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Using nearly two decades of
satellite data, the team of
international researchers
observed an acceleration of
ice loss from the
continent’s ice shelves,
with an increase in loss of
70% in West Antarctica over
the last decade. In the
Amundsen and Bellingshausen
regions, some ice shelves
have lost up to 18% of their
thickness in less than two
decades.
The Arizona Senate rejected
a bill Monday that would
have allowed gun owners with
concealed-carry permits to
bring their weapons into
public buildings.
Republican lawmakers have
been pushing a suite of
proposals intended to expand
the rights of Arizona gun
owners.
House Bill 2320 by Rep.
Brenda Barton, R-Payson, was
designed to require public
establishments to allow
permit-holders to carry
their firearms inside or
mandate that security guards
and metal detectors be added
at entrances.
Remember the drinking
fountain, that once
ubiquitous, and free, source
of H2O? It seems quaint now.
Instead, bottled water is
everywhere, in offices,
airplanes, stores, homes and
restaurants across the
country. We consumed over
eight billion gallons of the
stuff in 2006, a 10 percent
increase from 2005. It’s
refreshing, calorie-free,
convenient to carry around,
tastier than some tap water
and a heck of a lot
healthier than sugary sodas.
But more and more, people
are questioning whether the
water, and the package it
comes in, is safe, or at
least safer than tap
water—and if the convenience
is worth the environmental
impact.
The heavy rainfall that
battered Chile's usually
arid north this week
happened because of climate
change, a senior
meteorologist said, as the
region gradually returns to
normal after rivers broke
banks and villages were cut
off.
"For Chile, this
particular system can only
be possible in an
environment of a changed
climate," Deputy
Secretary-General of the
World Meteorological
Organization Jeremiah
Lengoasa told Reuters on a
visit to Santiago on Friday.
Chinese authorities have
closed 66 golf courses in a
renewed crackdown on courses
built in contravention of
rules designed to protect
arable land and save water,
China's top economic
planning body said on
Monday.
The central government
last year ordered the
demolition of courses built
by five mainly little-known
developers, the first real
sign of enforcement of a
2004 ban.
Cold snaps like the ones
that hit the eastern United
States in the past winters
are not a consequence of
climate change. Scientists
at ETH Zurich and the
California Institute of
Technology have shown that
global warming actually
tends to reduce temperature
variability.
Plants were blooming in
the middle of winter near
the Cascade Mountain Range;
the Iditarod had to be moved
almost 300 miles from
Willows to Fairbanks due to
lack of snow for the
mushers; and California
could run out of water in a
year.
These are drastic
indications that things are
amiss, said American Indian
leaders meeting in Portland,
Oregon earlier this month.
To them it was obvious that
climate change is already
here and that collaboration
is necessary in order for
tribes to survive and
thrive.
By adding a “mushroom
base” to burgers, meat
sauce, and more, you can
cut the meat in your
recipes by half or more,
without sacrificing
flavor and heartiness
Mushrooms are rich in
protein, fiber, vitamin
C, B vitamins, calcium,
and minerals, along with
being excellent sources
of antioxidants
The world's vegetation has
expanded, adding nearly 4
billion tonnes of carbon to
plants above ground in the
decade since 2003, thanks to
tree-planting in China,
forest regrowth in former
Soviet states and more lush
savannas due to higher
rainfall...
Carbon flows between the
world's oceans, air and
land. It is present in the
atmosphere primarily as
carbon dioxide (CO2) - the
main climate-changing gas -
and stored as carbon in
trees.
The California utility, San
Diego Gas & Electric
(SDG&E), has begun bidding
energy resources from fleets
of electric vehicles and
storage systems into the
state’s wholesale power
market. The pilot program,
one of the first of its
kind, is meant to provide
insights into how electric
vehicles and other kinds of
distributed energy resources
can make the grid more
reliable and efficient.
The Senate has unanimously
passed S 535, the Energy
Efficiency Improvement Act
of 2015, which is projected
to yield roughly $4.6
billion in annual energy
savings by 2030, with little
cost to taxpayers -- and no
government mandates.
"If there is one thing
lawmakers from both sides of
the aisle can agree upon,
it's that energy efficiency
is a good thing. It's good
for our economy, good for
consumers and businesses and
good for our environment,"
said Kateri Callahan,
president of the Alliance to
Save Energy, after the
bill's passing.
Only six years after the end
of the worst financial
crisis since the 1930s some
experts are worried another
one may be on its way.
Some are "warning that
the global community has
failed to learn the lessons
of the Greek debt crisis —
or even of Argentina’s
default in 2001, the
consequences of which are
still being contested
furiously in courts on both
sides of the Atlantic,"..
Federal Reserve Vice
Chairman Stanley Fischer
said while the non-bank
financial industry appears
less vulnerable since the
financial crisis, more work
must be done to reduce
risks.
“While progress has been
substantial, areas for
continued work remain,”
Fischer said in the text of
remarks prepared for
delivery Friday in
Frankfurt. “To say that the
non-bank sector today
appears less vulnerable than
it did during the global
financial crisis is not to
say that authorities in the
United States have tamed the
non-bank sector.”
Americans view the United
States' energy situation as
improving, with only 28
percent saying they view the
situation as "very serious."
According to a Gallup poll,
this year is the first time
since 2002 that number has
been so low.
The Republican-controlled
Senate has approved a
balanced-budget plan that
calls for trillions in
spending cuts and repeal of
the controversial health
care law to erase red ink by
the end of the coming
decade.
Grass-fed beef accounts
for just 0.5 percent of
all retail beef sold,
but it’s popularity is
increasing
Researchers have
determined 10 areas
where grass-fed is
better than grain-fed
beef for human health
More farmers are seeking
out agricultural
production systems that
model nature, including
soil-conservation
farming, carbon farming,
and grazing animals
A former Iranian
journalist who once had
close ties to President
Hassan Rouhani said top
Obama administration
officials are toeing such a
conciliatory line at the
negotiations over Iran’s
nuclear program that they
appear to be speaking “on
Iran’s behalf.”
“The U.S. negotiating
team are mainly there to
speak on Iran’s behalf with
other members of the 5+1
countries and convince them
of a deal,”..
A CBS Poll conducted at
the end of March shows that
Americans accept, for now,
Hillary’s explanation of why
she kept all her emails on a
non-government server. While
62% feel it was
“inappropriate” to do so,
they largely buy her
explanation of why she did
so — 49% accept that it was
just for the convenience of
not having to use two
devices while 38% suspect
that she wanted to conceal
their content.
But Hillary has, in
effect, stepped into
quicksand. The more she
struggles to keep her server
and e mails private, the
more voters will believe she
used a separate server to
cover them up. Her
explanation that she did so
out of “convenience” will
wear thin with each subpoena
battle, court order, and
instance of Clinton
stonewalling.
Hillary Clinton wiped her
email server "clean,"
permanently deleting all
emails from it, the chairman
of a House committee
investigating the 2012
attacks in Benghazi, Libya,
said Friday.
Rep.
Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina
Republican, said the former
secretary of state has
failed to produce a single
new document in recent weeks
and has refused to
relinquish her server to a
third party for an
independent review, as Gowdy
has requested.
Three projects combining CSP
and PV technologies have
been announced in Chile and
South Africa over the last
year. Developers involved
indicate this integration
offers significant
advantages in terms of
providing lower energy
tariffs and securing grid
stability.
The Amazon rainforest
teems with animal activity
throughout the day and
night. When animals suddenly
withdraw and go silent,
however, something unusual
is going on. Many believe
that this reaction can mean
an earthquake is imminent.
Scientists now say
they’ve got proof this
belief is true. They’ve
published their study’s
findings in the journal
Physics and Chemistry of the
Earth.
The Japanese Maritime
Self-Defense Forces' have
put into service the largest
Japanese warship since WWII,
making additional manpower
and carrying capacity
available for island defense
and disaster relief.
The Supreme Court's
conservative justices cast
doubt on the Obama
administration's first-ever
regulations aimed at
reducing power plant
emissions of mercury and
other hazardous air
pollutants that contribute
to respiratory illnesses,
birth defects and
developmental problems in
children.
On
Wednesday, the court
appeared to be divided over
a challenge brought by
industry groups and 21
Republican-led states to the
Environmental Protection
Agency's decision to take
action against coal- and
oil-fired power plants that
are responsible for half the
nation's output of mercury.
The State Department has
ordered an internal audit of
its record keeping,
officials said Friday,
outlining a top-to-bottom
look at the agency's
practices in the aftermath
of revelations that former
Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton used a
private email account and
server during her tenure.
Kerry's order of a
record-keeping audit comes
as the Clinton email scandal
boiled over with news that
the private server used by
the former Secretary of
State was wiped clean.
An industrial wind
turbine is a complex machine
made up of hundreds of
moving parts, but it takes
just three of them to make
the magic possible: the
blades.
Wind turbine blades
harvest energy from currents
of air, but they don't come
off an assembly line like
widgets. Indeed, it's
difficult to appreciate just
how much effort and care
goes into crafting them
until you see the process up
close.
The Atlantic Conveyor Belt
is a system of ocean
currents that bring warm
temperatures and important
nutrients to the waters off
of East Coast America and
Western Europe. But as
global warming melts ice in
Greenland, the influx of
fresh water seems to be
slowing the northward drift
down and could shut the
system down altogether.
Climate scientist Michael
Mann tells host Steve
Curwood that could spell
trouble for the ocean and
the economy.
Researchers at at Drexel
University have developed a
metallic nanocoating derived
from a virus of the tobacco
plant that could lead to
more efficient steam
production, improving the
performance of steam
turbines, air conditioning
and electronics cooling
systems.
Water’s transition from
liquid to gas has plenty of
applications beyond the
kitchen: water treatment
plants, heating and AC
systems, and the steam
turbines that we use to
produce electricity are all
heavily dependent on this
process. Making this
transition even slightly
more efficient than it is
now could therefore have
quite a big impact on our
energy outlook.
Monsanto now refers to
itself as a “sustainable
agriculture” company
with no concept of what
“sustainable” really
means, as they
recklessly violate all
of its principles
USDA data shows that
glyphosate use has
increased 12-fold since
1996, when the first GE
crops were introduced.
This dramatic increase
has cut the monarch
butterfly population by
90 percent
San Diego is suing
Monsanto for polluting
the Coronado Bay with
PCBs; the city says
Monsanto knew the risks
but chose to protect
profits when prolonging
the use of PCBs prior to
the chemical being
banned
The presumed ‘safety’ of the
GMO herbicide glyphosate,
the world’s most widely used
herbicide, has been dealt
another blow– this time with
evidence linking it to
potentially deadly
antibiotic resistance.
Recently the
International Agency for
Research on Cancer (IARC) a
branch of the World Health
Organization, declared the
herbicide “a probable
human carcinogen.”
According to Freddie
Mac's weekly mortgage rate
survey of more than one
hundred banks, 30-year
mortgage rates averaged
3.68% last week, marking the
19th straight week of sub-4
percent rates; and the
15-year fixed rate mortgage
rate averaged 2.97%.
NASA has released new
details on how it plans to
boldly go to an asteroid and
come back with a bit of it.
The Asteroid Redirect
Mission (ARM) is part of the
space agency's Asteroid
Initiative announced in
2013, which envisions the
capture and return of an
asteroid to lunar orbit for
study by astronauts as a
rehearsal for a later
mission to Mars.
North Dakota this week
became the 27th state to
call for a meeting of states
that would propose an
amendment to the
Constitution requiring a
balanced federal budget.
The need for a balanced
budget amendment has become
more urgent with each
passing year, as the annual
budget deficit has created a
total national debt of more
than $18 trillion. Recent
projections have said the
debt will keep growing and
will be nearly $20 trillion
by the time President Barack
Obama leaves office.
For decades, the earth’s
oceans have soaked up more
than nine-tenths of the
atmosphere’s excess heat
trapped by greenhouse gas
emissions. By stowing that
extra energy in their
depths, oceans have spared
the planet from feeling the
full effects of humanity’s
carbon overindulgence.
But as those gases build
in the air, an energy
overload is rising below the
waves. A raft of recent
research finds that the
ocean has been heating
faster and deeper than
scientists had previously
thought. And there are new
signs that the oceans might
be starting to release some
of that pent-up thermal to
significant global
temperature increases in the
coming years.
Listeriosis is a
life-threatening disease
that has symptoms including
fever, muscle ache,
diarrhea, and infection. It
comes with a type of
infection that spreads
through the intestines to
the blood. This leads to a
bloodstream infection, or to
the central nervous system
causing meningitis.
Progress...
“We all want progress, but
if you're on the wrong road,
progress means doing an
about-turn and walking back
to the right road; in that
case, the man who turns back
soonest is the most
progressive.” ― C. S. Lewis
The temperature at a base in
Antarctica hit a record high
last week, reports Weather
Underground. On March 24,
2015 Argentina's Esperanza
Base reported a temperature
of 63.5°F (17.5°C), which
may be the warmest
temperature ever recorded on
the content. The previous
high was set a day earlier
at 63.3°F (17.4°C),
according to a blog post by
Christopher C. Burt.
The World Wind Energy
Market Update 2015
reported that China,
Germany, and the U.S. led a
record year for wind
installations, with the U.S.
experiencing significant
growth in 2014. Second-tier
countries include Brazil,
Turkey, France, and Canada.
“The wind power industry
achieved a record year of
installations in 2014,
setting the stage for steady
growth in the coming
years,”..
C4 event observed.
Solar activity is likely to
be low with a slight chance
for an M-class flare on day
one (31 Mar) and expected to
be low with a chance for
M-class flares on days two
and three (01 Apr, 02 Apr).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
active levels on days one,
two, and three (31 Mar, 01
Apr, 02 Apr).
A blogger was hacked to
death by machete-wielding
assailants in the Bangladesh
capital Dhaka on Monday, the
second attack in five weeks
on a critic of religious
extremism in the
Muslim-majority South Asian
nation.
Royal Dutch Shell will
resume drilling off Alaska
after suspending operations
for two years in the wake of
an accident, the special
U.S. envoy to the Arctic
said on Monday, but gave no
details as to when.
Shell has been moving oil
rigs to Alaska as it awaits
the green light from U.S.
authorities. It froze
operations in 2013 after the
grounding of a rig in Alaska
prompted protests from
environmental groups.
The chances of Greece
leaving the euro area
are now 50-50 and the
country could go “down
the drain,” billionaire
investor George Soros
said.
“It’s now a lose-lose
game and the best that
can happen is actually
muddling through,”
Soros, 84, said in a
Bloomberg Television
interview due to air
Tuesday. “Greece is a
long-festering problem
that was mishandled from
the beginning by all
parties.”
Perception of nuclear energy
for electricity saw a small
drop in the United States in
2014, with 51 percent of
Americans now for it,
according to a poll by
Gallup. The poll also found
that 43 percent of Americans
oppose using nuclear energy
for electricity. The poll
was conducted as part of
Gallup's Environmental poll,
which they have been
conducting for the past 20
years.
The Supreme Court on Monday
declined to hear a new
challenge to President
Barack Obama's healthcare
law that took aim at a
bureaucratic board labeled
by some as a "death panel"
because it was designed to
cut Medicare costs.
The high court left
intact a ruling by the San
Francisco-based 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals
that threw out the lawsuit.
The capture of the Syrian
city of Idlib by Islamist
militants may undermine
President Bashar al-Assad’s
claim to have the upper hand
in the country’s civil war
and stir unrest among his
supporters, analysts said.
Aluminum is a known
neurotoxin; it can play
a significant role in
neurological diseases,
including dementia,
autism, and Parkinson’s
disease
When you orally ingest
aluminum, your body will
absorb between 0.2-1.5
percent of it. When
aluminum is injected,
your body absorbs 100
percent, which is why
aluminum-containing
vaccines are suspected
of great harm
Today, American children
end up getting a grand
total of 6,150 mcg of
aluminum if they get all
of their recommended
vaccines
The Times of London, Mar.
