigration reform is
dead.
Detroit has become the
largest US city ever to file
for bankruptcy, with debts
of at least $18bn...
The city, once a symbol
of US industrial power, is
seeking protection from
creditors who include
public-sector workers and
their pension funds.
Unions described the
bankruptcy filing as a power
grab.
In developed nations, we see
solar power as an
alternative to conventional
energy and a way to fight
climate change. But in poor
countries solar reveals
itself as even more — as a
way out of some of the
world's darkest humanitarian
problems.
Dominion Resources is giving
a lot of credence to the
conversion of
coal-to-biomass with the
powering-up of one plant
plant in its territory.
First in line: Altavista,
which will get its woody
supplies from logging
excesses.
No sooner had George
Zimmerman been acquitted of
murder in the case of
Trayvon Martin than Attorney
General Eric Holder
announced that the Justice
Department would continue
its ongoing investigation
into the matter. Holder said
he is “mindful of the pain
felt by our nation” as a
result of Trayvon’s death.
Not surprisingly,
so-called civil rights
activists jumped on the
bandwagon, pushing the
Justice Department to file
federal civil rights or hate
crime charges against
Zimmerman. Many of these
activists allege that
Zimmerman’s perception of
Trayvon as a threat was
based primarily on the fact
that he was a young black
man wearing a hoodie.
Global sea levels will
rise about 2.3 meters, or
7.5 feet, for every degree
Celsius (1.8 degrees
Fahrenheit) that the planet
warms over the next several
thousand years, finds new
research that combines all
the major causes of sea
level rise.
This international study
is one of the first to
combine analyses of the four
major contributors to
potential sea level rise
into a collective estimate,
and compare it with evidence
of past sea-level responses
to global temperature
changes.
A recently filed lawsuit
in Kansas marks at least the
third in that state, where
traditional farmers are
hoping to take a stand
against the seed-giant
Monsanto.
Traditional farmers, not
wanting to raise
genetically-modified crops,
have their work cut out for
them. GM crops are invasive
and experts warn that their
take-over is inevitable.
This world-takeover is
especially believable with
all of the recent news
concerning contamination of
the global food supply by
unwanted and even unapproved
genetically modified crops.
the Endangered Species Act,
which makes it illegal to
handle an endangered or
protected species. The
Kennedys freed the estimated
500-pound turtle from a buoy
line wrapped around its head
and fins on July 6 after
they spotted it while out
sailing on Nantucket Sound.
Trip took a while to
complete, but technology
proves promising.
For the first time in the
history of aviation, a plane
capable of flying day and
night powered only by solar
energy has crossed the
entire continental United
States.
With all the processed,
sugar-laden filth they bring
to market each year, I'm
constantly amazed that Big
Food executives still have
teeth to lie through. For
years we've watched food
conglomerates foist
dangerous and deadly
ingredients on the American
public, only to throw up
their hands in an "I know
nothing" routine straight
out of Hogan's Heroes
once the illnesses and body
counts pile up.
As Maine and New England
bake, the region's power
grid operator is asking
residents to voluntarily cut
back on electricity use.
ISO New England said late
Tuesday morning that the
combination of hot
temperatures and high
humidity levels that are
expected all week could
drive power use in the
region to near-record
levels.
A new U.S.
Geological Survey report
describes how the health of
the nation's streams is
being degraded by streamflow
modifications and elevated
levels of nutrients and
pesticides.
The national
assessment of stream
health was unprecedented
in the breadth of the
measurements --
including assessments of
multiple biological
communities as well as
streamflow modifications
and measurements of over
100 chemical
constituents in water
and streambed sediments.
Fruit and vegetables
grown in NSW are being
watered with human effluent
because some farmers think
it makes good fertilizer,
showing “negligent
disregard” for public
health, a parliamentary
inquiry has found.
Health authorities
reminded the public to wash
produce before eating it,
amid warnings that affected
crops were almost certainly
being sold to consumers.
The manager of New
England's electric grid is
predicting near-record
energy demand today and
calling on residents and
businesses to limit
electricity use where
possible.
Independent System
Operator New England
officials say this week's
hot temperatures and high
humidity could push demand
up to 27,600 megawatts in
the region's six states. One
megawatt of electricity can
power about 1,000 homes in
New England
Those who equip photovoltaic
installations with a storage
system are mostly interested
in increasing the on-site
consumption of generated
solar power. However, people
often forget to consider
that these kinds of battery
systems only reveal their
full potential through their
multiple uses. In addition
to allowing operators of
photovoltaic installations
to significantly increase
on-site consumption, a
storage system also enables
them to reduce their
dependency on utility
companies and ensures that
power will continue to be
supplied without
interruption should the
public power grid
temporarily fail.
-
A new study revealed
that exercising creates
new, excitable neurons
along with new neurons
designed to release the
GABA neurotransmitter,
which inhibits excessive
neuronal firing, helping
to induce a natural
state of calm
-
While the creation of
excitable neurons via
exercise would
ordinarily induce
anxiety, exercise fixes
this problem by also
creating calm-inducing
GABA-releasing neurons
-
The mood-boosting
benefits of exercise
occur both immediately
after a workout and
continue on in the long
term
For many people, much of the
effort invested in personal
defense and preparation has
to do with surviving a
violent confrontation by any
means necessary. I am a firm
believer that we should all
be prepared to respond to a
dangerous threat to the best
of our ability, but even
preparation is no guarantee
that you'll be able to
defeat an attacker. But
there IS one guarantee that
you can bank on...
If you want to win a
fight, avoid the fight
altogether.
Before the accident at
Japan’s Fukushima plant in
March 2011, the country was
headed down a path of using
more nuclear energy. Now,
more than two years later,
it may decide to get back on
the same track.
"A Republican lawmaker in
Utah is calling on his state
to put an end to the
requirement that children go
to school. On Tuesday,
Deseret News flagged a
Friday article posted to
state Sen. Aaron Osmond’s
blog where he says that Utah
'should take a close look at
repealing compulsory
education.' Osmond argues
that requiring children to
attend school has caused
some parents to 'completely
disengage themselves from
their obligation to oversee
and ensure the successful
education of their
children.'"
The most recent
experiment of cold fusion
will be streamed on Triwù.
Monday 22 (12:00 pm) -
Triwù in collaboration with
Moebius , transmission of
Radio Science 24, Il Sole 24
Ore., offers direct from the
laboratories of Defkalion
Europe, in Milan, where you
set up what can be called
the experiment most advanced
cold fusion. (A side of this
article you will find some
insights drawn from Moebius
audio and Smart City, Radio
24). The event will be
streamed conducted by
Federico Pedrocchi and
Maurizio Melis.
These are the real outcomes
of a justified self-defense
shooting. I have for years
been telling self-defense
students that a
shooting—even a justified
one—is like a fire. You see,
fire always wins. Prevention
is the best way to remain
safe from fire. The same is
true of a self-defense
shooting. If you can avoid a
conflict, do so. In fact, go
out of your way to avoid a
conflict because the end
result is the legal meat
grinder you see Zimmerman
sitting in right now.