27, 2015: Japan faces
200-year wait for Fukushima
clean-up — The chief of
the Fukushima nuclear power
station has admitted that
the technology needed to
decommission three
melted-down reactors does
not exist, and he has no
idea how it will be
developed. In a stark
reminder of the challenge
facing the Japanese
authorities, Akira Ono
conceded that the stated
goal of decommissioning the
plant by 2051 may be
impossible without a giant
technological leap.
An eco-town described as the
UK's "most sustainable
development" is moving
closer to being occupied.
The first residents are
expected to move into North
West Bicester later this
year. Planning permission
has also just been granted
for up to 2,600 homes in the
next stage of the project.
The U.S. submission, on
Monday or Tuesday according
to a White House official,
adds to national strategies
beyond 2020 already
presented by the 28-nation
European Union, Mexico,
Switzerland and Norway.
Together, they account
for about a third of world
greenhouse emissions. But
other emitters such as
China, India, Russia,
Brazil, Canada and Australia
say they are waiting until
closer to a Paris summit in
December, meant to agree a
global deal.
U.S. Salmon returns
in the Columbia River,
counted at Bonneville Dam,
were the largest in 2014
than in any year since 1938,
when fish counting began at
the site, according to the
Northwest Power and
Conservation Council.
The 2014 run was
about 2.5 million fish.
This is indeed good
news.
But, NWPCC says these
big numbers “may portend
less benefit for future
generations of fish”
because the productivity
of naturally spawning
salmon is decreasing
You may have never said
it aloud, but airlines are
indeed trying to make
you catch their scent.
Brands like Delta and
Singapore Airlines already
use fragrances on their
planes, and now United is
making waves (or is that
whiffs?) with a smell of
its own.
More than 350 physical or
cyber attacks have been
recorded in recent years on
the nation's power grid,
including nine acts of
sabotage on equipment owned
by Arizona Public Service
Co. , according to records
obtained by USA Today and
The Arizona Republic .
The all-new Blue Freedom kit
offers yet another
alternative to solar panels,
fuel cells, muscle-powered
dynamos, wind turbines,
AC-charged back-up batteries
and other portable power
solutions. "The world's
smallest hydropower plant"
transforms the power of
running water into phone
chatting, internet browsing,
music listening, GPS
navigating and other mobile
device activities, and it
does so from a package built
to fit in a backpack.
The U.S. Energy Information
Administration (EIA) has
found that California is the
first state to use more than
5 percent utility-scale
solar power for electricity
generation. Utility-scale
power is defined as 1
megawatt (MW) or larger.
Canada is expanding its
military mission against the
Islamic State group to
include airstrikes on
targets in Syria, Prime
Minister Stephen Harper
announced Tuesday.
Harper told Parliament
that he will not seek "the
express consent" of the
President Bashar Assad
government for the
airstrikes, but will work
closely with allies who have
been carrying out such
airstrikes against IS over
Syria in recent months.
The reason why is due to the
fact that the doll comes
equipped with an embedded
microphone that turns on and
records the voice of the
child playing with it. These
recordings are then uploaded
to a cloud server where
voice detection software
analyzes the data to make
sense of what’s being said.
This results in the doll
bringing up the child’s
favorite activities, dog’s
name, etc., the next time
the child sits down to play
with it.
With no end in sight to a
drought that has blighted
Chile for the last several
years, the government will
invest in desalinization
plants and reservoirs to
ensure access to potable
water, President Michelle
Bachelet said on Tuesday.
The drought, which began
in 2007, is hampering copper
production in the world's
top exporter, exacerbating
forest fires, driving energy
prices higher and impacting
agriculture.
Dark matter is the
mysterious, invisible stuff
that makes up 85% of the
matter in the cosmos - and
these results rule out
several theoretical models
put forward to explain it.
This is because it barely
interacts with anything at
all, including the dark
matter in the oncoming
galaxies.
Homeland Security Secretary
Jeh Johnson on Thursday
rejected the idea that
Deputy DHS Secretary
Alejandro Mayorkas should be
fired for helping Democrats
get visas for their favored
companies, and instead
argued that DHS should just
be allowed to learn from the
episode and “move on.”
The Department of Homeland
Security has released close
to 166,000 convicted
criminal illegal aliens in
to the United States as of
April 2014...
In addition to the nearly
166,000 criminal illegal
aliens released by the DHS,
the agency ordered more than
700,000 non-criminal illegal
aliens to self-deport
themselves from the country.
After their release there is
nothing to stop the illegal
aliens from moving freely
about the United States,
which is exactly what they
did, according to the
Judicial Watch report.
Deep-water marine fish
living on the continental
slopes at depths from 2,000
feet to one mile have liver
pathologies, tumors and
other health problems that
may be linked to
human-caused pollution, one
of the first studies of its
type has found.
In various types of
manufacturing, parts are
robotically picked and
placed using graspers or
suction cups. The former can
damage fragile items,
however, while the latter
won't work in vacuums or on
rough surfaces. That's why
scientists from Germany's
Leibniz Institute for New
Materials (INM) have
developed – well, a new
material. It utilizes the
same principle as sticky
gecko feet, but its gripping
quality can be switched on
and off as needed.
Lawmakers may soon allow
people in Georgia to finance
solar panels the same way
they get mortgages to buy
homes or lease cars.
The legislation from
state Rep. Mike Dudgeon, R-
Johns Creek , provides cover
in Georgia monopoly
electricity market for
financiers who feared
lending money for solar
panels or leasing them would
invite a lawsuit from
traditional utility
companies. The bill passed
the House of Representatives
unanimously in February, and
Senate lawmakers are
expected to consider it
soon.
Greece risks running out
of cash by April 20 unless
it secures fresh aid, a
source familiar with the
matter told Reuters on
Tuesday, leaving it little
time to convince skeptical
creditors it is committed to
economic reform.
After talks with EU
leaders including German
Chancellor Angela Merkel in
the past week, Athens said
it will present a package of
reforms to its euro zone
partners by Monday in the
hope of unlocking aid and
avoiding a messy default.
"It will be done at the
latest by Monday,"
government spokesman Gabriel
Sakellaridis told Mega TV.
NASA has decided to pluck a
small boulder off an
asteroid and bring it back
to the vicinity of Earth,
rather than bag up an entire
asteroid, agency officials
in charge of the Asteroid
Redirect Mission (ARM)
announced today.
By the end of 2014, 20
cities represented 6.5
percent of total solar
photovoltaic (PV) capacity
in the United States,
according to a new report by
Environment America.
According to the report, Los
Angeles has the most
installed solar capacity in
the country -- with 170 MW
installed. San Diego follows
close behind with 149 MW,
Phoenix with 115 MW,
Indianapolis with 107 MW and
San Jose with 105 MW.
In her speech, Clinton
reportedly cracked jokes
about her email scandal,
saying she was “all about
new beginnings. A new
grandchild. A new hairstyle.
A new email account. A new
relationship with the press.
No more secrecy, no more
zone of privacy… After all
what good did that do for
me?”
Monsanto Co, maker of the
world’s most widely used
herbicide, Roundup, wants an
international health
organization to retract a
report linking the chief
ingredient in Roundup to
cancer.
The company said on Tuesday
that the report, issued on
Friday by the World Health
Organization’s International
Agency for Research on
Cancer (IARC), was biased
and contradicts regulatory
findings that the
ingredient, glyphosate, is
safe when used as labeled.
NASA's Curiosity rover has
found new evidence of
nitrogen on Mars, proving
that the red planet has --
or at least had -- the right
stuff to sustain life.
The rover drilled into
Martian rocks and discovered
evidence of nitrates, which
are essential compounds to
the building blocks of life.
New Jersey has begun
awarding energy storage
project proposals worth
nearly $3 million. The
awards came from the New
Jersey Board of Public
Utilities (BPU), and were
given to 13 different
proposed projects to install
energy storage systems
integrated with
customer-sited renewable
energy generating
facilities.
Doubling the amount of solar
capacity added in 2013, New
Mexico had the 10th most new
solar capacity added last
year in the nation,
according to the
recently-released U.S. Solar
Market Insight 2014 Year in
Review . The state also
finished the year ranked No.
11 among all states in total
installed solar capacity.
The route being planned for
a canal that would traverse
Nicaragua and its eponymous
lake that provides drinking
water to millions. ..
scientists are warning
against the project, and an
indigenous community is
suing the government of
Nicaragua regarding
construction of the massive
canal that will connect the
Caribbean Sea and the
Pacific Ocean, which,
according to a growing
number of experts, could
cause severe environmental
damage. Moreover, it was
allegedly authorized without
prior consultation with
affected indigenous
communities.
The New York Power Authority
(NYPA) and SUNY Polytechnic
Institute (SUNY Poly) have
signed an agreement to
create a world-class
facility, the largest of its
kind in the world, devoted
to energy technology
innovation and the rapid
deployment of smart grid
technology to modernize New
York's electric grid. Known
as the Advanced Grid
Innovation Laboratory for
Energy (AGILe), the lab will
simulate, develop, test and
deploy a more integrated
grid.
This week President Obama
took unilateral executive
action — again — to change
the nation's immigration
laws. Almost no one noticed.
Obama intends to make it
easier to bring more foreign
guest workers to the United
States — likely at
significant cost to workers
already here — by loosening
the rules governing
something known as the L-1B
visa program.
Population growth could
cause global demand for
water to outpace supply by
mid-century if current
levels of consumption
continue. But it wouldn't be
the first time this has
happened, a Duke University
study finds.
C2 event observed.
Solar activity is expected
to be low with a chance for
M-class flares on days one,
two, and three (27 Mar, 28
Mar, 29 Mar). The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
active levels on day one (27
Mar) and active to minor
storm levels on days two and
three (28 Mar, 29 Mar).
The U.S. Department of
Energy said one drum was the
source of a radiation leak
inside the Waste Isolation
Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New
Mexico.
The report
by the Technical Assessment
Team said the contents of
Drum 68660 in Panel 7, Room
7, were chemically
incompatible. The contents
reacted internally, which
led to a thermal runaway
that generated heat and
produced gases that built up
enough pressure to break the
seal and leak radiation. The
release resulted in the
movement of material and
caused some damage to
surrounding drums.
Geophysicists conducting
drilling as part of
geothermal research claim to
have stumbled across the
largest asteroid impact zone
ever found on Earth.
Covering a 400 km (249 mi)
wide area in Central
Australia, the two ancient
craters are believed to be
the result of a single
meteorite that split in two
moments before crashing into
the Earth.
A legislative committee is
looking into increases in
electricity prices in
Massachusetts, with its
chairman calling the hikes
"unprece-dented" and
"outrageous" as news broke
that Boston residents paid
far more than the national
average for electricity.
In hot, dry areas of the
world, collecting enough
rainwater to grow crops can
be difficult. Another
potential source of water
for collection, however, can
be dew. Roots Up has
designed a greenhouse to
collect dew in Gondar,
Ethiopia, as part of a
scheme to help local farmers
with low-tech solutions.
The water collected is,
of course, meant for
watering the crops contained
within the greenhouse. It
can, however, be used as
drinking water if needed.
The
Saudi ambassador to the U.S.
says Saudi Arabia and allies
have launched air strikes
against Houthi fighters who
have tightened their grip on
the southern city of Aden
where the country's
president had taken refuge.
Good news if you're hooked
on chocolate. Researchers
from Ghent University in
Belgium and the University
of Ghana have developed a
new technique for making
chocolate that results in it
being both healthier and
more flavorful. The
technique differs from
conventional chocolate
production in that cacao
beans are roasted at a lower
temperature and bean pods
are left unopened for five
days rather than split open
right away. It is expected
to be particularly useful in
countries where cacao beans
have less natural flavor and
antioxidant activity.
A researcher at the
defense company Boeing has
filed a patent for a
sci-fi-esque cloaking device
that would protect soldiers
from intense shock waves
generated by explosions.
The just-issued patent
(No. 8,981,261) to Boeing
envisions stopping shock
waves using a veil of
heated, ionized air. Such a
"shield" would damp the
force of explosions. It
doesn't build an invisible
wall of force, but rather
makes shock waves bend
around objects, just as some
high-tech materials bend
light and make things
invisible.
Senate Democratic leader
Harry Reid said on Friday he
will not seek re-election
next year, leaving Congress
after 30 years and
complicating Democrats'
efforts to retake control of
the Senate in 2016.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in a
March 19 letter, called on
the nation’s governors to
reject the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency’s proposed regulation
that requires states to
dramatically restructure
their electricity systems
based on how the agency
thinks electricity should be
produced and used in each
state.
Sen. David Vitter (R.,
La.) wants to know whether
Hillary Clinton concealed
communications with a
Nigerian donor to the
Clinton Foundation during an
internal State Department
debate over designating Boko
Haram a terrorist group.
Vitter sent a letter last
week to Secretary of State
John Kerry requesting all of
Clinton’s records relating
to Boko Haram and her
reluctance to label it as a
Foreign Terrorist
Organization (FTO).
Squids are able to rapidly
change color thanks to cells
in their skin known as
iridocytes. These contain
platelets made of a protein
called reflectin. By
adjusting the thickness and
spacing of these platelets,
the animals are able to
change the manner in which
their skin reflects light.
Satellite data from 1994 to
2012 reveals an accelerating
decline in Antarctica's
massive floating ice
shelves, with some shrinking
18 percent, in a development
that could hasten the rise
in global sea levels,
scientists say.
The solar-powered minigrids
are anchored to telecom
towers near remote villages
with batteries typically
ranging from 30 to 120 kWh.
The system provides 24/7
power for the tower, while
also powering surrounding
villages. Instead of
purchasing expensive
kerosense or simply living
in darkness, villagers are
able to charge their devices
or wire lighting to the
village itself. According to
Imergy CEO Bill Watkins,
about 5,000 villages fit
this telecom model
A university researcher
may have discovered a way to
make the desalination
process cleaner by
harnessing solar energy.
Philip Davies, of Aston’s
School of Engineering and
Applied Science in the U.K.,
"has devised a system using
solar energy that could
allow desalination plants to
act as a sink, rather than a
source of atmospheric carbon
dioxide, and help to
neutralize ocean acidity,"
Science 2.0
reported.
Tucson Electric Power (TEP)
is proposing a new net
metering plan that would
lower the amount a utility
is required to pay to a
customer who is selling
their solar back to the
grid. The application to the
Arizona Corporation
Commission (ACC) asks to
lower the required amount
TEP pays to large-scale
solar customers.
According to TEP, their
proposal is "a new net
metering plan to ensure that
customers who install new
rooftop solar power systems
pay a more equitable price
for their electric service
while still enjoying
significant bill savings."
Just a day after the House
passed a resolution calling
for a balanced budget within
the next 10 years, the House
turned around and passed
legislation that would
increase budget deficits by
$141 billion, putting a
balanced budget out of reach
once again.
The panther is
said to have spiritual
powers, and efforts are
afoot to create a 'jaguar
cultural corridor' to link
together a string of
surviving habitat areas to
give the iconic animal a
semblance of its former
range.
Even a few years ago,
renewable energy played only
a small role in most
countries’ energy planning.
While governments and
publics were eager to
increase the share of
renewables in their energy
systems, the economics of
doing so were challenging.
There were also serious
concerns about the impact on
the electricity grid of
adding too much capacity
from variable renewable
energy sources, such as
solar and wind.
The Secret World of Gold
is a documentary
exploring the power and
politics of gold, a precious
metal with more allure and
fascination than any other.
Valued for its permanence,
beauty and scarcity, people
will lie, cheat, steal and
kill in the name of gold.
<Editor: I know
this is about 2 years old.
But it is extremely relevant
today and worth the
reminder!>
The peak of Mount Everest
used to be one of the most
isolated and untouched spots
on earth. But now that 4,000
climbers have ascended its
heights, pollution has
caught up with the pristine
location.
"People have left oxygen
canisters, broken climbing
equipment, trash, human
waste and even dead bodies
in their wake, transforming
the peak into a literal pile
of … well, you get the
idea," ...
Two experimental Ebola
vaccines appear to be safe
based on their evaluation in
more than 600 volunteers who
participated in the first
stage of the Partnership for
Research on Ebola Vaccines
in Liberia (PREVAIL) Phase
2/3 clinical trial.
The US Department of Energy
no longer plans to dispose
of defense high-level
radioactive waste, or HLW,
and commercial spent fuel in
the same repository and
plans to initiate a
consent-based siting process
"before the end of the
calendar year" that would be
used to site defense and
commercial nuclear waste
facilities, Secretary of
Energy Ernest Moniz said
Tuesday.
Bipartisan legislation
intended to safeguard and
permanently dispose of
stockpiles of spent nuclear
fuel in the United States
has been introduced by U.S.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski
(R-Alaska), Maria Cantwell
(D-Wash.), Lamar Alexander
(R-Tenn.), and Dianne
Feinstein (D-Calif.). The
fuel has been accumulating
at different sites across
the country, half of which
sits at the Hanford Nuclear
Reservation in Washington,
D.C.
The unclassified version of
the "Worldwide Threat
Assessment of the US
Intelligence
Communities" dated 26
February, noted Iran's
efforts to fight "Sunni
extremists", including
elements affiliated with the
Islamic State group who were
perceived to constitute the
"preeminent terrorist threat
to American interests
worldwide".
Wall Street stocks sold
off sharply, with
semiconductor and biotech
shares sliding more than 4
percent, and the dollar
slipped on Wednesday after
government data signaled the
U.S. economic expansion was
slowing.
Treasuries also dropped
in price after a
disappointing sale of new
government debt, while gains
in the euro prompted a
pullback in European stock
markets.
Virginia will become the
first state in the United
States to receive a wind
energy research lease in
federal waters from the
United States Bureau of
Ocean Energy Management
(BOEM), according to
Governor Terry McAuliffe.
Higher levels of fluoride in
drinking water appear to be
associated with an increased
risk for hypothyroidism,
according to recent data...
In general the study found
that locations with
fluoridated water supplies
were more than 30% more
likely to have high levels
of hypothyroidism, compared
to areas with low levels of
the chemical in the water.
Could the land of 10,000
lakes be running out of
water?
In a recent report, 5
EYEWITNESS NEWS examined
just how serious Minnesota's
water problem is, and the
results were not reassuring
for residents of the state.
Minnesota is struggling
against various factors that
have made its water
increasingly hard to come
by.
Congress Needs a
Strategy to Defeat Violent
and Cultural Jihad
Yesterday the House
Committee on Homeland
Security, under the
leadership of Chairman
Michael McCaul, held the
first of a series of very
important hearings on the
threat of radical Islamism.
Each year, the nation wastes
an estimated two trillion
gallons, or about 14 to 18
percent, of its treated
water through leaks alone.
That’s a lot of water –
enough to fill over three
million Olympic-size
swimming pools.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz
announced on Monday that he
is running for the
Republican presidential
nomination in 2016, making
him the first major
candidate to officially toss
his hat in the ring.
While the election is still
a long way off, there are
several compelling reasons
why Cruz should be
considered a strong GOP
presidential candidate for
2016.
American Electric Power will
shut six coal-fired power
plants by the end of May
across four Appalachian
states, with four more
retirements set for this
year, a utility official
said Monday.
Cruz, 44, has built a
reputation as an unyielding
advocate for conservative
principles in his two years
in the Senate. As a
presidential candidate, he
is likely to portray himself
as the most reliable
proponent of small
government.
Arctic sea ice shrank to the
lowest winter extent ever
recorded, according to data
released today by the
US-based National Snow and
Ice Data Center. The
record-low ice level follows
earlier news that 2014 was
the warmest year since
record keeping began.
An unusually warm February
in parts of Alaska and
Russia contributed to the
record ice low. The winter
reach of Arctic ice
decreased 1.1 million square
kilometres compared to the
average maximum from 1981 to
2010. This represents an
area more than twice the
size of Sweden.
At the fortified entrance of
FirstEnergy's Beaver Valley
nuclear power plant --
before submitting to the
background check, the metal
detectors, the puffer
machines and the scan of all
personal belongings --
employees and visitors pass
by an LED sign displaying
what could be any workplace
safety platitude: "Low risk
is not the same thing as no
risk."
Glenn Beck on Friday said
President Barack Obama has
lied so consistently
throughout his presidency
that he has “brought lying
to an art form.”
“He’s lied from the very
beginning with the stimulus
package, when we said the
jobs would be shovel-ready,”
Beck said on his radio
program, playing audio of
the president saying the
jobs would be “shovel-ready”
and then later audio of him
saying, “shovel-ready was
not as shovel-ready as we
expected.”
Quite often when
speaking out and educating
others about the mascot
issue, the same question is
asked, “Why are you people
worried about mascots? Don't
you have bigger issues to
worry about on the
reservations?”
At least 10 European
power plants were supposed
to begin piping their carbon
emissions into underground
tombs this year, rather than
letting them twirl into the
sky. None has done so.
Missed deadlines,
squandered opportunities,
spiralling costs and green
protests have plagued the
development of carbon
capture and storage (CCS)
technology since Statoil
proposed the concept more
than two decades ago.
Two days ago, an agency
of the World Health
Organization issued a report
concluding that glyphosate,
the key ingredient in
Monsanto’s Roundup, likely
causes cancer in humans.
If you eat foods that
contain genetically modified
organisms (GMOs), you are
consuming glyphosate—because
the U.S. EPA not only allows
glyphosate residue on your
food, the agency actually
raised the allowed limits in
2013.
Change...
“Progress is impossible
without change, and those
who cannot change their
minds cannot change
anything.” ― George Bernard
Shaw
Since 2001, more than two
million military children
have been separated from a
parent in the United States
military due to combat
deployments. Now, a new
study from researchers at
the Uniformed Services
University of the Health
Sciences suggests the impact
of separation — and
reunification — deeply
affects these daughters and
sons. Young children of
deployed military parents,
when compared to kids whose
military parents remained at
home, more frequently
visited medical providers
for injuries, mental health
problems, and maltreatment.
Sadly, an even higher risk
of harm impacted those
children who were reunited
with a combat-injured
parent.
A Chinese firm with
extremely close ties to
China's internal security
department is among the
largest donors to the Bill,
Hillary and Chelsea Clinton
Foundation, a revelation
that recalls the former
president's multiple
campaign finance scandals
involving illegal Asian
money.
Former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, like all
departing federal employees,
was required to fill out and
sign a separation statement
affirming that she had
turned over all classified
and other government
documents, including all
emails dealing with official
business.
The corporate soft drink
giant, who has been trying
to combat declining sales in
the United States, has begun
partnering with fitness
experts and nutritionists to
promote a mini-can of Coke
as a ‘healthy’ snack.
In February, the idea of
drinking a mini-Coke for
heart health was suggested
on many nutrition blogs and
even in major newspapers and
websites.
Cisco, one of the world’s
largest computer networking
equipment manufacturers is
no fan of the NSA’s spying
techniques.
The company has
reportedly been helping
customers circumvent a
government surveillance
technique by shipping some
of its products to vacant
homes. Doing so would
theoretically stop the
government from being able
to tap into Cisco devices,
PC World reported.
Costco has decided to phase
out the sale of chickens
that have been treated with
shared-use antibiotics. This
is a big win in a few ways.
First, the low levels of
antibiotics meant for human
use that find their way into
the raising of conventional
meat make the antibiotics
less effective, as they only
succeed in killing the low
level bacteria and creating
antibiotic resistant
superbugs by allowing the
stronger strains to survive.
Second, consumers who are
voting with their dollars
for healthier meat that
isn’t full of unnecessary
hormones and antibiotics are
being heard
Crude futures closed higher
Monday as a weaker US dollar
led prices higher, despite
concerns over excess supply
after Saudi Arabia's oil
minister said OPEC cannot be
solely responsible for
balancing the market.
NYMEX May crude rallied
sharply in the last 15
minutes before the market's
close, ending 88 cents
higher at $47.45/barrel.
CDC reports that no one
in the US has died of
measles in the last 12
years. Meanwhile, 98
measles vaccine related
deaths were reported to
the US government since
2003.
During that time period,
694 measles
vaccine-related
disabilities were
reported to the Vaccine
Adverse Reporting System
(VAERS).
Child mortality due to
measles is 200 to 400
times greater in
malnourished children in
less developed countries
than those in developed
ones; as nutrition
improves, complications
and deaths radically
diminish.
New Zealand’s Energy
Efficiency and Conservation
Authority (EECA) has
calculated that consumer and
business uptake of
energy-efficient appliances
has resulted in energy
savings of over $96 million
in a one-year period - the
equivalent of the annual
electricity usage of over
130,000 New Zealand homes.
President Obama's push to
curb deportations through
executive action has opened
the door for thousands of
illegal immigrants to
collect Social Security
benefits, both lawfully and
by exploiting weaknesses in
the agency's ability to
detect fraud.
Justice Department
officials in Arizona, South
Carolina and Florida
declined to prosecute
illegal immigrants after the
Social Security
Administration proved they
were using the Social
Security numbers of dead
Americans to secure
benefits, an agency
inspector general report
revealed.
Death, injury, displacement
and destruction following
natural disasters could be
reduced by 2030 under a new
framework adopted by
countries attending the 3rd
UN World Conference on
Disaster Risk Reduction, in
Sendai.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.,
sent a letter asking the
former secretary of state to
turn over to the State
Department inspector general
or other third party the
server she used for official
State Department business.
The aim would be to have a
third party determine what
records should be made
public.
A plant that generates
electricity by burning
beetle-killed wood had only
been operating for a few
months when a December fire
badly damaged the facility’s
conveyor system. The plant
has been closed since, and
will probably remain closed
until summer.
If there is actually anyone
on the planet who has any
doubts about why Hillary
kept a secret email server
in her Chappaqua house,
guarded by the Secret
Service, a quick look at the
Justice Department’s
response to Judicial Watch’s
Freedom of Information
request for Hillary’s emails
will clear things up.
Don’t expect a gold mine
of emails on Hillary’s
private account. Why not?
Because she doesn’t know how
to type. That’s right. She
writes everything out in
longhand. Really. Anyone who
has spent time in meetings
with her knows about her
endless yellow pads.
So her emails will most
likely turn out to be very
short and quick. She
wouldn’t spend a lot of time
pecking out long letters. No
way...
Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton hid her
government activities from
the public by using her
private email network to
communicate with her aides
via their private,
non-government email
addresses.
During the Benghazi
crisis, her secret
private-to-private email
network bypassed government
openness and record-keeping
laws.
A controversial religious
freedom bill that
would protect business
owners who want to decline
to provide services for
same-sex couples was passed
by Indiana’s State
House today, the latest in a
larger battle over same-sex
marriage and rights.
Native women, with their
indomitable spirits and
ability to create miracles
through sheer force of will,
are absolutely the reason
why the indigenous people of
the Western hemisphere
managed to survive genocide,
against all odds. It is we
who birth and nourish all
Red Nations.
Inside the Garbage of
the World explores how
plastic trash has
altered the composition
of our oceans, and the
impact this may
eventually have on life
4.7 million tons of
plastic ends up in our
oceans each year, where
wave action turns them
into a plastic soup that
damages sea life and
marine ecosystems
The plastic to plankton
ratio in the North
Pacific is increasing
rapidly and
exponentially. Tests in
1999 found a plastic to
plankton ratio of six to
one. By 2007, that ratio
had jumped to 36 to one
Summary:A
number of telecommunications
providers are taking on the
FCC and the agency's net
neutrality rules.
The order, which has not
taken effect yet, is already
being challenged by firms
across the United States. As
reported by Reuters, the
first wave of lawsuits was
filed on Monday by companies
under the USTelecom
umbrella, which argued that
the new net neutrality rules
are "arbitrary, capricious,
and an abuse of discretion."
The filing argues that
the US regulator's rules
break federal and local
laws, and violate the
constitution and the 1934
Communications Act.
Water is our most
precious natural resource.
Without clean water to
drink human populations
cannot exist. But our water
supplies are under constant
assault from anthropogenic
pollution.
When pollutants get into
groundwater, they can stay
there for decades. Cleanup
efforts are difficult,
expensive and not always
successful. It would be
better to protect
groundwater from
contamination in the first
place, but risks to
groundwater are moving
targets. ..
Thousands of lost jobs,
higher utility rates for
consumers and more frequent
power outages may all stem
from emissions regulations
that the Environmental
Protection Agency predicted
would instead generate
billions of dollars in net
benefits every year.
The regulations were
implemented in December 2011
to limit mercury and air
toxins emitted from power
plants. The agency predicted
the regulations would create
46,000 short-term and 8,000
long-term jobs, and generate
health benefits valued at
between $37 billion and $90
billion annually starting in
2016.
The company’s nine
hydroelectric power plants
are located throughout New
Hampshire, with several of
them still operating despite
being more than a century
old. The plants and their
approximate capacity [some
of these numbers may be
outdated
It’s not just bees, the
world is losing its
pollinating birds and
mammals, new research shows.
More pollinating bird and
mammal species are moving
towards extinction than away
from it, finds the first
global assessment of trends
in pollinators.
About 90 percent of
flowering plants are
pollinated by animals and
birds, and humans rely on
many of these plant species
for food, livestock forage,
medicine and materials.
The Canadian government's
review of TransCanada Corp's
proposed Energy East
pipeline is deeply flawed,
Quebec aboriginal leaders
said on Thursday, signaling
they could line up with
opponents of the C$12
billion ($9.43 billion)
project.
In a letter sent to
Canada's natural resources
minister and distributed to
the media on Thursday,
Ghislain Picard, chief of
the Assembly of First
Nations Quebec-Labrador,
criticized the federal
government for failing to
consult aboriginal
communities on the scope of
the review.
You can shed live virus
in body fluids whether
you have a viral
infection or have gotten
a live attenuated viral
vaccine
The Johns Hopkins
Patient Guide for
immunocompromised
patients used to mention
avoiding “contact with
children who are
recently vaccinated”
You can be an
asymptomatic carrier of
a viral infection
(acquired naturally or
via vaccination), so
while you may show no
symptoms, you may still
be able to transmit the
virus to others
C3 event observed.
Solar activity is likely to
be low with a slight chance
for an M-class flare on days
one, two, and three (24 Mar,
25 Mar, 26 Mar). The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at unsettled
to minor storm levels on day
one (24 Mar), unsettled to
active levels on day two (25
Mar) and quiet levels on day
three (26 Mar).
Kennedy, the nephew of
President John Kennedy and
son of former U.S. Attorney
General Robert Kennedy,
joined groups that oppose
school-attendance
vaccination requirements for
a news conference in the New
Jersey Statehouse in
Trenton. The Legislature is
considering bills that would
tighten rules for vaccine
exemptions.
Unearthed articles from the
1960s detail how nuclear
waste was buried beneath the
Earth’s surface by
Halliburton & Co. for
decades as a means of
disposing the by-products of
post-World War II atomic
energy production.
Fracking is already a
controversial practice on
its face; allowing U.S.
industries to inject
slurries of toxic,
potentially carcinogenic
compounds deep beneath the
planet’s surface — as a
means of “see no evil” waste
disposal — already sounds
ridiculous, dangerous, and
stupid anyway without even
going into further detail
Solar Power Inc. has signed
a partnership agreement to
develop more than 50
megawatts of floating
photovoltaic solar power
projects in California ,
Arizona , New Mexico , Texas
and Mexico .
South Korea's imports of
Iranian crude oil in
February plunged 50.3% year
on year to 4.043 million
barrels, or an average
144,393 b/d, from 8.140
million barrels a year
earlier, data released
Monday, March 23, by
state-run Korea National Oil
Corp showed.
But this
was more than double from
the 1.995 million barrels of
crude imported from Iran in
January.
Connecticut is not North
Dakota , and will never have
that wide-open state's
potential for wind power.
Nor is it New Mexico , where
an average of 340 sunny days
per year make it a
solar-power bonanza.
Still, Connecticut has
untapped potential for
renewable energy, officials
say, and will need to
continue recent progress to
meet statutory requirements.
The United States has
three main electrical power
grids, one that covers the
western U.S., one that
covers the eastern portion,
and one that covers all of
Texas .