The city is working on
two fronts to reduce the
money it pays for energy.
Public Works Director
Howard Elstro updated City
Council on Monday about
efforts to improve the
energy efficiency of its
system and also pay less for
the energy it does consume.
NASA's Solar Dynamics
Observatory and the Reuven
Ramaty High Energy Solar
Spectroscopic Imager have
provided the most
comprehensive movie ever of
a mysterious process at the
heart of all explosions on
the sun: magnetic
reconnection.
Echoing the loud
thunder of voices from
Native communities and
organizations across the
U.S. and Canada in outcry
over yesterday's decision to
return Veronica Brown to
South Carolina, the Native
American Rights Fund
yesterday issued the
strongest statement yet in a
call to action to join the
fight in protecting the
girl's right to be raised by
her biological father,
Dusten Brown.
It's widely thought that the
Earth arose from violent
origins: Some 4.5 billion
years ago, a maelstrom of
gas and dust circled in a
massive disc around the sun,
gathering in rocky clumps to
form asteroids. These
asteroids, gaining momentum,
whirled around a fledgling
solar system, repeatedly
smashing into each other to
create larger bodies of
rubble — the largest of
which eventually cooled to
form the planets.
Researchers at the
University of California
Santa Cruz have developed a
3D display which can also be
viewed in 2D without
glasses, and without the
blurred effect caused by
overlapping images. Though,
as you'd expect, the screen
displays both left and right
images, it also emits a
mysterious third image which
is the key to the
technology.
These quotes about
Indians from American
leaders span from 1823 to
1889.
The five-year sentence meted
out to Alexei Navalny has
deepened doubts among many
about the Russian justice
system.
The Pakistani nuclear market
took a closer step towards
growing its nuclear energy
following news that
Pakistan’s Executive
Committee of the National
Economic Council has
approved funds to purchase
two new nuclear power
reactors from China, it has
been reported by World
Nuclear News.
The path now really
appears clear for Gina
McCarthy to become the
nation's 13th permanent
administrator of the U.S.
EPA.
After a lengthy hearing
where the EPA, not McCarthy,
seemed to be the subject,
the blunt native of Boston
has remained in her position
as the assistant
administrator for the Office
of Air and Radiation for the
EPA while awaiting
confirmation.
After linking the world for
167 years, the commercial
electric telegraph is no
more. The speed with which
electromagnetic telegraph
systems took over both
short- and long-distance
communication in the mid
19th century set the pattern
which telephones and the
internet would follow,
spawning the connected world
we now live in. The closing
down of India's state-run
Bharat Sanchar Nigam, Ltd.
(BSNL) network on Monday
sparked a last-minute rush
of people looking to send a
souvenir telegram to mark
the historic event before
the electric telegraph was
relegated to the history
books.
Four reactors with licenses
that weren't set to expire
for years were retired by
their owners in recent
months -- one in Wisconsin,
one in Florida and two in
California. Maintenance and
repair expenses and
deteriorating profitability
drove those decisions,
according to the U.S. Energy
Information Administration.
C2 event observed.
chance for an M-class flare
on days one, two, and three
(19 Jul, 20 Jul, 21 Jul).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at unsettled
to minor storm levels on
days one and two (19 Jul, 20
Jul) and unsettled to active
levels on day three (21
Jul).
Rhode Island Governor
Lincoln Chaffee on July 15
signed into law the nation's
second statewide program for
recycling discarded
mattresses.
Similar to legislation
passed in May in
Connecticut, Rhode Island's
new law requires mattress
manufacturers and retailers
to form a stewardship
organization and propose a
plan for managing
end-of-life mattresses.
Rhode Island's plan must be
submitted by July 1, 2015
Saudi Arabia aims to become
the world's foremost market
for renewable energy with an
aggressive investment budget
of $109 billion. By 2032,
the country strives to
generate as much as a third
of the Kingdom's energy
demands using renewable
energy (54 GW).
Japan's iconic Mount Fuji
could violently erupt if a
major earthquake were to rip
open its magma chamber, a
team of researchers says.
The Department of Justice
and the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA)
announced recently that
Shell Oil and affiliated
partnerships (Shell) have
agreed to resolve alleged
violations of the Clean Air
Act at a large refinery and
chemical plant in Deer Park,
Texas by spending at least
$115M to control harmful air
pollution from industrial
flares and other processes,
and by paying a $2.6M civil
penalty. Shell has agreed to
spend $1M on a
state-of-the-art system to
monitor benzene levels at
the fenceline of the
refinery and chemical plant
near a residential
neighborhood and school and
to make the data available
to the public through a
website.
Two state utility
regulators' decisions
highlight the growing
controversy generated by
increasing power production
from distributed generation
(particularly rooftop solar
panels) and challenges in
rate designs for U.S.
utilities, Fitch Ratings
says.
Today the ACLU revealed that
26 state police departments
use traffic cameras to
photograph license plates
and drivers' faces for law
enforcement purposes. The
face photos are processed
through facial recognition
software and the license
plates are screened to see
if any are hot.
Last year, several energy
efficiency provisions
included in the contentious
Keystone XL Amendment had
been eagerly
anticipated—including
provisions for industrial
energy efficiency, R&D
coordination, “best
practices” principles for
advanced metering, and data
collection and federal
energy management standards.
When the Keystone bill
failed to get on the Senate
Floor, many saw it as a
disappointing setback, but
many of the amendments
provisions are finding new
life as part of a
re-released Energy Savings
and Industrial Competitive
Act.
Natural disasters like
hurricanes and floods have
caused more than $2.4
trillion in economic and
insurance losses in the past
decade. Which disasters tend
to be the most costly, and
how successfully have
residents and businesses
protected themselves against
serious damage?
Are
renewable energy
technologies really less
competitive than
non-renewables? And, given
the recent uptake of
renewables, is there still a
business case for other
forms of power generation?
New onshore and offshore
wind and large solar
photovoltaic (PV) plants
still require policy support
to bridge the gap between
generation costs and market
prices of electricity. But
this may change in the near
future...
More and more Americans are
consuming artificial
sweeteners as an alternative
to sugar, but whether this
translates into better
health has been heavily
debated. An opinion article
published by Cell Press on
July 10th in the journal Trends
in Endocrinology &
Metabolism reviews
surprising evidence on the
negative impact of
artificial sweeteners on
health, raising red flags
about all sweeteners — even
those that don’t have any
calories.
Recently the IMF made
it clear that the current
euro area leadership needs
to address its ongoing
banking problems. The
Eurozone's banks are
continuing to deleverage,
with total loan balances to
euro area residents now at
the lowest level in 5 years.
What makes the situation
even more troubling is that
many Eurozone banks banks
are repeating the Japanese
experience of the 90s. They
are carrying poor quality
and often deteriorating
assets on their balance
sheets, refusing to take
writedowns that will require
recapitalization.