Protecting that grid from
natural and manmade Electro
Magnetic Pulse (EMP)
incidents is high on Texas
State Senator Bob Hall's
to-do list.
Friday morning bore witness
to a stunning solar eclipse,
as our Moon traversed the
face of our parent star,
blocking its light in a
beautiful example of the
intricate orbits negotiated
by the planets and moons
that make up our solar
system. For those able to
secure a pair of protective
glasses and be charmed
enough to gaze through
cloud-free skies, the sight
was a spectacular one – a
rare meeting of two
celestial bodies that have
accompanied each of us
through every day and night
of our lives.
Continuing its impressive
growth, Texas had the eighth
most new solar capacity
added last year in the
nation, according to the
recently-released U.S. Solar
Market Insight 2014 Year in
Review . The state also
finished the year ranked No.
10 among all states in total
installed solar capacity.
In 2014, Texas added 129
megawatts (MW) of solar
electric capacity, bringing
its total to 330 MW. That's
enough clean, affordable
energy to power nearly
60,000 homes.
About two years ago, the
Georgia legislature
surprised a handful of
Tennessee residents by
resuscitating a decades-old
dispute: some 30,000
Tennesseans, they said, were
actually Georgians. The
border between the two
states, established in 1818,
had been botched. It was
supposed to run along the
35th parallel, the Georgia
legislators argued, but in
some places the border that
exists today runs slightly
to the south of that line.
It was reported this week
that Kraft Foods has
recalled 242,000 cases of
Kraft Macaroni and Cheese
because traces of metal were
found in some packages.
Those 242,000 cases break
down to 6.5 million
individual boxes.
A broad-based coalition of
non-profit advocates for
greater transparency and
accountability in the
federal asked Secretary of
State John Kerry and
Archivist of the United
States David Fierro to make
publicly available in
electronic format all of
Hillary Clinton's private
emails dealing with official
business.
Truth...
“There are only two
mistakes one can make along
the road to truth; not going
all the way, and not
starting.” ― Buddha
The UN's International
Agency for Research on
Cancer (IARC) said Friday
(20 March) that three
pesticides, including the
popular weed killer Roundup,
were "probably" carcinogenic
and two others, which have
already been outlawed or
restricted, were "possibly"
so.
IARC classified the
herbicide glyphosate – the
active ingredient in Roundup
– and the insecticides
malathion and diazinon as
"probably carcinogenic" on
the basis of "limited
evidence" of cancer among
humans.
The destruction of 2,600
tons of World War Two-era
mustard agent weapons banned
by international treaty
began on Wednesday at a U.S.
Army depot in southern
Colorado, officials said.
The first mortar shells
or projectiles containing
the blistering chemical were
moved into a specially
designed chamber within a
building at the Pueblo
Chemical Depot to be
neutralized, said spokesman
Thomas Schultz.
“What are you hiding?”
the elder asked Rose
Domenic. It was a simple
question in response to
Domenic’s request for help
overcoming her mysteriously
growing, incapacitating
fear. But Domenic was
stunned by the query and
involuntarily blurted out
that she had been sexually
abused repeatedly as a
child. Now in her 50s, she
had told no one except a
visiting Catholic priest
who’d come to her Yup’ik
village church many years
ago.
Freight Farms is
one of a number of
companies offering
shipping containers
set up as
self-contained farms
Ensuring that the
food we eat is locally
and sustainably grown is
not always easy,
especially in cities
where crop-growing space
is at a premium. Firms
like Freight Farms and
Cropbox, however, have a
solution to this
problem. They offer
shipping containers that
are kitted out as
self-contained farms.
Individually, they were
rather unimpressive and
caused little problem. When
conditions were ideal, they
could multiply into the
billions, travel over long
distances, and consume
virtually anything and
everything that was remotely
edible. Their native
homelands were the dry Rocky
Mountain upland region of
primarily Colorado, Wyoming
and Montana. After hatching
out in the spring of the
year, the locusts would
travel eastward in search of
food. In years where the
number of those hatched was
unusually large, the food
supply was stripped rather
quickly driving them ever
eastward in search of new
food supplies.
Water utilities can
expect a major financial hit
as the fracking industry
grows if the controversial
process contaminates the
water supply, according to
one ratings agency.
Fitch Ratings said in a
recent report that if water
is contaminated by fracking
chemicals, the agency "would
expect a serious blow to a
utility's revenues, with
losses concurrent with other
growing direct and indirect
costs. This would lead to
debt service coverage
reductions, liquidity
strains and possibly the
need for additional
leverage."
Last week, ICTMN
reported that Assistant
Secretary – Indian Affairs
Kevin K. Washburn announced
the Pamunkey Indian Tribe is
one step closer to becoming
the first tribe from
Virginia to be federally
recognized. Though this
announcement is a good sign
for the Pamunkey, there are
still a few more steps for
the Pamunkey to take and
Federal Recognition for the
tribe is not 100 percent
guaranteed.
Financial author Michael
Lewis has garnered much
attention over the last year
for his theory that the
stock market is rigged. Ace
economist Edward Yardeni,
president of Yardeni
Research, thinks the market
is rigged too, but in a
different way.
Lewis thinks
high-frequency trading
rigs the market against
individual investors,
while Yardeni thinks
massive central bank
easing rigs the stock
market in favor of all
investors.
Yemen's embattled
President Abed Rabbo Mansour
Hadi has asked Gulf
countries to intervene
militarily against Shiite
rebels who have seized the
capital and are advancing
toward his new base in the
south, his foreign minister
told Saudi media Monday.
Riad Yassin said Hadi has
also asked the United
Nations to impose a no-fly
zone so that the rebels,
known as Houthis, cannot use
the airports they seized. He
accused the rebels of being
a proxy of Shiite Iran,
charges they deny.
They were building the
young man’s coffin in the
front yard when we arrived.
Portable construction lights
harshly illuminated the
scene as men worked in the
shadowy dawn that lasts
almost until noon out here
on the tundra. The men
worked steadily and quietly
in a manner that suggested
front-yard coffin
construction was a routine
task. I soon learned that it
was.
Of the questions posed by
yesterday's terrorist attack
here that killed 23 people,
most of them foreign
tourists, perhaps the most
important is whether the
murders will divide or unite
this fledgling democracy.
Tunisia is widely
considered the sole success
story of the 2011 Arab
uprisings, thanks in large
part to the restraint and
compromise of its
politicians and voters. It
has avoided the bloodshed
and backsliding that have
plagued other North African
states like Libya and
Egypt.
From a peak of two
billion tonnes of carbon
dioxide each year in the
1990s, the net uptake by the
forest has halved and is now
for the first time being
overtaken by fossil fuel
emissions in Latin America.
The results of this
monumental 30-year survey of
the South American
rainforest, which involved
an international
team of almost 100
researchers and was led by
the University of Leeds,
are published today in the
journal Nature.
One of the more recurring
disagreements before the
legislature's energy
committee Tuesday centered
on whether residents with
solar panels are really
paying for all they get from
the power grid.
It is called cost
shifting, a phrase that
echoed through the hearing
room in the Legislative
Office Building during
conversations on bills that
would expand residential
solar and enable shared
solar facilities in
Connecticut .
When procuring solar onto
the grid, utilities
shouldn’t have to recreate
the wheel, said Solar
Electric Power Association
CEO Julia Hamm at the PV
America conference this week
in Boston, Massachusetts,
but the process also
shouldn't be a contentious
cat fight. So Hamm posed a
question for attendees: "How
do we change the nature of
this discourse – we don't
want to be kittens, but how
do we get away from lions
fighting each other?"
After two major fast food
chains McDonald’s and
Wendy’s removed soda from
kid’s menus, Burger King has
decided to follow suit. A
press release from the
Center For Science In The
Public Interest (CSPI)
states the intentions of
Burger King to remove soda
from kids’ meals.
At the close of another
dry winter, Gov. Jerry Brown
and legislative leaders
announced a $1 billion
package of bills Thursday to
expedite money for people
and cities hit hard by the
drought and prepare the
state for the flip side of
extreme weather patterns —
flooding.
Joined by Democratic and
Republican legislative
leaders, Brown said the
unprecedented drought has
shown no signs of letting up
and that state leaders must
act.
Water regulators in
California voted on Tuesday
to outlaw watering the lawn
within 48 hours of a
rainstorm, the latest effort
to spur Californians to
conserve as the state enters
its fourth year of drought.
Facing a dramatic
slowdown in voluntary
conservation efforts by
property owners, the state
Water Resources Control
Board also tightened
conservation rules in other
ways, prohibiting water from
being served in restaurants
unless customers request it,
and forbidding lawn-watering
more than twice a week.
It is time to go beyond the
debate over human causation
of global climate change and
move toward a call to
action. Can most of us at
least agree, as do some of
the major oil companies,
that the current
extraordinary levels of
carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere are a threat to
our collective long-term
security? What if the
actions we take as a society
to reduce our carbon
footprint have no real
downside and actually could
result in significant
economic and environmental
advantages? Do we truly care
about our future generations
enough to consider what
their environment might look
like if we fail to act?
Would you like a healthy
dose of high-fructose corn
syrup with that organic
salad? If you’re listening
to one of the ‘health
experts’ on the payroll of
Coca-Cola, this suggestion
could in fact be a reality. According to a new
report, many health writers,
bloggers, and spokespeople
are being compensated in
order to push toxic soda
onto the public as a health
drink.
Confidence...
“Confidence... thrives on
honesty, on honor, on the
sacredness of obligations,
on faithful protection and
on unselfish performance.
Without them it cannot
live.” ― Franklin D.
Roosevelt
In order for our system to
work, we have to divide up
power not only among the
three branches of our
federal government, but also
between the federal
government and the state
governments. The only way we
can effectively limit the
federal government is to
ensure that the state
governments have the tools
they need to act as a check
on its power.
When farmers die off,
their fields go fallow. When
the fields go fallow,
forests take over, and
forests are gigantic carbon
sinks, sucking up CO2.
Theoretically, if the deaths
were enough to move the CO2
in the entire atmosphere, it
ought to be possible to
“reverse engineer” the body
count. Lewis and Maslin
started with body counts
that match existing
scholarship.
The U.S. Department of
Energy (DOE) has chosen 11
tribal communities to
receive nearly $6 million to
speed the implementation of
renewable energy and
energy-efficiency
technologies on tribal
lands.
The Obama Administration
made the commitment to
partner with Tribal Nations,
and these projects build
upon that -- providing
Native American tribes and
Alaska Native villages clean
energy options that will
reduce fossil fuel use and
save money.
The United States Department
of Energy (DOE) has
announced plans to fund $1.8
million toward development
of a larger-scale wind
turbine blade. According to
DOE, the goal of the
financing is to create a new
blade that will increase the
power captured from wind
energy, and increase the
efficiency of wind systems.
In the past, major windfalls
have come when people strike
oil or strike gold. But
these days, prospectors are
focusing on another coveted
substance: water.
As
the overseers of the world’s
most advanced final
repository, Onkalo’s
regulators are charting
unknown territory… and their
early experiences are worth
following closely.
The planners of the
world’s most advanced final
nuclear repository, in
Finland, are treading
carefully because what they
do now has to stay good for
at least the next 100,000
years.
Whether you’re dealing with
a chronic illness, weight
gain, age-related
conditions, or just looking
to ward off everything from
the common cold to cancer, Effortless Healing
provides clear explanations
and easy-to-follow
strategies, based on the
latest research,
peer-reviewed studies and
Mercola’s personal
experience treating patients
for more than 25 years
SkyPower Global and
International Gulf
Development (IGD) have
signed a historic agreement
with the Government of Egypt
for the development of 3,000
megawatts (MW) of
utility-scale solar
photovoltaic (PV) projects
to be built over the next
four years.
The agreement represents
an unprecedented milestone
in Egypt 's strategic plan
to develop a sustainable
renewable energy industry,
creating thousands of new
green energy jobs and
attracting billions in
capital investment.
The Giza Criminal Court
issued its decision on
Monday, however the court
set an April 11 date to
formally issue the ruling
after consulting with the
country’s grand mufti; the
mufti reviews all death
penalty cases, but his
ruling is not binding.
Energy storage announcements
this week show that the new
technology is continuing to
make gains from coast to
coast as companies work to
cuts electricity costs and
help stabilize the grid.
Thermal energy
technologies, including
latent, sensible and
thermochemical heat,
minimize energy consumption,
thereby increasing the
supply of energy via
efficient utilization of
renewable sources of energy.
Europe leads in thermal
energy storage capacity
installations, and is
expected to continue to make
large investments in solar
thermal energy to fuel the
region in the coming
years.The North America
thermal energy storage
market is anticipated to see
moderate growth in the years
to come.
The Federal Reserve on
Wednesday set the stage for
its first interest rate hike
since 2006, signaling its
confidence in the U.S.
economy.
Yet the Fed slightly
downgraded its economic
outlook, saying that growth
"has moderated somewhat"
because of weak export
growth and a sluggish
housing market, among other
factors. It said it will
raise its benchmark
short-term rate, now near
zero, only when the labor
market improves further and
inflation prospects pick up
from the current meager
pace.
After several months of
delay, the LPSC finally
released a study of solar
net metering, and besides
tardiness and a lack of
focus, it also came with
significant flaws.
Of all the issues the Obama
administration is grappling
with, a modest redesign of
what food labels say about
sweeteners might not have
seemed among the more
controversial. But ever
since First Lady Michelle
Obama unveiled the plan last
year, a lobbying frenzy has
ensued.
The objections have come not
only from candy makers and
bottlers of soft drinks.
Unlike Pepsi Co, which
recently got let loose from
a class action lawsuit
concerning a carcinogen used
in soda, a class
action lawsuit against the
maker of Cheerios, Yoplait
yogurt, and Pillsbury
cinnamon rolls was just
certified by a federal
judge.
Minneapolis residents claim
that General Mills polluted
their air and water with
more than 15,000 gallons of
carcinogenic solvents that
have seeped into homes.
A geomagnetic storm is a
major disturbance of Earth's
magnetosphere that occurs
when there is a very
efficient exchange of energy
from the solar wind into the
space environment
surrounding Earth. These
storms result from
variations in the solar wind
that produces major changes
in the currents, plasmas,
and fields in Earth’s
magnetosphere. The solar
wind conditions that are
effective for creating
geomagnetic storms are
sustained (for several to
many hours) periods of
high-speed solar wind, and
most importantly, a
southward directed solar
wind magnetic field
(opposite the direction of
Earth’s field) at the
dayside of the
magnetosphere. This
condition is effective for
transferring energy from the
solar wind into Earth’s
magnetosphere.
According to the company,
the plants are scheduled to
be interconnected by 2016,
and will provide more than
9,500 gigawatt-hours (gWh)
of energy to the city --
enough to power more than
24,000 homes until 2041.
Florida state employee has
been reprimanded and told
not to come to work after
Gov. Rick Scott’s (R)
administration banned the
use of the terms “climate
change” and “global
warming.”
How can the integration of
renewables into the global
energy grid move forward to
ensure the future of
electricity? This is the
question answered in DNV
GL's most recent report --
the result of interviews
with more than 1,600 energy
sector participants in 70
countries.
Since 1980, the United
States has sustained 144
weather disasters whose
damage cost reached or
exceeded $1 billion,
according to the U.S.
Department of Commerce. The
total cost to the nation's
economy of these events
exceeds $1 trillion.
According to the National
Climate Assessment, the
incidence and severity of
extreme weather will
continue to increase in the
coming years, due largely to
climate change. According to
the president's U.S. Council
of Economic Advisers
delaying action on climate
change will cost the economy
$150 billion annually.
An environmental group today
filed a lawsuit against
Dominion Virginia Power ,
arguing the company is
contaminating ground water
around a former Chesapeake
power plant.
Hibernating mammals may
lose up to 30 percent of
their brain’s
connections during
hibernation, but the
connections are restored
come spring
Cold-shock proteins,
which exist to help your
body survive low
temperatures, appear
necessary to help
restore the lost
connections
Sleep and sleep loss
modify the expression of
several genes and gene
products that may be
important for synaptic
plasticity and memory
enhancement in humans
A café in upstate New York
has an innovative means of
keeping its customers cozy.
It features a masonry heater
with a flue that runs
horizontally and doubles as
a bench. The building can
apparently be heated for 24
hours following a single,
hour-long burn.
Hydro One reports that at
approximately 9:26 p.m. on
March 16, it experienced a
momentary issue on its
transmission system that
resulted in a voltage
disturbance. As a result,
customers across the
province may have noticed a
momentary flickering of
their lights.
The cause of this event is
still under investigation,
however early reports
indicate this was a unique
occurrence. Reports also
suggest this event was the
result of an insulator, the
piece of equipment that
holds a power line off of a
transmission tower, which
broke and released a
transmission line causing it
to fall to the ground. This
line also made contact with
another transmission line as
it fell.
HyperSolar, Inc.the
developer of a breakthrough
technology to produce
renewable hydrogen using
sunlight and any source of
water, today announced that
it has jointly filed a full
utility patent application
with the University of
California, Santa Barbara
("UCSB") for the "method of
manufacture of
multi-junction artificial
photosynthetic cells."
More than 30,000 illegal
immigrants with criminal
records were released by
federal officials last
fiscal year — on top of the
over 36,000 who were
released the previous year,
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement said Wednesday.
Three aging nuclear
reactors in Japan will be
decommissioned due to the
high cost of upgrading them
in line with tougher safety
standards set after the
Fukushima disaster, their
operators said on Tuesday.
Another two reactors were
also likely to be scrapped,
local media reports said,
with announcements expected
later in the week.
Jordan will reportedly sign
a deal with Russia to build
the nation’s first nuclear
power plant for $10 billion.
Jordan picked Russian
nuclear developer Rosatom to
provide nuclear fuel for the
first ten years of the
reactor’s operation,
according to Bloomberg.
Jordan will also return
spent nuclear fuel to Russia
PVcharge regulation can be
relatively simple: When the
batteries are full, the
controller disconnects the
PV array. Adding wind or
microhydro to the system
makes charge regulation more
complicated, since turbines
may overspeed if unloade
A Myanmar court has
sentenced a New Zealand man
and two local colleagues to
more than two years in jail
for breaking a religious
law. The men had used a
picture of Buddha wearing
headphones for an online
promotion.
Cashing in as one of the
sunniest states in America,
Nevada had the third most
new solar capacity added
last year in the nation,
according to the
recently-released U.S. Solar
Market Insight 2014 Year in
Review , but actually jumped
to No. 1 in the Southwest.
Researchers at Sandia
National Laboratories’ Z
machine have helped untangle
a long-standing mystery of
astrophysics: why iron is
found spattered throughout
Earth’s mantle, the roughly
2,000-mile thick region
between Earth’s core and its
crust.
Large majorities of
Americans support nuclear
energy and believe it will
be important for the future,
a new national public
opinion survey shows. Public
support for nuclear energy
is particularly strong in
the Midwest and in the
South, where five reactors
are being built.
Americans rank reliability
and clean air—two of nuclear
energy's chief attributes—as
their top two considerations
for the way electricity is
produced.
Growing by 105 percent, New
York had the seventh most
new solar capacity added
last year in the nation,
according to the
recently-released U.S. Solar
Market Insight 2014 Year in
Review . The state also
maintained its Top 10
ranking in total installed
capacity, finishing the year
behind only New Jersey and
Massachusetts among
Northeastern states.
The findings show that
the in-stream residence time
of carbon from leaves, twigs
and other forest matter,
which provide much of the
energy that fuels stream
food webs, is cut in half
when moderate amounts of
nitrogen and phosphorus are
added to a stream.
"This study shows how
excess nutrients reduce
stream health in a way that
was previously unknown,"
said the study's lead author
Amy D. Rosemond, an
associate professor in the
UGA Odum School of Ecology.
President Barack Obama said
that in the long term “it
would be fun” to go through
the process of amending the
Constitution to put limits
on campaign contributions,
but said the short-term
solution to curbing the
influence of money in
politics is if “everybody
voted.”
Even though they constitute
a major environmental
disaster, these immense
pollution zones in oceans
are in fact still relatively
unknown. The goal of this
scientific sailing
expedition is to draw up an
initial global assessment.
Renewable energy will
account for 8% of total
energy consumption in 2035,
compared to just 3% today,
said Mark Finley , BP
General Manager , Global
Energy Markets and US
Economics, revealing the
importance of the renewable
energy-focused research
taking place at the Masdar
Institute of Science and
Technology .
A draft nuclear accord
now being negotiated between
the United States and Iran
would force Iran to cut the
amount of hardware it could
use to make an atomic bomb
by about 40 percent for at
least a decade, while
offering immediate relief
from sanctions that have
crippled Iran’s economy,
officials told The
Associated Press on
Thursday.
As an added enticement,
elements of a U.N. arms
embargo against Iran could
be rolled back.
C3 event observed.
Solar activity is likely to
be low with a slight chance
for an M-class flare on day
one (20 Mar) and expected to
be very low with a chance
for a C-class flares and a
slight chance for an M-class
flare on day two (21 Mar)
and expected to be very low
with a chance for a C-class
flares on day three (22
Mar). The geomagnetic
field is expected to be at
unsettled to active levels
on days one and three (20
Mar, 22 Mar) and quiet to
unsettled levels on day two
(21 Mar). Protons greater
than 10 Mev have a slight
chance of crossing threshold
on day one (20 Mar).
The letter sites
mismanagement within the
agency and a lack of
transparency with coal
producing states during the
stream buffer zone
rulemaking process.
"We are dismayed that
this massive regulatory
rewrite has occurred largely
in secret, without any
meaningful communication
with state regulators who
will ultimately be
responsible for adopting and
implementing these new
federal standards," write
the Congressmen.
In the line of fire after
a series of embarrassing
security lapses last year,
the US Secret Service has
said it wants $8 million to
build a White House replica
in Beltsville, Maryland, to
train its agents.
The beleaguered agency's
director Joseph Clancy told
lawmakers the fake executive
mansion would provide agents
and officers a more
realistic training
experience.
Silicon Valley is doing its
part to conserve water in a
big way. Sustainable Silicon
Valley and the Silicon
Valley Water Conservation
Awards, now in their seventh
year, are recognizing those
efforts.
SolarCity , well-known
for rooftop solar systems,
is expanding to so-called
microgrids, larger power
systems that can be tapped
by entire communities when
the power grid goes down.
The systems, which add
generators and software to
manage the power to standard
solar panels, will include
Tesla Motors batteries to
store the energy generated.
While the owner can tap the
solar power for daily use,
the main purpose is to
maintain electricity in the
event of a natural disaster
such as an earthquake or
hurricane.
The loss of solar power
generation during Friday’s
eclipse will be an
unprecedented test for the
European grid but is very
unlikely to cause problems
for electricity users,
according to electricity
providers in the UK and
Europe .
If the weather is clear
on Friday morning the
European grid will suddenly
lose the equivalent
generation of eight to ten
very large coal power plants
as the moon passes between
solar panels and the sun.
The loss of generation will
occur over a much shorter
period than it takes to get
dark at night. The eclipse
will cover about 85% of the
sun from the centre of the
viewing zone.
CloudSolar , a Boston -based
startup, announced the
launch of their Indiegogo
campaign to raise funds for
their first solar power farm
with a fundraising goal of
$300,000 . CloudSolar is
inviting people to join
their mission to make solar
power a hassle-free venture
for everyone.
At least 12 homeowners
association disputes have
scuttled a property owner's
plans for solar panels or
wound up in court, according
to solar advocate Frances
Babb .
"The list of people who
are experiencing problems is
growing," she said. "Really
the only way you can solve
this problem is to go to
court and fight."
Solar radiation storms occur
when a large-scale magnetic
eruption, often causing a
coronal mass ejection
and associated solar
flare, accelerates
charged particles in the
solar atmosphere to very
high velocities. The most
important particles are
protons which can get
accelerated to 1/3 the speed
of light or 100,000 km/sec.
At these speeds, the protons
can traverse the 150 million
km from sun to Earth in just
30 minutes. When they reach
Earth, the fast moving
protons penetrate the
magnetosphere that
shields Earth from lower
energy charged particles.
Once inside the
magnetosphere, the particles
are guided down the magnetic
field lines such that they
penetrate the atmosphere
near the north and south pol
Animal rescue centers in
California are being
inundated with stranded,
starving sea lion pups,
raising the possibility that
the facilities could soon be
overwhelmed, the federal
agency coordinating the
rescue said.
The precise cause is not
clear, but scientists
believe the sea lions are
suffering from a scarcity of
natural prey that forces
nursing mothers to venture
farther out to sea for food,
leaving their young behind
for longer periods.
The question of whether
Clinton signed one of these
OF-109 forms has come up
after it became clear that
she forwarded some work
emails to State last year,
more than a year after she
left the department. Some
said that if she had signed
the separation form, she
could be penalized for
failing to adhere to her
pledge
Federal Reserve policymakers
are meeting to consider
whether to open the door to
raising interest rates as
early as June. Falling
unemployment favors higher
rates, but inflation remains
well below the Fed target of
2 percent.
More importantly, other
factors could persuade
the Fed to be more
patient about raising
rates than Wall Street
or Main Street expect.
"I
can't sit quietly while they
terrorize my people," he
said.
Al-Jabouri, a member of one
of Iraq's most prominent
tribes, is among about 150
Sunnis fighting in a tense
alliance alongside the Iraqi
army and tens of thousands
of Shiite militiamen to try
to recapture Tikrit from the
Islamic State militants.
While
small in number, the Sunni
brigade is viewed as a
crucial component against
the extremists, who captured
territory mainly in Iraq's
predominantly Sunni
provinces last year.
Residential solar financing
company Sunnova announced
today that it is now
offering what it calls an EZ
Own program, which is like a
cross between a solar loan
and lease. Essentially,
customers will be able to
make monthly payments for
their home solar system with
no money down — all through
Sunnova itself rather than a
bank. Sunnova will also
provide a service warranty
package.
Tanzania will receive a
total of $380 million in
loans from India to finance
two major water projects in
the east African nation, the
president's office said on
Tuesday.
Currency wars are raging
around the world, as central
banks outside the Federal
Reserve seek to devalue
their currencies with lower
interest rates and thus
spark exports to boost their
stagnant economies.
The dollar has risen to
multi-year highs against
a range of currencies in
recent weeks, including
a 12-year peak against
the euro Monday.
Tesla has been a leader in
electric vehicle (EV)
innovation for a while, and
with the announcement of a
home battery storage program
last month, they are looking
to be the leader in other
areas as well. The company
is currently constructing a
"Gigafactory" to produce its
batteries, and promised
earlier this week an
important announcement "to
end range anxiety."
Texas is looking to make
a big investment in natural
gas in the form of vehicles,
infrastructure and
equipment. Last week,
legislators in the state
introduced State Bill (SB)
12, with the goal of
converting as many as 28,000
state vehicles to natural
gas and establishing 20 new
natural gas fueling stations
each year for 10 years.
Thousands of food
additives are added to
US foods, but eight
stand out as the worst
of the worst. Artificial
sweeteners and flavors
along with trans fats
are the top three
Many food additives that
have been banned in
other countries due to
health concerns are
still allowed in
American foods
A new study confirms that
snowfall in Antarctica will
increase significantly as
the planet warms, offsetting
future sea level rise from
other sources – but the
effect will not be
nearly as many scientists previously
anticipated because of
other, physical processes.
That means that many
computer models may be
underestimating the amount
and rate of sea level rise
if they had projected more
significant impact from
Antarctic snow.
Between 1963 and 1999,
millions of healthy
American children who
received live oral polio
vaccine became infected
with, and transmitted,
vaccine strain
polioviruses; many
contracted vaccine
strain polio paralysis
and died
Children recently given
live oral polio vaccine
were not excluded from
attending school. But in
2015 after a handful of
measles cases, suddenly
Americans are being
asked to surrender civil
liberties
Politicians in 12 states
have filed legislation
to eliminate non-medical
vaccine exemptions,
leaving only a very
narrow medical exemption
that most people cannot
get
The 100 global power
companies most at risk from
growing pressure to shut
highly polluting coal plants
have been revealed in a new
report from Oxford
University .
Chinese companies
dominate the top of the
ranking but US companies,
including Warren Buffett’s
Berkshire Hathaway , occupy
10 of the top 25 places.
A majority of US refiners
will be able to increase
consumption of domestic
"super light" crude by more
than 730,000 b/d combined by
2016, easily soaking up
projected growth in US oil
production, industry trade
group American Fuel and
Petrochemical Manufacturers
said Wednesday.
The VWC draws attention to
the nation's aging and
underfunded water
infrastructure and educates
on the fundamental
importance of water to the
economic, environmental and
community well-being of
America. Further, the
coalition is growing and
redoubling its efforts in
2015 as water-related issues
are a rising concern for the
nation
Vermont is looking to be the
leader in renewable energy.
The Vermont House of
Representatives has passed a
bill that would make
renewable energy the main
source of energy in the
state.
The White House said the
cleanup of FOIA regulations
is consistent with court
rulings that hold that the
office is not subject to the
transparency law. The office
handles, among other things,
White House record-keeping
duties like the archiving of
e-mails.
Non-utility energy providers
may have one less step in
the process when it comes to
solar installations in North
Carolina...Current North
Carolina law requires
electricity from an
independent power producer
to be sold to a local
utility to re-distribute or
sell. HB 245 would allow a
third-party energy producer
to bypass the utility and
provide energy directly to
the customer.
The attorneys general from
14 states and the District
of Columbia has asked a
federal appeals court to
remove the injunction that
has so far stopped President
Barack Obama from
implementing key parts of
his immigration plan.
There is no coincidence
regarding common bill
language removing rights
appearing in bills across
the country. This is an
orchestrated legislative
effort by those who want to
force vaccination. Deadlines
to file bills are happening
now and committee hearings
are starting to kick into
full gear. Some bills are
surging forward and
immediate action is needed
while in other states,
active opposition and
education has made a
profound impact to slowing
the bills down.
The GRAS (Generally
Recognized as Safe)
status of genetically
modified organisms
(GMOs) is the legal
basis used to allow
biotechnology companies
to get away with fraud
To qualify for GRAS,
there must be
overwhelming consensus
present within the
scientific
establishment, and that
consensus cannot be
based on hypotheses or
speculation; it has to
be based on solid
evidence
In the case of GE foods,
there is no such
evidence. FDA’s own
files contain the
admission that they
didn’t have any evidence
upon which to base the
presumption that GE
foods are GRAS
On January 24, a
statement signed by 300
scientists was published
in a peer-reviewed
journal, asserting that
there is no scientific
consensus on the safety
of GMOs
Here, a place will be
built so the ancestors’
belongings can be properly
cared for – not just the
belongings that the Cowlitz
have now, but those items
they know are in museums and
repositories elsewhere,
waiting to come home.
The Norwegian Arctic islands
of Svalbard are discouraging
last-minute visitors for a
rare solar eclipse next
week, warning that hotels
are full, it will be
freezing cold and polar
bears are on the prowl.
When did the House Select
Committee on Benghazi first
learn that former Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton
kept a secret email system?
When did the State
Department finally turn over
even some of those emails to
investigators? When did
State first admit it didn't
even possess all the former
secretary's documents?
Global currency war is
raging, and while that helps
U.S. tourists overseas, it's
not so hot for U.S.
corporate earnings or the
economy as a whole.
"We are in a midst of an
ugly contest to see
whether the eurozone,
Japan or Canada can
depreciate the most
against the U.S. dollar,
and China is probably
next," Campbell Harvey,
a finance professor at
Duke University and a
past guest on Newsmax
TV, said in response to
the latest Duke
University/CFO
Magazine Global Business
Outlook Survey.
Diné women are
speaking out and working
with environmental groups to
get more attention paid to
the health and environmental
toll of wanton oil and gas
exploration on the Navajo
Nation.
Discovery...