The Fed continues to
be divided over the next
steps for its unprecedented
monetary expansion program.
Varying interpretations and
conflicting headlines in the
press leave the public
bewildered and frustrated.
The following two stories
for example have appeared
right next to one another on
Bloomberg.
The Grayl Water Filtration
Cup looks like a typical
water bottle, but it's
actually something quite
different: a dual-walled cup
that you can use to scoop
water, filter out impurities
and pathogens that threaten
to make you sick, and drink
out of, all in seconds. The
cup is the latest
alternative for filtering
out intestine-shredding
bacteria and viruses.
The Environmental
Protection Authority has
been accused of covering up
the discovery of some of the
most poisonous substances on
earth at levels well above
health limits, alarming
residents whose children use
the tested area as a
playground.
The discovery of three
toxic metals – mercury, lead
and chromium – and four
toxic chemicals – HCB,
Aroclor and the banned
pesticides DDT and dieldrin
– was made by the EPA in
April when it tested soil
across the road from the
industrial site of chemical
giant Orica.
Building a workforce for a
5,600 MWe-nuclear power
project within seven years
should be difficult enough.
Yet the UAE’s nuclear
recruitment plans may be
compounded with much more
than the time factor. Wind
Energy Update reports.
Although the UAE has four
years to complete its first
nuclear reactor, once this
unit comes online in 2017,
an additional reactor will
become operational each year
up to 2020 – when all four
reactors are envisaged to be
delivering electricity to
the country.
The first decade of the
21st century was the warmest
decade recorded for
both land and ocean surface
temperatures since modern
measurements began around
1850, finds a new report by
the World Meteorological
Organization.
More national temperature
records were reported broken
than in any previous decade,
according to the report,
“The Global Climate
2001-2010, A Decade of
Extremes.”
Heat waves and drought
conditions are touching off
wildfires, shriveling
grasslands across the
western states and stressing
eastern urban residents,
forcing lawmakers and public
lands managers alike to
rethink their approach to
water supplies.
The Federal Reserve’s
Summary of
Commentary on Current
Economic Conditions,
otherwise known as the
Beige Book,
compiled using data
collected on or before July
8, 2013 in preparation for
the July 30 and 31 Federal
Open Market Committee (FOMC)
meeting, indicated that
economic activity continued
to increase at a “modest to
moderate pace” since the
last report in June in all
12 Federal Reserve
Districts. This compares to
the previous report in which
11 Districts characterized
growth as “modest to
moderate” while one reported
strong growth.
Freddie Mac (OTCQB:
FMCC) yesterday
released the results of its
Primary Mortgage
Market Survey®
(PMMS®), showing average
fixed mortgage rates easing
along with market concerns
over the Federal Reserve's
bond purchase program.
Plumes of white vapor
surging from power plants in
east Orange County are
visible signs of the
enormous amount of precious
water required to cool those
plants and of
power-generation challenges
looming ahead, according to
a report released this week.
On Wednesday, June 19,
U.S. Federal Reserve
chairman Ben Bernanke
announced that the U.S.
central bank planned to end
its five-year quantitative
easing program later in
2013, when the U.S. economy
is expected to pick up. That
day, the Standard & Poor's
500 stock index tumbled by
more than 1%, and all major
U.S. indexes continued
falling through the
following week.
Given yesterday's poor
housing starts report, some
economists are raising
concerns about the
sustainability of the
positive momentum in
residential construction.
The primary explanation for
the latest decline seems to
be the slowdown in apartment
construction.
US crude oil
inventories fell sharply for
a third week in a row,
dipping materially below the
levels from the same time
last year. As a result WTI
crude price remains firmly
above $106.
This drop in supplies is
surprising because US crude
production has recently
spiked.
Hasn’t research shown GM
foods to be safe?
No. The only feeding
study done with humans
showed that GMOs
survived inside the
stomach of the people
eating GMO food. No
follow-up studies were
done.
Wildfires produce a witch’s
brew of carbon-containing
particles, as anyone
downwind of a forest fire
can attest. A range of fine
carbonaceous particles
rising high into the air
significantly degrade air
quality, damaging human and
wildlife health, and
interacting with sunlight to
affect climate. But
measurements taken during
the 2011 Las Conchas fire
near Los Alamos National
Laboratory show that the
actual carbon-containing
particles emitted by fires
are very different than
those used in current
computer models, providing
the potential for inaccuracy
in current climate-modeling
results.
In April, North
Rhine-Westphalia’s first
wind power electrolysis
plant went live in Herten,
in the northern Ruhr. The
plant is part of the
h2herten application centre,
Germany’s first municipal
technology centre based on
hydrogen and fuel cell
technology, which opened its
doors in 2009.
The wind power
electrolysis plant takes the
centre far beyond its
original focus on hydrogen
and fuel cell technology,
developing and creating an
energy supply concept which
sets the standards for the
sustainable and decentrally
organised energy supply of
the future.
The World Bank Group
affirmed in its Energy
Sector Directions Paper
released Tuesday that it
would limit financing to new
coal-fired power projects.
The paper also focused on
increasing the availability
of electricity while also
pushing the growth of
renewable energy sources.
July 16, 2013
Appalachian Power Co.
informed state regulators
Friday that it will pass on
an opportunity to raise
rates.
In a filing with the
State Corporation
Commission, Appalachian
indicated that it will not
seek an increase in its fuel
factor rate.
After nearly 250
years, the Franciscan friars
ended their association with
the Mescalero and Chiricahua
Apaches on July 1, 2013,
citing a shortage of priests
and harsh economic
conditions as causes. No
replacements would be
available. So, on a rainy
summer morning Father Paul
Botenhagen, OFM, quietly
drove away from the
Mescalero Apache Reservation
in New Mexico, leaving
behind a priestless parish,
a famous stone church in its
last year of renovation, a
congregation of dispirited
souls, and a rare
opportunity for new church
leadership to arise from
within the community.
A series of bombings across
Iraq on Sunday left at least
40 people dead and dozens
wounded, security officials
said.
In recent months
Iraq has had its
worst wave of
violence in years.
This month, more
than 300 people have
been killed,
according to the
Interior Ministry.
Confirmed in 1993 by
satellite-based laser
altimetry, this lake is not
only the largest subglacial
lake on the continent, but
this body of water has been
isolated underground with
limited nutrients and
complete darkness and has
become an interesting topic
for researchers and
scientists worldwide.
So here's the
million-dollar question: is
there life in Lake Vostok?
A report from the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE)
says climate change and the
rising temperatures
associated with it can
affect water levels and
temperatures at power plants
and affect demand on the
power grid, according to
Electric Light &
Power/POWERGRID
International.
The Bureau of Land
Management has been tracking
range conditions as the
current drought lingers on.
Drought conditions across
the West have impacted
rangelands, leaving little
water and forage for animals
and livestock, prompting the
Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) to undertake targeted
actions, such as providing
supplemental water and food
for wild horses; reducing
grazing; and enacting fire
restrictions.