“The voyage of discovery is
not in seeking new
landscapes but in having new
eyes.” ― Marcel Proust
Rep. Debbie Wasserman
Schultz (D-Fla.) asked
individuals on Twitter to
name their “favorite”
Democratic policy — many
replied, but it’s unlikely
the response was what she
hoped for.
North Carolina’s Department
of Environment and Natural
Resources has handed Duke
Energy Progress a record
penalty for environmental
damages. The utility was
fined $25.1 million for
groundwater contamination
from coal ash at the Sutton
Plant on the Cape Fear River
near Wilmington.
As part of President Obama’s
Climate Action Plan, the
U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) is
increasing the options for
refrigerants used in various
kinds of refrigeration and
air conditioning equipment
in the United States that
offer better climate
protection without harming
the ozone layer.
Every year, more than
one trillion gallons of
water go down the drain
because of household
leaks. Leaks may increase a
water bill by as much as 10
percent. The U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency’s WaterSense
program encourages consumers
to celebrate the seventh
annual Fix a Leak Week,
March 16-22, 2015, by
finding and
fixing water leaks in their
homes.
Now that Amy’s has conquered
the frozen food world, the
company is on to its next
big venture in convenience
food: fast food, an industry
dominated by junk food that
could seriously use a breath
of fresh air, and sooner
rather than later.
...an international team of
scientists has successfully
used special fabric to serve
as an electricity-generating
triboelectric
nanogenerator. The research
could pave the way for
clothing that charges
devices simply by moving.
Focus...
“Successful people maintain
a positive focus in life no
matter what is going on
around them. They stay
focused on their past
successes rather than their
past failures, and on the
next action steps they need
to take to get them closer
to the fulfillment of their
goals rather than all the
other distractions that life
presents to them.” ― Jack
Canfield
Global grain imports have
increased more than fivefold
over the past half century,
stoking fears that countries
have become too dependent on
the vagaries of
international markets for
their food, an environmental
researcher said.
If prices rise, or wild
weather prompts countries to
impose grain export bans, as
Russia did in 2010, nations
heavily dependent on imports
could face crisis.
Hundreds of thousands of
Brazilians marched
peacefully Sunday in more
than 150 cities around the
country to demand President
Dilma Rousseff's impeachment
and to criticize government
corruption amid a sprawling
graft inquiry at state-run
oil firm Petrobras.
A successful ground test of
a system designed to
ultimately collect solar
power from orbit and beam it
back down to Earth was
announced in Japan this week
by Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries. The wireless
power demonstration saw 10
kilowatts sent over
microwaves from a
transmitting unit to a
receiver 500 meters (1,640
ft) away.
Rosati was curious: “An
act of kindness, how far
could it go?”
To test his idea, the
43-year-old walked into a
diner and spotted two girls
sitting at a table. He gave
each one of them $50 with
one set of instructions: do
something good with the
money.
Ms. Noor has little, if any,
experience in the compliance
or enforcement fields. Her
total experience in
government related work is
limited to volunteer work
with World Relief Memphis
and as activities
coordinator the Tennessee
Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Coalition.
Michigan must meet 30-40% of
its energy needs by 2025
with renewables and energy
efficiency, with natural gas
also playing a key role in
replacing the state's
reliance on coal-fired
generation, Governor Rick
Snyder said Friday.
Pepsi One and Diet Pepsi
drinkers lost a battle
against the GMO supporting
company, Pepsi Co, recently
when a federal judge
dismissed a class action
lawsuit over the
carcinogenic additive,
4-methylimidazole (4-MeI)
found within the beverages.
The substance 4-MeI is a
byproduct of caramel
coloring, and it has been
proven to cause cancer in
multiple scientific studies.
The Coca-Cola Company
previously eliminated the
chemical from its drinks,
while Pepsi Co did not.
The South Pacific land
mass formed after a December
underwater volcano in Tonga,
the BBC reported. It is
about 1,640 feet long and is
located 28 miles northwest
of Tonga’s capital,
Nuku’alofa.
A scientist told the BBC
that the island remains
extremely unstable and is
not safe for visitors. An
expert added to The
Telegraph that the island is
expected to erode back into
the ocean within a few
months.
It’s not just bees, the
world is losing its
pollinating birds and
mammals, new research shows.
More pollinating bird and
mammal species are moving
towards extinction than away
from it, finds the first
global assessment of trends
in pollinators.
About 90 percent of
flowering plants are
pollinated by animals and
birds, and humans rely on
many of these plant species
for food, livestock forage,
medicine and materials.
Global emissions of carbon
dioxide from the energy
sector stalled in 2014,
marking the first time in 40
years in which there was a
halt or reduction in
emissions of the greenhouse
gas that was not tied to an
economic downturn, according
to new data from the
International Energy Agency
(IEA).
M1 event observed.
Solar activity is likely to
be moderate with a slight
chance for an X-class flare
on days one, two, and three
(17 Mar, 18 Mar, 19 Mar).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
active levels on day one (17
Mar), unsettled to minor
storm levels on day two (18
Mar) and unsettled to active
levels on day three (19
Mar). Protons are likely to
cross threshold on days one,
two, and three (17 Mar, 18
Mar, 19 Mar).
It said the 21-year-old man
"has made a full recovery
and has regained all
function in the newly
transplanted organ."
Struggles...
“All life demands struggle.
Those who have everything
given to them become lazy,
selfish, and insensitive to
the real values of life. The
very striving and hard work
that we so constantly try to
avoid is the major building
block in the person we are
today.” ― Pope Paul VI
Four House Democrats have
taken the Obama
administration’s idea of a
regulation to ban a widely
used kind of ammunition —
one it had to pull back
because it was so unpopular
— and turned it into
legislation.
...In the federal
system there are all kinds
of fiscal obligations that
move through the system
automatically. If a person
is eligible for Medicare or
Medicaid … then the money is
spent. Congress doesn’t have
to appropriate a cent. The
automatic side of the budget
is growing because Baby
Boomers are older and
drawing more benefits such
as Social Security.
The biggest potential risk
to what looks like an
accelerating recovery,
however, is government. And
with the government reaching
an $18.1 trillion debt
ceiling on Monday, Congress
and the White House have a
perfect opportunity to
torpedo the economy.
Shindell developed and
tabulated a means to assess
the “climate damages”
associated with various
greenhouse gases including
CO2, aerosols, methane and
nitrous oxides. All told, 10
different pollutants are
considered. With these costs
added in, Shindell said we
are actually paying $6.25
for a gallon of regular or
$7.72 for a gallon of
diesel. That’s quite a bit
more than the latest AAA
reported national average
price of $2.429.
A fascination and
interest in circles predates
recorded history, with many
ancient cultures finding
approximations for pi—the
ratio of a circle's
circumference to its
diameter—thousands of years
before mathematicians gave
it that name with the tasty
homophone.
Because of their
symmetry, circles were seen
as representations of the
“divine” and “natural
balance” in ancient Greece.
Later on, the shape would
become a vital foundation
for the wheel and other
simple machines.
Emergency
aid and relief supplies have
begun to arrive in Vanuatu
after Tropical Cyclone Pam
tore through the Pacific
nation, killing at least
eight people in what has
been described as the
region's worst natural
disaster in "living memory".
Charity groups said they
were doing all they could to
get food and supplies into
the island nation, and
commercial flights were
scheduled to resume today.
Ukraine will seek to hike
the gas transportation
tariffs it charges Russia
for shipments of natural gas
to markets in Europe by 30%,
Energy and Coal Industry
Minister Volodymyr
Demchyshyn said late
Wednesday.
Ukraine,
Russia and the EU will hold
trilateral negotiations on
March 20 in Brussels to
discuss gas supplies and
prevent potential disputes
between Kiev and Moscow.
The US land oil fields
continued to shed rigs this
week while production kept
climbing.
The land
oil rig count fell by 56 to
866, Baker Hughes said in
its weekly report.
Analysts expect the rig
count to keep falling until
at least the second quarter
unless oil prices recover
sufficiently enough to
encourage more drilling
before then.
... the Concerned Veterans
for America said that’s just
more of the same, and that
it ignores legislation
passed last year that
already gives the VA the
tools to manage itself.
Lake Tahoe's nitrogen
concentration is one of
several factors that helps
maintain its crystal clear
waters. To keep Tahoe blue
in the future, the
researchers say
it's important to keep a
close eye on the nitrogen
balance in the ecosystem
over time.
The White House on Saturday
wrote a letter warning U.S.
senators to withhold
legislation that would
“likely have a profoundly
negative impact on the
ongoing
negotiations” regarding
Iran’s nuclear program, the
Huffington Post reported.
Senators have introduced
dueling bills to revamp a
39-year-old law regulating
chemicals in the US, pitting
environmentalists against
businesses.
Two senate bills intended to
give an outdated toxic
substances act a much-needed
revision have stoked
political fires about how
the US should regulate
chemicals.
At nearly $1.3 trillion in
estimated global revenue for
2014, the market for
advanced energy products and
services is as large as
apparel and fashion, and
almost four times the size
of the semiconductor
industry worldwide. That is
according to a new report
conducted by Navigant
Research for Advanced Energy
Economy (AEE), a national
business association.
Four years after a magnitude
9 earthquake shook northern
and eastern Japan, the
region is rocked by tremors
at more than double the
average rate of the decade
before the disaster, a
report this week from the
Japan Meteorological Agency
shows.
A court in Pakistan on
Friday ordered the release
of Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi,
the alleged mastermind
behind the 2008 Mumbai
attacks in India, calling
his detention illegal.
Who can forget the dreaded
Polar Vortex of ’14? Energy
retailers were caught in a
vice-like grip of spiking
demand, diminished supply
and a rapidly degrading
operational capability which
crushed business plans and
even caused a few to shut
their doors.
The Associated Press said
Wednesday it has sued the
State Department to force
the release of government
documents and e-mails from
Hillary Rodham Clinton's
tenure as secretary of
State, an action taken a day
after she defended her use
of a private e-mail account
to conduct business and
after six formal attempts by
the news agency to obtain
records.
Revolutions that start in
the garage are nothing new.
The one-car shed in which
David Packard and William
Hewlett launched the
partnership that would grow
into Hewlett-Packard Co. is
known as the birthplace of
Silicon Valley.
Legislative efforts to
increase pressure on parents
to get their kids vaccinated
failed in Oregon and
Washington state Wednesday
amid stiff opposition as a
handful of other statehouses
consider similar bills
prompted by a measles
outbreak at Disneyland.
Oregon's measure, which
had the support of
Democratic Gov. Kate Brown,
would have made the state
the third in the country
allowing exemptions from
immunizations only for
medical reasons, and no
longer for religious,
philosophical or personal
reasons. Mississippi and
West Virginia are the only
other states that have
comparable laws in place.
Two bills proposing to
boost the state's
renewable-energy goal to 100
percent by 2045 at the
latest have cleared major
hurdles and are positioned
for a vote by the full House
and Senate .
Senate Bill 715 proposes
increasing Hawaii's use of
renewable energy to 70
percent of total production
by 2035 and 100 percent by
2040. Its companion, House
Bill 623, proposes
increasing the
renewable-energy goal to 70
percent by 2035 and 100
percent by 2045
California has cemented its
place as America's solar
leader, according to the
recently-released U.S. Solar
Market Insight 2014 Year in
Review , and stands poised
to become the first state in
the nation to have 10
gigawatts (GW) of installed
solar capacity – enough to
power nearly 2.5 million
homes.
California has a 7
percent chance of
experiencing an earthquake
of magnitude 8 or larger
over the next three decades,
U.S. government scientists
said on Tuesday, higher than
thought before.
The 7 percent probability
is based on new modeling,
the United States Geological
Survey said in a new study.
Previously, scientists
estimated the probability
for such a quake at 4.7
percent over 30 years.
The "T" word — treason — is
being lobbed at 47
Republican senators who
signed an open letter to
Iranian leaders warning that
any deal Tehran strikes with
the Obama administration may
be reversed by a future
president.
"Former secretary of State
Hillary Clinton said she
used a private domain for
her official work during her
time at the State Department
out of 'convenience,' but
admitted in retrospect 'it
would have been better' to
use multiple emails. ...
Americans should prepare to
protect their homes,
businesses, and families in
the event of a terrorist
attack or a natural
disaster, says Rep. Robert
Pittenger.
Congress has an
obligation to establish how
big the problem is and to
consider new laws to protect
American politics and
government from being
undermined and distorted by
foreign opponents buying
their way into positions of
influence.
We faced this problem in
the 1940s and 1950s, when
the Soviet Union was
financing efforts to
penetrate American society
and government. A series of
congressional hearings,
laws, and landmark cases led
to a dramatic decline in
Soviet influence in our
system.
Investing in insurance
programs for poor farmers
today could save tens of
billions of dollars in
coming decades as climate
change upsets growing
patterns and makes harvests
fail, U.N. officials said
ahead of next week's
conference in Japan on
disaster preparedness.
As the tribal disenrollment
epidemic only worsens, our
trustee—the United States
and its Department of
Interior—continue to turn a
deaf ear to desperate pleas
for help from Indians who
are facing disenrollment or
have already been
terminated.
In the latest move towards
opening up skies in the US
for commercial drones, NASA
and aerospace company Exelis
have teamed up to develop a
prototype air traffic
control system.
Dunkin’ Donuts announced it
is changing its recipe for
powdered donuts to eliminate
titanium dioxide, a
whitening agent that’s used
in sunscreens. The move came
after the environmental
group As You Sow asked the
chain to remove the
potentially toxic ingredient
from its powdered doughnuts.
Get your reading glasses out
and put on a fresh pot of
coffee. The Federal
Communications Commission
has made its net neutrality
rules public...
The rules don't become
law until 60 days after they
appear in the Federal
Register. Congress is
working on legislation that
would supersede any FCC
rules. And a court challenge
by ISPs is expected, too.
"The lawyers are going to
be reading this for the
footnote or coda or some
little phrase that gives
them an idea on how they can
pursue the legal case in
court or to the Congress,"
says Bethesda, Md., research
analyst Gary Arlen.
The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission announced Monday
it had extended the St.
Louis -based utility's
operating license for the
mid- Missouri nuclear plant.
The extension means Ameren
can legally operate the
plant, about 15 miles
southeast of Fulton , until
2044. Ameren's existing
40-year license would have
expired in 2024
One of the takeaways is that
institutional investors and
banks must be proactive
about this opportunity and
must nudge governments
toward “greater stability
and support for
sustainability ambitions and
policies,” a trend that
would summon a stampede of
investors (“the finance
sector will be there to back
projects that are consistent
with that support”).
Germany continues efforts to
expand its renewable energy
capacity, with two German
energy companies awarding
separate contracts to Gamesa
and Vestas for utility-scale
wind power projects.
Germany's government set
out changes to subsidy
guidelines on Wednesday to
try and boost the renewable
sources of energy used to
heat buildings and offices
as it strives to avoid
missing its ambitious
climate targets.
Renewable sources of
energy accounted for almost
28 percent of Germany's
electricity last year, but
only 9.9 percent of its
heating, far below a target
for a 14 percent share by
2020.
Republicans Tuesday attacked
Hillary Clinton's first
public comments on her use
of private email as
secretary of state, saying
that her refusal to make her
server available for public
scrutiny smacked of
hypocrisy amid previous
claims about transparency
and raised serious questions
about her judgment.
An anti-nuclear group wants
federal regulators to
withhold the licensing of
America's first new
commercial nuclear reactor
in two decades until flood
and earthquake risks are
better assessed in the wake
of the 2011 accident at
Japan's Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear plant.
Ice Energy today announced
it has been awarded a
five-year contract from
Riverside Public Utilities
to provide 5 megawatts of
behind-the-meter thermal
energy storage using Ice
Energy’s proprietary Ice
Bear system. The program
will kick off this spring.
At least 226 were killed in
recent fighting. Few of
these fatalities were in the
Tikrit area, so the figure
is likely to be much higher.
However, at least 300 bodies
were found in a pair of mass
graves there. At least 42
people were wounded.