The massive coal-fired
power plant that towers over
Dunkirk harbor looks every
bit like the giant
industrial dinosaur that it
is.
And if environmentalists
get their way, it soon will
be extinct.
US crude stocks fell 9.87
million barrels last week to
373.92 million barrels, the
second large draw in two
weeks, data released by the
US Energy Information
Administration showed
Wednesday. Especially
bullish for NYMEX crude
futures was a draw at the
Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery
point of 2.69 million
barrels. NYMEX crude futures
rallied $2.99/barrel on the
data, settling at $106.52/b.
Millions of gallons of water
laced with toxic chemicals
from oil and gas drilling
rigs are pumped for
consumption by wildlife and
livestock with the formal
approval from the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), according to
public comments filed
yesterday by Public
Employees for Environmental
Responsibility (PEER).
Contrary to its own
regulations, EPA is issuing
permits for surface
application of drilling
wastewater without even
identifying the chemicals in
fluids used for hydraulic
fracturing, also known as
fracking, let alone setting
effluent limits for the
contaminants contained
within them.
As part of the Hydropower
Grid Services Project,
sponsored by the U.S.
Department of Energy and
co-sponsored by the
hydropower industry, focused
on quantifying and
maximizing the benefits to
transmission grids provided
by conventional and
pumped-storage hydroelectric
plants, EPRI has released
the results of its research
on the performance of three
conventional hydroelectric
power plants.
-
Wisconsin dairy farmer
Vernon Hershberger was
charged with four
criminal misdemeanors
for supplying a private
buying club with raw
milk and other fresh
produce
-
He was acquitted of
three of the four
charges and the
Farm-to-Consumer Legal
Defense Fund (FTCLDF) is
appealing the jury
verdict of the fourth
charge on claims that
key information was
withheld that would have
exonerated him
-
The hold order, which
Hershberger was found
guilty of violating,
stated his food was
“misbranded or
adulterated” when in
fact the food was
neither; attorneys for
the case believe this
missing piece of
information would have
been enough for the jury
to clear him of all
charges
-
The fight for food
freedom isn’t just for
those who love raw milk
– it’s for everyone who
wants to be able to
obtain the food of their
choice from the source
of their choice
A
new diet is challenging
conventional wisdom that
simply eating too many
calories is the driver of
weight gain. Rather, it
claims, food intolerances —
chemical reactions to common
foods, including “healthy”
ones such as soy and egg
whites — are triggers of
weight gain for up to 70
percent of Americans.
Forests may be becoming more
efficient in their use of
water as atmospheric carbon
dioxide levels rise, reports
a new study in Nature.
"This could be considered a
beneficial effect of
increased atmospheric carbon
dioxide," said Harvard
University's Trevor Keenan,
the first author of the
paper. "What's surprising is
we didn't expect the effect
to be this big."
The Georgia Public Service
Commission approved Georgia
Power’s plan to retire 15
coal- and oil-fired power
plants, or 20 percent of its
coal generation, and add 525
MW of solar power to the
state by 2016.
The new energy revolution
won't be decided in the
board rooms of IdaCorp,
Idaho Power's parent
company.
Increasingly, the size of
your electric bill, the
services you get and how you
control your electrical
destiny will be in your
hands, not the power
company's.
This change will require
customers to be
sophisticated and involved.
The African population could
increase fourfold by 2100,
making poverty and hunger
issues more severe.
In advance of World
Population Day, United
Nations demographers have
once again revised official
projections — upward. This
meticulous band of number
crunchers doesn't mean to be
alarmist, but its statistics
can be startling:
Over the past several weeks,
I have been hearing from
current and former senior
Israeli officials and
advisors at the highest
possible levels, that the
showdown with Iran is
entering the critical ”end
game” phase. I’m hearing
from people with direct
knowledge of the plans that
war could come in 2013.
OPEC has, for years,
insisted that it is an
economic organization and
not a political one. But few
observers would disagree
with the suggestion that
pretty much everything in
OPEC is political. We have
seen how politics has
complicated the appointments
of secretaries general, most
recently in the case of
Abdalla el-Badri who,
despite having ended his
second and final three-year
term as the organization’s
secretary general in
December last year, remains
in the post.
As Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad’s forces
battle to keep the rebels
out of the territories where
the opposition have some
inroads, a large part of the
war-torn country’s vital
energy supplies are coming
from Iran.
Tehran is said to be
supplying a large part of
the crude that is being
processed at Syria’s two
state-owned refineries — the
133,000 b/d Baniyas and
107,000 b/d Homs refineries
— according to trading
sources.
Benjamin Netanyahu says
Israel may have to act
against Tehran unilaterally
to curb it from achieving
its nuclear goal.
Glenn Greenwald, a columnist
with The Guardian newspaper
who first reported on the
intelligence leaks, told The
Associated Press that
disclosure of the
information in the documents
"would allow somebody who
read them to know exactly
how the NSA does what it
does, which would in turn
allow them to evade that
surveillance or replicate
it."
The latest environmental
assessment of the
controversial TransCanada
Keystone XL tar sands
pipeline is flawed because
the contractor hired by the
U.S. State Department to
write the review “lied” on
its conflict of interest
disclosure form about its
past work for TransCanada,
finds research released
Wednesday by two
environmental groups.
As the smoke clears
(literally) in Lac-Megantic,
Quebec, after a runaway
train packed with crude oil
tankers crashed July 6, the
oil industry is coming to
terms with a business that
has perhaps grown too far
too fast.
The Lac-Megantic accident
is shining an unwelcome
spotlight on the lack of
regulatory oversight on oil
by rail in both the US and
Canada. The fact that the
rail cars (which were being
pulled by the Montreal,
Maine & Atlantic Railway)
that crashed and exploded
were considered unfit to
carry hazardous materials
sharpens that focus.
U.S. Customs and Border
Protection, after having
secret meetings with Google,
continued to let the
Motorola Mobility mobile
phones enter the country
even though Google has done
nothing to remove the
feature at the heart of the
ITC case, Microsoft said in
the complaint. The case
illustrates what Lexmark
International Inc. and
Lutron Electronics Co. in
May called an “increasingly
ineffective and
unpredictable enforcement”
of import bans imposed by
the trade agency.
The Australian and
Queensland governments today
pledged to protect the
world’s longest coral reef
under a new plan endorsed at
the Great Barrier Reef
Ministerial Forum in
Brisbane. But environmental
advocates warn the ministers
are ignoring alarm bells
about industrial development
rung by the United Nations.
A major upgrade to
Minnesota's oldest nuclear
power plant is finally
finished -- and way over
budget.
Xcel Energy expects to
restart its Monticello
Nuclear Power Plant this
week after a four-month
shutdown that allowed
workers to replace aging
pumps and other equipment to
keep the 43-year-old reactor
running another two decades
and to boost electric output
by 12 percent.
Some garments designed to be
worn during physical
activity contain
bacteria-killing or
ultraviolet-light-blocking
nanoparticles that may end
up in people’s sweat.
Although never actually
observed, it has long been
assumed that as our Solar
System careens through the
Universe, the heliosphere,
or solar bubble, has a tail
trailing behind it like a
comet's. For the first time,
NASA's Interstellar Boundary
Explorer (IBEX), which was
launched back in 2008, has
mapped the boundaries of
this heliotail, revealing it
is shaped like a four-leaf
clover.
Under Governor Andrew M.
Cuomo's NY-Sun Initiative,
$54 million has just been
awarded for 79 large-scale
solar energy projects across
the state -- adding 64 MW to
the state's solar capacity.
The awards have been made to
20 recipients to finance the
installations at businesses,
factories, municipal
buildings, colleges, and
other larger commercial and
industrial companies and
institutions.
OPEC expects demand for its
crude to decline again in
2014 as rising oil supply
from independent producers
outpaces the predicted
increase in global oil
consumption.
When the Fed prints
reserves by buying MBS and
Treasuries with money that
did not exist previously,
this increases bank deposits
(liabilities) and cash
assets pretty much dollar
for dollar. I have run
charts showing this
relationship, but something
went wrong beginning in
January.
C3 event observed.
Solar activity is likely to
be low with a chance for
M-class flares on days one,
two, and three (16 Jul, 17
Jul, 18 Jul).he geomagnetic
field is expected to be at
quiet to unsettled.
“We assume
contemporary knowledge
displaces that of the past,
but it’s not true,” said
Ramsay Taum, Native
Hawaiian, board director of
the Pasifika Foundation and
on the faculty of the
University of Hawaii, after
giving this example of
science’s potential to
erroneously override
indigenous knowledge.
Although Homer Simpson’s
brother’s Baby Translator
may still only be a
whimsical concept, Rhode
Island scientists have
developed something that
could prove to be even more
valuable. Researchers at
Brown University teamed up
with faculty at Women &
Infants Hospital, to create
a computer tool that may
find use detecting
neurological or
developmental problems in
infants, by analyzing their
cries.
Though the sun is
currently in the peak year
of its 11-year solar weather
cycle, our closest star has
been rather quiet over all,
scientists say.
This year's solar maximum
is shaping up to be the
weakest in 100 years and the
next one could be even more
quiescent, scientists said
Thursday (July 11).
"It's the smallest
maximum we've seen in the
Space Age,"
Have you seen the lighted
stop signs that are powered
by solar energy? If those
little solar panels will
work in Northeast Ohio and
keep the stop signs working,
then there is no reason that
rooftop mounted solar panels
would not work to power
homes and perhaps even
electric cars.
A national fight over
labeling of genetically
engineered foods is touching
down in Washington this
fall, fueled by money from
organic and food-safety
advocates...
On the other side, large
agribusiness and food
industry groups are giving
mightily to efforts that
oppose Initiative 522.
On Monday, July 22,
contractors will begin to
remove the Veazie Dam from
Maine’s Penobscot River,
reconnecting the river with
the Gulf of Maine for the
first time in nearly two
centuries. The 830-foot
long, buttress-style Veazie
Dam spans the Penobscot
River at a maximum height of
approximately 30 feet, with
an impoundment stretching
3.8 miles.
...the essence of our waste
"problem." Although it's not
a conscious act, our culture
views its trash containers
as magic vessels that make
garbage and responsibility
disappear. Once something is
dropped inside – a flag,
recyclables, perhaps a
perfectly good coffee maker
that lacks the features of a
newer model – it becomes
somebody else's problem. No
matter if the consumer is
the one truly accountable.
U.S. energy supplies will
likely face more severe
disruptions because of
climate change and extreme
weather, which have already
caused blackouts and lowered
production at power plants,
a government report warned
Thursday.
The largest German daily
newspaper
Süddeutsche Zeitung
has today published a
shocking article that
reveals how Monsanto, the
US Military and the US
government track both
anti-GMO Campaigners and
Independent Scientists who
study the dangers of GMOs.
Last week was kind to the
mortgage markets, as U.S.
mortgage rates fell for the
second time in three weeks.
The auroras of 1859,
known as the “Carrington
Event,” came after the sun
unleashed a large coronal
mass ejection, a burst of
charged plasma aimed
directly at the Earth. When
the particles hit our
magnetosphere, they
triggered an especially
fierce geomagnetic storm
that lit up the sky and
frazzled communication wires
around the world. Telegraphs
in Philadelphia were
spitting out “fantastical
and unreadable messages,”
one paper reported, with
some systems unusable for
hours.
Today, electric utilities
and the insurance industry
are grappling with a scary
possibility. A solar storm
on the scale of that in 1859
would wreak havoc on power
grids, pipelines and
satellites. In the worst
case, it could leave 20
million to 40 million people
in the Northeast without
power — possibly for years —
as utilities struggled to
replace thousands of fried
transformers stretching from
Washington to Boston. Chaos
and riots might ensue.
Interest in the prophecies
of Gog & Magog seem to be
growing in recent years.
With the Russian-Iranian
alliance strengthening, and
significant turbulence in
the Middle East, I’m seeing
more and more Christians and
Jews — pastors,
Rabbis, scholars and lay
people — studying the
prophecies found in Ezekiel
38-39, and the distinctly
different but similarly
named prophecy found in
Revelation 20. I’m even
seeing more people Tweeting
about Gog & Magog.
July 12, 2013
FirstEnergy Corp.
announced its third round of
coal-fired power plant
closings in 18 months on
Tuesday, a move that will
cost most of the 380
employees at the two
affected locations in the
Pittsburgh area their jobs
and underscores the changing
landscape in electricity
industry.
-
Many foods sold in the
US are banned in other
countries due to harmful
additives, growth
promoters, genetically
engineered ingredients
or other dangerous
practices
-
This includes
farm-raised salmon,
Hawaiian (GMO) papaya,
artificial food dyes,
arsenic-laced chicken,
ractopamine-tainted
meat, bromate-containing
drinks and bread,
olestra, carcinogenic
preservatives, and
rBGH-laced milk
-
To avoid potentially
hazardous foods and
harmful ingredients
permitted in the US food
supply, ditching
processed foods entirely
is your best option
If all goes according to
plan, in two years The
Netherlands will have the
world’s largest nationwide
network of EV fast-charging
stations. It was announced
this week that by 2015,
there should be over 200
such stations along Dutch
highways, leaving no
resident farther than 50 km
(31 miles) from a charge-up
at any time.
Three freed despite
imprisoning, starving and
burning girl sold into
marriage as new laws could
prevent relatives testifying
against each other.
If successful, the small
change – introduced covertly
into the criminal
prosecution code – would
stop the vast majority of
cases of violence against
women from ever reaching
court.
Energy officials told a
Senate committee Wednesday
that the permanent closure
of the San Onofre nuclear
power plant shouldn't result
in a regional or statewide
power shortage, but it could
undercut affect of the
state's environmental goals.