A few months ago I wrote
about the latest study that
shows how residential solar
sales are contagious. That
is, if you make a solar sale
in a neighborhood, it’s not
long before more
installations appear in the
same area. However, new
non-solar research suggests
that it might be
persuasion — i.e., old
fashion sales and marketing
— that is really driving
these neighborhood solar
clusters.
Japanese Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe on Tuesday vowed
to draw up a new-five year
plan to speed rebuilding
from a massive 2011 tsunami
and the world's worst
nuclear disaster since
Chernobyl that have left
thousands still homeless.
Abe spoke ahead of the
fourth anniversary of the
devastating March 11
earthquake, which set off a
massive tsunami that ravaged
the Pacific coastline,
killing nearly 20,000 and
causing explosions and
meltdowns at the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear plant.
Wind farm supporters
urged lawmakers Tuesday to
uphold the requirement for
utility companies to
generate or purchase
renewable energy.
The Senate Utilities
Committee heard legislation
that would sunset the
Renewable Energy Standards
Act adopted in 2009 by the
end of the year. The act
requires major electricity
companies like Westar Energy
to receive 10 percent of
energy capacity from
renewable sources.
Hillary Clinton said in a
press conference on Tuesday
that, "I fully complied with
every rule that I was
governed by" when serving as
secretary of state.
But a Washington lawyer says
that's not true if she
signed the OF-109 form
required of every State
Department official,
including the secretary,
upon leaving office.
The face of energy in the
United States is changing,
and in 2015, electric
generating companies will
add approximately 20
gigawatts (GW) of
utility-scale generating
capacity to the power grid,
according to EIA. At the
same time, nearly 16 GW of
generating capacity is
scheduled to be retired in
the same year.
A subsidiary of Johnson &
Johnson pleaded guilty
Tuesday to a federal
criminal charge that it sold
over-the-counter infant’s
and children’s liquid
medicine containing metal
particles.
After two police officers
were shot during Wednesday
night’s protests outside the
Ferguson Police Department,
many reactions on social
media seemed to range from
sadness to outrage:
In Edgar Rice Burroughs's
Barsoom novels,
Earthman John Carter's
adventures took place on the
dry beds of Mar's ancient
oceans. Now NASA scientist's
say that may not be so far
fetched. Though they haven't
found signs of any thoats,
they have estimated that
Mars may once have had
enough water to form a vast
ocean surrounding its north
pole of which only plains
remain.
The U.S. Department of
Energy (DOE) has released a
new report looking at the
future of wind power and its
economic benefits. The
report, Wind Vision: A New
Era for Wind Power in the
United States, contends that
with technological
advancements driving
projected cost reductions,
combined with continued
siting and transmission
development, wind power can
be economically deployed to
provide renewable power in
all 50 states.
We've already seen a
number of technologies
developed for capturing
carbon dioxide emissions
from smokestacks or other
sources, but many of them
have a limitation – in order
to reclaim the captured CO2
for disposal, a considerable
amount of energy is needed.
Now, however, scientists at
the University of
California, Berkeley have
developed a new
carbon-capture material that
requires far less energy in
order to give up its
payload.
The material is a type of
metal-organic framework
(MOF), which are composites
made from metal and organic
compounds...
How would you like to be
able to wash your car by
just hosing it off – no
soap, scrubbing or drying?
You may be able to in the
not-too-distant future,
thanks to research being led
by a team at University
College London. Drawing on
earlier research, they've
developed an
ultra-hydrophobic
(water-repelling) paint that
can be applied to a variety
of surfaces, and that stays
on once applied.
Alzheimer's disease is a
chronic neurodegenerative
disease that most often
begins in people over 65
years of age. Usually it
starts slowly and continues
to worsen over time until
the sufferer succumbs to an
increasing loss of memory,
bodily functions and,
eventually, death. Research
has shown that there is an
association with Alzheimer's
and the accumulation of
plaques that affect the
neuronal connections in the
brain. Now researchers at
the University of Queensland
have discovered a new way to
remove these toxic plaques
using a non-invasive form of
ultrasound therapy.
For decades, the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) has known that
Dow’s chlorpyrifos
pesticide, marketed under
names like Dursban and
Lorsban, is dangerous to
children and farmworkers.
And yet, the
EPA has allowed the
continued use of this
dangerous pesticide on golf
courses, on parks and on
farms—where it drifts
onto food.
Though destructive,
earthquakes provide benefit
in one respect: they help
researchers learn about the
structure of the Earth,
which in turn could lead to
more accurate predictions of
damage from future quakes
and volcanic activity. By
eavesdropping on the seismic
vibrations of quakes as they
rumble through the Earth,
researchers can detect the
existence of structures such
as mineral deposits,
subterranean lakes, and
upwellings of magma.
For years, Sen. Harry
Reid has declared a proposed
project to store nuclear
waste in Nevada's Yucca
Mountain dead.
But just in case the
project comes back to life
in this new Republican
Congress , Nevada's senior
senator and three members
from the state's
congressional delegation
introduced legislation today
to give states the power to
block such projects.
Purpose...
“I truly believe that
everything that we do and
everyone that we meet is put
in our path for a purpose.
There are no accidents;
we're all teachers - if
we're willing to pay
attention to the lessons we
learn, trust our positive
instincts and not be afraid
to take risks or wait for
some miracle to come
knocking at our door.” ―
Marla Gibbs
Frost & Sullivan is
predicting that the global
installed capacity of
renewable energy will more
than double from 1,566
gigawatts (GW) in 2012 to
3,203 GW in 2025 at an
average annual growth rate
of 5.7 percent.
This growth will be
driven primarily by
developments in renewable
energy policy.
X2 event observed.
M4 event observed. Solar
activity is likely to be
moderate with a slight
chance for an X-class flare
on days one, two, and three
(13 Mar, 14 Mar, 15 Mar).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at unsettled
to minor storm levels on
days one and two (13 Mar, 14
Mar) and quiet to active
levels on day three (15
Mar). Protons have a slight
chance of crossing threshold
on days one, two, and three
(13 Mar, 14 Mar, 15 Mar).
Deployments for energy
storage in the U.S. is
expected to grow from 62-MW
in 2014 to 220-MW in 2015 –
a 250 percent increase-
according to a report
conducted by GTM Research
and Energy Storage
Association (ESA).
A major goal of the new
Republican-led U.S.
Congress, passing a balanced
budget, could be in jeopardy
amid disagreements within
the party over easing
constraints on defense
spending.
The latest
Republican feud comes less
than a month after an
embarrassing spat over
homeland security funding
and immigration. The fight
pits conservatives who want
to keep the "sequestration"
budget caps in place against
pro-military senators who
say the constraints are
degrading the Pentagon's
technological edge and
ability to fight wars.
Researchers at the
University of Houston have
created a new thermoelectric
material, intended to
generate electric power from
waste heat — from a vehicle
tailpipe, for example, or an
industrial smokestack — with
greater efficiency and
higher output power than
currently available
materials.
Scientists from the
University of Southern
Denmark and the China
National Petroleum
Corporation investigated
marine sediment from the
Xiamaling Formation in China
and determined that the
sediment shows evidence that
"the same orbital forcing
that caused the climate to
change 1.4 billion years ago
is the underlying force
behind global warming
today,"...
The bill, termed the
Compassionate Access,
Research Expansion and
Respect States Act, would
move marijuana from Schedule
I to Schedule II, allow
access for veterans and put
a final stop to federal
raids on dispensaries, among
other things.
This is the first time a
medical marijuana bill has
been introduced in the
Senate, whereas the House
has seen 15 pieces of
legislation on marijuana
reform in the last session
of Congress...
The message to stop smoking
issued by public health
officials has been nothing
less than paramount,
repetitive and consistent in
the last several decades.
What about soft drinks?
Daily consumption of just a
half-liter of soda is linked
with 4.6 years of additional
biological aging, effects
comparable to that of
smoking, finds a new study.
The study found that
drinking soft drinks is
associated with cell aging,
suggesting sugar-sweetened
soda consumption might
promote disease
independently from its role
in obesity.
The upcoming solar eclipse
will provide a problem, and
plenty of insight, for solar
energy demand response in
Europe. The solar eclipse
will last approximately two
hours on March 20, and power
station operators are
preparing for the outage.
The keynote session at PV
America 2015 in Boston,
Massachusetts highlighted
the great strides solar has
made in the past year, but
also warned that the
progress could all go up
flames if the investment tax
credit (ITC) is not extended
beyond December 31, 2016.
Salt River Project, or SRP,
a provider of electricity
and water, has won an
approval for changes in
price plans effective with
the April 2015 billing cycle
that will reportedly reduce
a proposed 3.9% increase to
3.3% for the first full year
it is in effect. The full
3.9% increase will take
effect beginning April 2016.
The United States has
three main electrical power
grids, one that covers the
western U.S., one that
covers the eastern portion,
and one that covers all of
Texas .
Protecting that grid from
natural and man-made Electro
Magnetic Pulse (EMP)
incidents is high on Texas
State Senator Bob Hall's
to-do list.
The term psychological
stress is misleading,
because no stress is
solely psychological…
it’s not all in your
head
Chronic stress
interferes with your
immune system, causes
epigenetic changes, and
triggers systemic
inflammation that can
cause numerous chronic
diseases
The chance of surviving any
of four high-risk surgeries
can vary by as much as 23
percent depending on what
hospital patients use,
according to an analysis
released on Thursday.
The annual outlook issue of
Renewable Energy World
magazine is our attempt to
predict what will happen
within the renewable energy
industry over the course of
the year. To do this, we
went straight to the top of
major renewable energy
companies, asking CEOs and
presidents to tell us where
they are devoting their
company resources in order
to capitalize on some of the
market growth that they
expect to see in 2015.
...with every bite you
take—of an apple, a chicken
leg, a leaf of
spinach—you’re consuming
nitrogen. Because plants,
including food crops, can’t
survive without a ready
supply of available nitrogen
in the soil...
For the last 50 years,
farmers around the world
have used synthetic nitrogen
fertilizers to boost their
crop yields and drive the
20th century's rapid
agricultural
intensification.
But in their fervor
to increase yields, farmers
often dose their crops with
more nitrogen than the
plants can absorb.
Solar capacity installation
grew in 2014, and 10 states
took the lead on new
installation. The states are
ranked on the number of
megawatts (MW) installed per
state and number of houses
powered per megawatt of
solar added, according to
the Solar Industry Energy
Association (SEIA).
The Unit 1 reactor at the
Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant
resumed power generation
Monday, a week after an
electricity fault caused the
turbine to go offline and
shut down the reactor.
In an effort to support U.S.
President Obama’s “all of
the above” energy strategy,
today the DOE released a
report focused on the wind
industry and how it could
provide up to 35 percent of
the nations energy by 2050.
Today’s new economy is
driven by industries that
are characterized by
cutting-edge technology and
high growth. Sound familiar?
Well, it should.
Remarkably, America’s
solar energy industry, which
continues to grow at a very
brisk pace, now has more
employees than tech giants
Apple, Google, Facebook and
Twitter combined. And to top
it all off, 2014 turned out
to be another
record-shattering year
While the U.S. market has a
few bright spots, it is
generally trying to regain
momentum after rebates and
other key incentive programs
in leading states stalled,
decreased, or expired in the
past four years, according
to Navigant.
US West Coast refiners are
stepping up imports of
gasoline and alkylate from
Asia to offset supply
tightness following
unplanned outages at two
major refineries there --
reversing a recent trend
that saw a steady stream of
gasoline exports from oil
majors to meet their system
requirements in
Asia-Pacific.
At
least 90,000-140,000 mt of
gasoline and alkylate -- in
three to four MR-size
cargoes -- were estimated
due for March delivery into
the US West Coast, including
rare alkylate exports from
Japan, according to a
Singapore-based trader
Thursday.
Researchers at the
University of
Wisconsin-Madison have
discovered a new approach to
combining two important
research areas for renewable
energy – solar energy
conversion and biomass
conversion...
Biomass conversion can offer
a viable pathway to generate
chemicals used in industrial
processes without using
petroleum products.
If it seemed like Oregon
has had a lot of
unseasonably warm days this
winter, well, it’s because
we have. Now the focus is on
a very low snowpack – and
the implications that may
have later this year.
The meteorological winter
– which is comprised of
December, January and
February – recently wrapped
up and depending on where
you live in Oregon, it was
one of the warmest – if not
the warmest – winters on
record.
At a time of intense
budget pressure at the state
and federal level, one
senator is calling for a
massive outlay of
infrastructure dollars.
Sen. Bernie Sanders,
I-VT, introduced a
five-year, $1 trillion
infrastructure bill last
month. The top Democrat on
the Senate Budget Committee,
Sanders called on lawmakers
to stop neglecting
infrastructure issues.
All four commissioners
appeared before the Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee
on Energy and Water
Development. Chairman
Stephen Burns said
completing the used fuel
repository construction
licensing process would
require the additional funds
from Congress in the NRC’s
budget. The commission
proposed a $1.03 billion
budget for fiscal year 2016,
which is 1.7 percent higher
than was approved for fiscal
2015. NRC did not request
any funds from Congress to
continue its review of the
Yucca Mountain license.
Although the US has the
strictest food safety
laws in the world
governing new additives,
the FDA has allowed GMOs
to evade those laws
The sole purported legal
basis for the marketing
of GE foods in the
United States is the
FDA’s claim that they
are Generally Recognized
as Safe (GRAS) – a claim
that is clearly
fraudulent
Documents released as a
result of a lawsuit
against the FDA reveal
that the agency’s
scientists warned
superiors that GE foods
pose greater risks than
conventional ones – but
that their warnings were
spurned and covered up
Monsanto could never
have implemented their
global food takeover
strategy had the
groundwork not been laid
by the deceptions of a
number of prominent
molecular biologists
that began during the
1970’s
Ambition...
“A man without ambition is
dead. A man with ambition
but no love is dead. A man
with ambition and love for
his blessings here on earth
is ever so alive.” ― Pearl
Bailey
American wind power added
significantly more new
electricity than any other
resource in 2014, generating
4.4 percent of all
electricity in the United
States while maintaining its
position as the fifth
largest electricity source
in the U.S., according to
new data from the U.S.
Department of Energy's (DOE)
Energy Information
Administration (EIA).
Two bills proposing to
boost the state's
renewable-energy goal to 100
percent by 2045 at the
latest have cleared major
hurdles and are positioned
for a vote by the full House
and Senate .
Senate Bill 715 proposes
increasing Hawaii's use of
renewable energy to 70
percent of total production
by 2035 and 100 percent by
2040. Its companion, House
Bill 623, proposes
increasing the
renewable-energy goal to 70
percent by 2035 and 100
percent by 2045.
China will boost efforts
this year to rid itself of a
strong addiction to coal in
a bid to reduce damaging
pollution as well as cut the
energy intensity of its
economy, which is expected
to grow at its lowest rate
in 25 years
One of the news media’s most
destructive habits is to
analyze every issue in terms
of the politics–who’s up and
who’s down–even when grave
matters of life and death
are at stake.
Research suggests you
never fully adjust your
circadian rhythm to the
hour shift associated
with daylight savings
time (DST)
Losing an hour of sleep
may increase your risk
for a heart attack over
the following three
days, due to the
compromising effect
sleep deprivation has on
immune function, blood
pressure, and C-reactive
protein
Suggestions are given
for mitigating the
adverse effects of the
time change, including
getting up 30 minutes
earlier on the weekend,
avoiding electronics,
and getting bright sun
exposure in the early
morning
Duke Energy wants to pay
North Carolina solar farm
developers 15 percent less
for their electricity than
it now does, according to
filings this week.
The proposed rates are
for 15-year contracts to buy
power from renewable energy
projects -- most of them
solar -- of 5 megawatts or
smaller. Duke also reduced
its rates for similar
projects in 2012.
U.S. economic growth is
weakening and there’s not
much the Federal Reserve can
do about it as Americans
cope with massive debt
loads, said investment
strategist Michael E.
Lewitt.
“After
trillions of dollars of
stimulus, U.S. GDP growth is
still only 2 percent...