Algae.Tec Ltd, a
renewable energy company,
has signed a contract with
Macquarie Generation, an
electricity generation
company, to site an algae
carbon capture and biofuels
production facility at the
2640MW Bayswater coal-fired
power station near Sydney.
The longest and fastest
flowing glacier in the
Antarctic has spawned a huge
iceberg eight times the size
of Manhattan Island, German
researchers say.
The 280-square-mile
iceberg has split from the
Pine Island glacier, where
scientists have been
observing a giant crack
spreading across its surface
since October 2011.
It doesn't look very
green. Rare earth processing
in China is a messy,
dangerous, polluting
business. It uses toxic
chemicals, acids, sulfates,
ammonia. The workers have
little or no protection.
But, without rare earth,
Copenhagen means nothing.
You buy a Prius hybrid car
and think you're saving the
planet. But each motor
contains a kilo of neodymium
and each battery more than
10 kilos of lanthanum, rare
earth elements from China.
Astronomers used the new
ALMA (Atacama Large
Millimetre/submillimetre
Array) telescope in Chile –
the most powerful radio
telescope in the world – to
view the stellar womb which,
at 500 times the mass of the
Sun and many times more
luminous, is the largest
ever seen in our galaxy.
The human diet is
evolving as world farmed
fish production has over
taken beef production.
Reports from 2012 show that
66 million tons of farmed
fish were produced in
comparison to 63 million
tons of beef and experts are
predicting that this year
may be the first year that
people eat more farm-raised
fish than those caught in
the wild.
Beekeeping industry not
satisfied their submitted
concerns were properly
addressed by EPA before
pesticide approval was
granted
-
In a new large study,
those who were in poor
physical shape at the
age of 18 were nearly
twice as likely to
commit suicide as an
adult
-
A prior study that found
those in good physical
shape as a teen had a
decreased risk of severe
depression later in life
EPFL and Technion
researchers have figured out
the "champion"
nanostructures able to
produce hydrogen in the most
environmentally friendly and
cheap manner, by simply
using daylight.
For a number of years
now, police forces around
the world have enlisted
officers to pose as kids in
online chat rooms, in an
attempt to draw out
pedophiles and track them
down. Researchers at Spain’s
University of Deusto are now
hoping to free those cops up
for other duties, and to
catch more offenders, via a
chatbot that they’ve
created. Its name is
Negobot, and it plays the
part of a 14 year-old girl.
China's tight control of
rare metals may hurt
developing domestic solar
industries, according to a
research director at the
National Renewable Energy
Lab.
A new code passed Monday
by the City Council will
regulate solar panels in the
city, something that's
considered a growing venture
in St. Joseph.
Washington Gov. Jay
Inslee has been preaching
the economic development
potential of clean energy
for years, and he pointed to
a concrete example of that
while visiting Whitman
County Monday.
Customers of Consumers
Energy, Michigan's largest
utility, are seeing
significant long-term
savings and benefits from
energy-efficiency programs.
Consumers Energy launched
the energy optimization
programs in response to
Michigan's 2008 energy
reform law and in an effort
to reduce electric use by at
least 5.5 percent and
natural gas use by at least
3.85 percent by 2015.
A solar plant that caused
an outcry from its Newberry
Springs neighbors and
spurred the San Bernardino
County Board of Supervisors
to pass a moratorium for
future solar projects has
been completed.
"What we're doing is
driving kind of in a 'U'
shape around the country
visiting anything that has
to do with garbage,"
Corrigan said. "It's to find
out how people think about
garbage more than it is to
find a solution or if there
is a problem or what kind of
problem it is."
The coal companies have
often cited a decline in the
market as a reason for these
layoffs and idlings. The
demand for coal is down and
so is production. The cheap
price of natural gas and
governmental regulations on
coal-fired power plants have
also proved to be a
challenge to the industry.
The Department of Energy
launched on Tuesday two
useful websites where
electricity consumers'
questions will be answered
as to why their monthly
electric bills are high, and
keeps getting higher for the
following months.
if that flower is a
butterbur, I plug my nose
and keep walking. That's
because this swamp weed may
be one of the
foulest-scented creations to
ever sink roots into the
earth. It packs a putrid
punch that falls somewhere
between a sweaty tube sock
and a toilet on a tuna boat.
..
butterbur may have the
power to relieve migraine
pain and even stop new
migraines from developing!
We have made huge strides
to cut the budget deficit
and have succeeded
brilliantly! Brilliantly!
It was the one thing
Congress got right even
though they hated one
another for doing it. Have
we gone far enough?
Should we have another round
of sequestration? It's a
fair question to ask in
light of the current deficit
data.
Thousands of Brotherhood
followers have been
maintaining a vigil near a
mosque in northeast Cairo
demanding the reinstatement
of Mohamed Mursi, toppled as
president by the army last
week.
Supporters of the ousted
Egypt's President Mohammed
Morsi, hold his portrait
during a demonstration after
the Iftar prayer, evening
meal when Muslims break
their fast during the
Islamic month of Ramadan, in
Nasr City, Cairo, Egypt,
Wednesday July 10, 2013.
Egypt's military-backed
government tightened a
crackdown on the Muslim
Brotherhood on Wednesday,
ordering the arrest of its
revered leader in a bid to
choke off the group's
campaign to reinstate
President Mohammed Morsi one
week after an army-led coup
By October 9, 2013,
FirstEnergy Corp. will
deactivate two coal-fired
power plants in Pennsylvania
due to the cost of
compliance with current and
future environmental
regulations in conjunction
with the continued low
market price for
electricity. About 380
employees are expected to be
affected.
The Biotechnology
Industry Organization (BIO)
today urged the
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) to issue a
final Tier 3 Motor Vehicle
Emission and Fuel Standards
rule that maximizes
investment in and adoption
of advanced biofuels.
Under the new standards,
Energy Star certified
refrigerators and freezers
will use at least 10 percent
less energy than models
meeting 2014 federal minimum
efficiency standards. If all
refrigerators and freezers
sold in the United States
were to meet the updated
requirements, energy cost
savings would grow to more
than $890 million each year
and reduce annual greenhouse
gas emissions by the
equivalent of those from
more than one million
vehicles.
Forests may be becoming
more efficient in their use
of water as atmospheric
carbon dioxide levels rise,
reports a new study in
Nature.
The findings are based on
data from 300 canopy towers
that measure carbon dioxide
and water flux above forests
at sites around the world,
including temperate,
tropical, and boreal
regions.
The federal government is
accusing Oklahoma Gas and
Electric Co. of violating
the Clean Air Act by failing
to estimate the amount of
harmful emissions that would
come from improvements made
at two of its coal-fired
power plants.
OG&E did not seek
necessary permits for more
than $60 million in
construction projects at the
two plants, according to a
lawsuit filed Monday in
federal court in Oklahoma
City.
a diversified water
resource, waste management
and environmental services
company specializing in the
unconventional oil and
natural gas shale resource
plays, announced today that
its wholly-owned subsidiary,
GreenHunter Water, LLC, has
begun this week to process
complex oilfield waste
streams containing heavy
concentrations of suspended
solids at its bulk storage
and barge transloading
terminal in New Matamoras,
Washington County, Ohio.
Sometimes a big problem can
have a simple solution.
"One of the biggest
frustrations of North
Carolina farmers is getting
affordable access to water,"
said Jock Brandis, founder
of the Full Belly Project, a
Wilmington nonprofit
organization that provides
simple engineering solutions
to owners of small farms.
The food
choices you make are vital
for your health, but
choosing the right cookware
is important, too. The types
of metals and coatings used
in pots and pans can make
the difference between a
nutritious meal and one
filled with toxins that
could lead to cancer or
Alzheimer’s.
House lawmakers
approved a scaled-back
version of the farm bill
Thursday after stripping out
the popular food-stamp
program used by 48 million
Americans...
Noem told reporters that
House leaders said they
expect to vote on the
food-stamp portion of the
bill "in the next week or
two."
Microsoft has
collaborated closely with US
intelligence services to
allow users' communications
to be intercepted, including
helping the National
Security Agency to
circumvent the company's own
encryption, according to
top-secret documents
obtained by the Guardian.
As Christmas 2011
approached, U.S. Army medic
Shawn Aiken was once again
locked in desperate battle
with a formidable foe. Not
insurgents in Iraq, or
Taliban fighters in
Afghanistan - enemies he had
already encountered with
distinguished bravery.
This time, he was up against
the U.S. Defense Department.
Astronomers using NASA's
Hubble Space Telescope have
deduced the actual
visible-light color of a
planet orbiting another star
63 light-years away.
"Keep your word.
Promises to indigenous
people are frequently made
and broken. You promised to
buy Wounded Knee and give it
to the Sioux Nation. The
owners want to sell. Keep
your word. Buy Wounded Knee
and gift it freely to the
Sioux Nation."
The killings are the
latest in a wave of
bloodshed that has killed
more than 2,600 people since
the start of April. The
months-long eruption of
violence — Iraq’s worst in
half a decade — is raising
fears that a civil war
between the country’s Sunnis
and Shiites is again
imminent.
Japan may restart several
reactors shut down by the
Fukushima nuclear crisis in
about a year, a senior
regulator said in an
interview on Tuesday, a day
after new safety rules went
into effect designed to
avoid a repeat of the
disaster.
Japan's nuclear regulator
expressed growing alarm on
Wednesday at increased
contamination beside the
seafront of the stricken
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
power station and urged the
plant's operators to take
protective measures.
Fukushima's operator,
Tokyo Electric Power Co.,
has acknowledged problems
are mounting at the plant
north of Tokyo, the site of
the world's worst atomic
disaster since Chernobyl in
1986.
Japan bought
alternatives to Oregon wheat
in a tender today as the
government extended the
suspension of purchases from
the U.S. state for a sixth
week after the discovery of
unapproved gene-altered
crop.
Japan purchased 23,963
metric tons of club wheat
grown in neighboring
Washington state, 1,710 tons
of U.S. soft-red winter, and
1,497 tons of Australian
premium-white, the Ministry
of Agriculture, Forestry and
Fisheries said today.
While the US limps
through the recession,
thousands of ‘shovel-ready’
jobs are on hold waiting
for President Obama to
approve Keystone XL
pipeline, a 36 inch oil
pipeline that will carry
product from Canada’s oil
sands to Gulf Coast
refineries.
Environmentalists ignore the
impacts of renewables like
wind farms, while claiming
Keystone will cause global
warming or climate change.
"The robbers, armed with
knives and a parang, grabbed
cash and valuables from a
doctor and two nurses before
turning their attention on
the patients. Despite being
unwell, the businessman, who
is also MCA Raub division
chief, already had his
finger on the trigger of his
Glock 9mm and warned the
robbers that he would shoot
if they did not leave.
Microsoft admitted this
week that hackers had
launched "targeted attacks"
against its customers.
The disclosure
was relegated to a
footnote in its monthly memo
about security flaws, dubbed
Patch Tuesday.
Immediately after
the news leaked, South Korea
and Japan banned all U.S.
imports of wheat. And a
handful of wheat farmers
have since sued Monsanto,
charging that this genetic
pollution is financially
damaging their business,
reported Natural News.
The price of solar could
soon drop further with the
release of an industry
standard that will decrease
photovoltaic inverter costs.
The standard will be the
first for distributed power
architecture that supports
interoperability among PV
component suppliers.
If you've suffered
one-too-many root canals or
dread losing teeth as you
age, you'll be pleased to
know that both fears may
soon be a thing of the past.
"The US is going ahead
with plans to deliver four
F-16 fighter jets to Egypt
despite the political unrest
in the country, senior
American officials say. This
comes as Washington is
continuing to evaluate last
week's overthrow of
President Mohammed Morsi by
the army. US massive
military aid to Cairo would
have to be cut by law if the
removal of the Islamist
leader is determined by
Washington to have been a
coup."
President Obama’s climate
change initiative has been
overshadowed by other
national stories. But the
administration’s new
environmental tactics are a
reality with which the power
industry must come to grips.
While a deep recession
has has taken its toll on
Americans and their economy,
a perpetual haze is cast
over sub-Saharan Africa and
its financial future. To
that end, President Obama is
pushing his so-called Power
Africa initiative that aims
to double the access to
electricity in that region
of the world.
A new case study by
EnergyCAP, Inc. reveals how
the City of Bernardino's
part-time energy manager
saved dollars and water
resources for the City in
the midst of gloomy economic
conditions. In 2012, four
California cities declared a
fiscal emergency and/or
filed for bankruptcy, but
Energy Manager Susan Davis
offers a silver lining in
the fiscal crisis.
When considering the
environmental implications
of an energy generation
method, there is a lot more
to think about than just the
emissions produced once the
system is up and running. A
complete analysis should
include the environmental
costs of making the required
equipment and installing it
as well. For photovoltaic
solar panels that means
thinking about where the
panel materials come from
and how they are made.
Here are three pow
wows coming up this weekend
that will be superb. And
there are many more pow wows
and festivals happening all
weekend that will be
wonderful opportunities to
dance and sing. For complete
listings and related pow wow
stories.
Pollution is poisoning
the farms and villages of
the region that processes
the precious minerals.
Health hazard ... pipes
coming from a rare-earth
smelting plant spew into a
tailings dam on the
outskirts of Baotou in
China's Inner Mongolia
autonomous region.
It is remarkable
how the treasury market
reversed the impact of
Bernanke's original hawkish
comments made back in May. A
very similar daily move took
place in the "belly" of the
curve today with yields
moving in the other
direction.
C2 event observed.
here are currently 3
numbered sunspot regions on
the disk. chance for M-class
flares on days one and two
(12 Jul, 13 Jul) and likely
to be low with a slight
chance for an M-class flare
on day three (14 Jul).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
unsettled levels on day one
(12 Jul) and quiet to minor
storm levels on days two and
three (13 Jul, 14 Jul) due
to an expected CME passage.
Slight rises in
temperatures are triggering
rainforest trees to produce
more flowers, reports a new
study published in the
journal Nature Climate
Change.
California's
groundbreaking efforts to
encourage homeowners and
businesses to install
rooftop solar panels were so
successful in 2012 that the
program is now effectively
winding down, according to a
new report.
Indian rupee's
slide to record lows has
been extraordinary. It's
been driven by weakness
across emerging markets and
rising rates in the US. As
foreign investors exit
(accompanied by domestic
accumulation of dollars),
India's central bank has
been reluctant to intervene
in order to halt the rupee's
slide.
Albuquerque-based Sacred
Power Corp. has begun
selling its patented solar
systems in Home Depot stores
in New Mexico, and will soon
roll them out nationwide.
Subtle surface signs
reveal when and where
sunspots will emerge on the
Sun, at least a day in
advance, according to a team
of researchers led by
Northwest Research
Associates (NWRA).
In a development that
will help predict potential
sea level rise from the
Antarctic ice sheet,
scientists from The
University of Texas at
Austin's Institute for
Geophysics have used an
innovation in radar analysis
to accurately image the vast
subglacial water system
under West Antarctica's
Thwaites Glacier. They have
detected a swamp-like canal
system beneath the ice that
is several times as large as
Florida's Everglades.
Solar flares and the even
more violent Coronal Mass
Ejections (CMEs) are
spectacular events, driving
enormous amounts of energy
and streams of charged
particles into space. While
researchers have had the
opportunity to study these
events for decades, we are
still learning about what
initiates these explosions.
Previous studies have
revealed that twisted
magnetic field lines within
the solar structure will
pierce the surface of the
Sun. These coronal loops are
filled with hot plasma, with
temperatures exceeding a
million degrees. As these
structures evolve,
oscillating over time, they
can lead to dynamic solar
events.
Call the good fortunes of
Paradise Power Co. in Taos,
a small, family-owned solar
power and electrical
engineering business started
in 1979, a reflection of the
sea change in the solar
industry in New Mexico since
2000.
In a flare gas recovery
agreement that is the first
of its kind in the United
States, Shell Oil will spend
$100 million on innovative
technology to reduce air
pollution from burning off
waste gases at one of its
largest refineries.
A solar tsunami observed
by NASA's Solar Dynamics
Observatory (SDO) and the
Japanese Hinode spacecraft
has been used to provide the
first accurate estimates of
the Sun's magnetic field.
Solar tsunamis are
produced by enormous
explosions in the Sun's
atmosphere called
coronal mass ejections
(CMEs). As the CME
travels out into space,
the tsunami travels
across the Sun at speeds
of up to 1000 kilometres
per second.
-
In a recent study of
stressed individuals,
those who said that
their health was
extremely affected by
stress had more than
twice the risk of having
or dying from a heart
attack
-
Chronic stress, even at
low levels, may damage
your heart, impair your
immune system, hinder
your digestion and raise
your risk of chronic
disease
Researchers at the
University of Southampton
have created an extremely
durable computer memory that
can store 360 TB of data
The public is ignorant
about politics and lacks
even the basic facts that it
would need to make sound
judgments about political
issues. A new poll by
Ipsos-MORI shows just how
deep this ignorance is.
What is one of the
greenest ways to generate
lots of electricity? What if
we could harness the immense
energy in ocean currents?
Tidal power has been
developing rapidly as a
viable means of generating
electricity. Scotland is
nearly surrounded by ocean
and strong currents are
common.
Following President
Obama's announcementof his
visionto reduce carbon
pollution and lead the
global effort to lessen the
impacts of climate change,
The White House has revealed
its 2013 Public Health and
Climate Change “Champions of
Change.”
The past week has seen
three more solar companies
go belly-up, at both ends of
the upstream and downstream
side of the industry, all
blamed at least partly on
persistent global
competition. Meanwhile,
talks between Europe and
China over solar trade
issues might be getting
closer to a resolution as
the initial negotiating
window starts to close.
a region in the
heliosphere that serves as a
magnetic highway along which
low-energy ions from inside
stream away and galactic
cosmic rays flow in from
interstellar space.
China and the U.S. have
agreed on five areas in
which the two countries can
address climate change,
according to the U.S.
Department of State. The
climate initiatives include
carbon capture and storage,
boosting energy efficiency
in buildings, deploying
renewable energy and
investing in smart grid
technologies.
The US producer price
index (PPI) jumped 0.8% in
June 2013, which was above
market expectations for a
0.5% gain and marked a
second consecutive sizeable
increase following a 0.5%
rise in May. The monthly
increase pushed the
year-over-year rate of
growth in the measure to
2.5% from 1.7% in May.
Federal Open Market
Committee (FOMC) members
viewed the information
received during the period
since the May 2013 FOMC
meeting as suggesting that
economy activity had
expanded at a moderate pace.
A number of meeting
participants mentioned that
they were encouraged by the
“apparent resilience of
private spending” despite
the headwinds from fiscal
consolidation measures
introduced earlier in the
year.
If House Republicans
insist on sealing the border
and blocking ObamaCare and
other entitlements to
current illegal immigrants
before any legalization
process can begin, how will
U.S. Latino voters react?
Will it trigger a backlash
against Republicans or will
Latinos accept the
conditions willingly?
Freddie Mac (OTCQB:
FMCC) yesterday
released the results of its
Primary Mortgage
Market Survey®
(PMMS®), showing average
fixed mortgage rates
continuing to trend higher
for the week on more market
speculation that the Federal
Reserve will reduce future
bond purchases following
June's strong employment
report.
For the first time in 3
days, mortgage rates climbed
Wednesday.
The culprit? A Federal
Reserve publication which
provided too few insights
into the central banker's
plan for future economic
stimulus.
SCE&G's nuclear effort
looked like a smart move in
June when President Barack
Obama announced that he
ordered the Environmental
Protection Agency to help
stem global warming with a
crackdown on greenhouse-gas
emissions that come mainly
from coal-fired power
plants.
They're crucial to hybrid
cars, wind turbines and many
other green-tech
innovations, but these
elusive metals also have an
environmental dark side.
Stuck in a 6.5%
mortgage? Would like to
refinance, but don't have
sufficient equity in your
home? Welcome to the
wonderful world of
"financial innovation". You
can do what some businesses
do when they are in this
situation: sell "shares" in
your house to investors. The
proceeds can reduce your
mortgage amount, potentially
allowing you to refinance or
at least reduce your
payments.
This test marks the
culmination of ten years of
research by the Navy and
Boeing to produce a
prototype unmanned combat
vehicle for the US Navy.
July 9, 2013