Two of Hillary Clinton's top
aides ran interference while
the 2012 Benghazi terrorism
attacks were going on, the
former secretary of state's
emails, obtained through a
Judicial Watch federal
lawsuit, reveal.
A March 20 solar eclipse is
giving some insight into
solar energy, and how a
significant loss of
renewable energy can affect
the power grid. The solar
eclipse will be seen across
Europe and, according to a
new study, "The reduction in
solar radiation will
directly affect the output
of the photovoltaics (PV)
and for the first time this
is expected to have a
relevant impact on the
secure operation of the
European power system."
The president of Operations
Security (OPSEC), a
non-partisan advocacy group
of ex-Special Operations
Forces officers, has vowed
to assist Congress in
uncovering Hillary Clinton's
emails pertaining to the
Benghazi attack.
"From Day One, we've been
working to get the truth out
to the American people and
we're not going to stop
until it happens,"..
"Article 2, Section it 2,
Clause 2 of the U.S.
Constitution includes the
treaty clause, which
empowers the president to
propose and negotiate
agreements between the
United States and other
nations which becomes
treaties after — yes, after
— the advice and consent of
a super majority of the U.S.
Senate. Now, that means the
president has no power to
make a deal solely with
Iran. Solely alone. He can't
do that," Van Susteren said.
If the acquisition is
approved, FPL plans to
terminate the contract and
reduce the operations of the
plant by 90 percent, with a
plan to close the plant
completely
Chemicals in water from deep
underground in hydraulic
fracturing wells have caused
problems as they get to
water treatment plants in
other states. It’s a
potential problem to
consider as North Carolina
moves closer to allowing
fracking.
Matthew Askins might meet
all the state requirements
in Michigan for a concealed
carry weapons permit, yet he
was still denied the
license. Why? A county gun
board deemed it so...
Due to a regulation that
requires that prospective
foster parents store guns
and ammunition in separate
and secure containers, the
Wilsons were deemed unfit to
become foster parents
because they legally carry
concealed firearms.
The state of Florida is
the region most susceptible
to the effects of global
warming in this country,
according to scientists.
Sea-level rise alone
threatens 30 percent of the
state’s beaches over the
next 85 years.
But you would not know
that by talking to officials
at the Florida Department of
Environmental Protection,
the state agency on the
front lines of studying and
planning for these changes.
Iraqi troops and militias
drove Islamic State
militants out of the town of
al-Alam on Tuesday, fighters
and a local official said,
clearing the way for an
offensive to retake the
nearby city of Tikrit from
the ultra-radical group.
A Republican member of the
House Ways & Means Committee
warned President Barack
Obama this week that his
professed interest in
raising taxes is moot, since
the Constitution clearly
states that only Congress
has the power to levy taxes.
Libya's already crippled oil
sector has been hit by a new
wave of attacks by suspected
Islamic State militants,
with the latest incident
seeing the al-Ghani field
stormed by fighters late
Friday, killing eight guards
and sabotaging key field
equipment.
A Michigan gym reportedly
canceled a woman’s
membership after she refused
to stop telling other
members that “a man” was
using the women’s locker
room...
McCall Gosselin, public
relations director for
Planet Fitness, said in a
statement that members can
use the appropriate locker
room corresponding with
their personal gender
identity.
At the same time that U.S.
Senator Lamar Alexander
(R-Tenn.) has testified
before nuclear regulators
that more, not less, nuclear
reactors are needed, groups
including Friends of the
Earth, Greenpeace, the
Nuclear Information and
Resource Service (NIRS),
Public Citizen, and the
Sierra Club, are making a
push with a new Web
initiative to shut nuclear
down. Interestingly, next
week marks the four year
anniversary of the Fukushima
nuclear reactor disaster.
A recent study by
researchers from Boston
University and Abraxis LLC
found significant
amounts of glyphosates in
a food that you wouldn’t
necessarily expect:
A new concept in renewable
energy is catching fire
across the country, allowing
customers who might find
solar panels too expensive
or impractical to buy green
energy anyway.
Community solar gardens
first took off in Colorado a
few years ago, and the model
— also known as community or
shared solar — has spread...
When we get older,
communication between
neurons slows down and
certain regions of the brain
see reduced function. At
least, that's the current
understanding. But a new
study by researchers at the
University of Cambridge and
Medical Research Council's
Cognition and Brain Sciences
Unit shows that the
difference between older
brains and younger ones may
not be so great. The
researchers demonstrated
that functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI),
which is commonly used to
study brain activity, is
susceptible to signal noise
from changing vascular
(blood vessel) activity.
With friends like Obama,
Hillary doesn’t need
enemies. Asked about his
Secretary of State’s
insistence on using her own
e mail server, located in
her house, the president was
quick to contrast Hillary’s
behavior with his own policy
of “transparency.”
“The policy of my
administration,” the
president noted, “is to
encourage transparency,
which is why my emails, the
BlackBerry I carry around,
all those records are
available and archived.”
In Navajo stories, the Twin
Heroes Naayéé Neizghání and
Tóbájíshchíní fought many
evils and monsters,
including dinosaurs. Today
some people worry that the
battles are being repeated,
though with oil drills
instead of monster reptiles.
And a handful of Navajo
women are at the vanguard,
trying to draw attention to
the effects of drilling on
their communities and keep
the fossil fuel industry at
bay.
The Obama administration
could be compelled to
respond to a petition on the
WhiteHouse.gov website which
opposes mandatory
vaccinations, with over
100,000 Americans expressing
their opposition to forced
shots.
Entitled ‘Prohibit Any Laws
Mandating the Force and
Requirement of Vaccinations
of Any Kind’, the petition
states;
“No human being should be
FORCED to be vaccinated
against their will and/or
personal/religious beliefs.
I petition against making
vaccinations of any kind
mandatory. ..
A bill that was first
introduced in the
Pennsylvania legislature in
2011 has passed the state
House by 194-1. House Bill
(HB) 188 relates to wind
power use within the state.
It was introduced by Rep.
Curt Sonney and would allow
a farm land owner to grant
access to install a wind
power generation system on
their property.
A battle is brewing over
this problem in eastern
North Carolina, according to
Environmental Health
News:"Health and
environmental groups
continue to pressure the
state, the second leading
pork producing state behind
Iowa, to more strictly
regulate large pig farms."
"Meanwhile evidence
continues to mount of the
industry's impact in the
region: A study published in
January concluded that
streams near large
industrial farms in eastern
North Carolina are full of
pig poop bacteria," the news
report said.
In Nevada , nuclear waste
and the possibility of
storing it in Yucca Mountain
is never far from state
leaders' minds.
But it's a niche issue
for the rest of the nation.
Gone are the days of Bonnie
Raitt concerts calling for a
ban on all nuclear energy, a
passionate response to a
1979 partial meltdown at the
Three Mile Island reactor in
Pennsylvania .
"For kids today, 'TMI'
doesn't mean 'Three Mile
Island,'" said John Keeley
of the trade group Nuclear
Energy Institute . "It means
'Too Much Information.'"
In analysis of data provided
by 135,000 randomly selected
participants - including
19,000 people who had used
drugs such as LSD and magic
mushrooms - finds that use
of psychedelics does not
increase risk of developing
mental health problems. The
results are published in the
Journal of
Psychopharmacology.
According to the FDA,
just over 115 people per
year, on average, get
sick from raw milk… in a
country were 9-48
million people get sick
from foodborne illness
annually
A new report ranks CAFO
beef and vegetables
(often contaminated by
CAFO pollution) as top
sources of foodborne
illness
The government continues
to waste resources
targeting raw milk
farmers producing a
safe, healthy food while
turning a blind eye on
the other foods that are
killing and sickening
millions
M9 event observed. M4
event observed. Solar
activity is expected to be
low with a chance for
M-class flares and a slight
chance for an X-class flare
on days one, two, and three
(10 Mar, 11 Mar, 12 Mar).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
unsettled levels on days
one, two, and three (10 Mar,
11 Mar, 12 Mar). Protons
have a slight chance of
crossing threshold on days
one, two, and three (10 Mar,
11 Mar, 12 Mar).
Almost half of the Senate,
and nearly every Republican,
warned Iran on Monday that
it’s the role of Congress to
approve international
treaties, and that any
agreement that fails to come
before Congress would be
treated as a short-term
agreement with the Obama
administration that could be
quickly overturned.
Scotland is undertaking
numerous projects to utilize
energy available within the
country, and a commitment to
geothermal energy is the
latest in their sights.
Fergus Ewing, Scotland's
Minister for Energy,
Enterprise and Tourism, is
looking to explore
Scotland's geothermal
capacity, and has launched a
fund for help meet the needs
of local communities. The
department is providing
£250,000 for the project (or
a little more than
$375,000).
San Diego Gas and Electric's
(SDG&E) proposal to build a
$2 billion gas plant to
partially replace the
shuttered San Onofre Nuclear
Generating Station (SONGS)
has been rejected in a
proposed decision by the
California Public Utilities
Commission (CPUC) -- and
environmental groups like
the Sierra Club,
EarthJustice and California
Environmental Justice
Alliance (CEJA) couldn't be
happier.
German researchers have
discovered endocrine
disrupting chemicals (EDCs),
that could adversely affect
development and
reproduction, to be
contained in 18 different
bottled water products(1).
Of the 24,520 suspect
chemicals found to be
present in bottled water,
the one that showed
consistent results and
illustrated anti-androgenic
and anti-estrogenic activity
is di(2-ethylhexyl) fumarate
(DEHF). Endocrine disruptors
are chemicals that can
interfere with the hormone
system, they can cause
cancerous tumors, birth
defects, cardiovascular
disorders, metabolic
disorders and as mentioned
earlier, other
developmental disorders(1).
The next time you see or
read a headline bashing
police for shooting someone
with a "Toy" or "Replica"
gun, remember this picture.
Indianapolis P.D.
confiscated this "Toy" water
gun during an arrest, after
they realized that the
suspect has hidden a
Mossberg 12GA shotgun inside
it, and it was a fully
functioning weapon disguised
to fool police.
TVA currently operates 10
coal-fired power plants
consisting of 41 active
generating units with a
total capability of almost
11,900 MW. TVA has retired
11 coal-fired units and
idled seven more units. The
goal of long-term idling is
the preservation of the
asset so that it can be
re-introduced into TVA's
generating portfolio in the
future with improvements and
environmental additions, if
power system conditions
warrant, the utility noted.
Scores of U.S. senators
have made an unprecedented
attack on their country's
president in a bid to
undermine international
peace negotiations underway
with Iran.
The senators, all of whom
are Republicans, have told
Iran's leaders any agreement
reached involving President
Barack Obama will be of
little consequence as it
could be cancelled when he
leaves office.
The U.S. energy storage
market grew more than 400
percent in 2014, according
to a joint research
partnership between GTM
Research and the Energy
Storage Association (ESA).
Over the course of the year,
182 storage installations
came online, representing
67.3 megawatts of capacity
-- up from just 13.3
megawatts in 2013.
US shale oil production is
expected to see a net gain
of just 1,000 b/d in April,
according to the US Energy
Information Administration's
latest Drilling Productivity
Report published Monday.
The data shows net
production from the Bakken,
Eagle Ford and Niobrara
shale plays all falling in
April -- the first time they
will have contracted since
the EIA started publishing
the DPR in November 2013.
The appearance in Oregon
waters of the fish (Oplegnathus
fasciatus), which is
sometimes called a barred
knifejaw or striped
beakfish, may or may not be
related to the Japanese
tsunami of 2011, the
researchers say, and it is
premature to conclude that
this non-native species may
be established in Oregon
waters.
A federal tax incentive
that some see as critical to
supporting the wind energy
industry expired at the end
of 2014, but some
congressional lawmakers and
advocates are pushing for
its extension.
The production tax credit
for wind provides 2.3 cents
for every kilowatt-hour of
energy produced. The credit
has face uncertainty and
expirations before, which
industry officials said led
to a slowdown and a loss of
jobs.
Another Canadian National
oil train derailed and
caught fire early Saturday
in Ontario near the town of
Gogama, about 600 kilometers
(372 miles) north of
Toronto. It was the second
such incident in Ontario and
the fourth in North America
since February 14.
Oil trains in West
Virginia and Illinois also
ran off the rails, sending
fireballs and thick clouds
of black smoke high in the
air. The Illinois wreck
occurred just this week;
that fire is still burning.
The FCC's Democrat majority
voted on Thursday to fix
something that ain't broken
by approving new regulations
for the Internet.
Republicans are dissenting,
darkly suggesting that the
new rules in government
hands are a threat.
IRS officials initially
claimed Lerner’s hard drive
was irreparably damaged
before it was destroyed in
2011.
But last year,
investigators with the House
Ways and Means Committee
interviewed IRS technical
experts who said the hard
drive was merely scratched
and not irreparable,
Fleischer, who served under
George W. Bush, said the
disclosure that Clinton had
used a personal email
account — not a government
one — during her time as
secretary of State made her
dispatches vulnerable to
hacking.
"If it's
done from a personal
account, I guarantee you
China, Russia and Iran have
them," Fleischer said
Wednesday on "The Steve
Malzberg Show."
How can someone be
“responsible” for that which
is “unsubstantiated”?
Well, because this is
social services we’re
talking about. As many
parents have discovered,
when they set their sights
on you, all notions of
legality, coherence, and
common sense go out the
window
Until he spoke,
objections to the emerging
draft treaty with Iran
centered on technical,
arcane issues like the
number of centrifuges the
agreement would let Iran
continue to operate and the
level of uranium enrichment
it would be permitted to
maintain.
These technical arguments do
not play well in public and
assume a level of knowledge
that most of us don’t have.
It was easy for defenders of
the deal to sidetrack our
objections.
But Netanyahu changed all
that, by making the issue of
the agreement’s expiration
date the key objection to
the treaty. He was quite
right that the expiration of
a treaty banning nuclear
weapons is tantamount to an
invitation to proceed with
development..
Georgia auto dealers
convinced legislators to
freeze a bill that would
have let Tesla Motors
continue to sell its highly
rated electric cars direct
to Georgians without going
through independent auto
dealers.
According to Exelon's
website, Byron Generating
Station , like all U.S.
nuclear energy facilities,
is based on a
“defense-in-depth” design,
which means there are
redundant layers of safety.
There are multiple layers of
safety systems to provide
water to the reactor core.
A treatment process
developed by engineers at
the University of Colorado
Boulder promises a simpler
and more economical way to
clean up the wastewater
produced by oil and gas
operations that is heavily
salinated and full of
organic contaminants. The
technique, which involves
the use of a microbe-powered
battery, also produces
rather than consumes energy.
Hansen told a nuclear
industry conference on
Thursday that massive
amounts of heat are being
absorbed by the planet's
oceans, the daily equivalent
of 400,000 atomic bombs like
the one dropped on
Hiroshima, Japan .
"That's going to have
consequences," said the
former NASA scientist, one
of the first to recognize
global warming in the 1980s.
"Like secretaries of state
before her, she used her own
email account when engaging
with any department
officials," Clinton
spokesman Nick Merrill said.
"For government business,
she emailed them on their
department accounts, with
every expectation they would
be retained. When the
department asked former
secretaries last year for
help ensuring their emails
were in fact retained, we
immediately said 'yes.'"
I learned firsthand how
tampons and sanitary pads,
products that alleviate some
of the confines of our
monthly cycle, might
actually be harming our
bodies.
Three Crow tribal
members have been cited in
Wyoming for shooting elk out
of season. Clayvin Herrera
is one of those, along with
his brother Colbert Herrera
and Ronnie Fisher. Herrera
is also captain of the Crow
Fish and Game Department, in
charge of both enforcement
and conservation.
Research suggests you
never fully adjust your
circadian rhythm to the
hour shift associated
with daylight savings
time (DST)
Losing an hour of sleep
may increase your risk
for a heart attack over
the following three
days, due to the
compromising effect
sleep deprivation has on
immune function, blood
pressure, and C-reactive
protein
Suggestions are given
for mitigating the
adverse effects of the
time change, including
getting up 30 minutes
earlier on the weekend,
avoiding electronics,
and getting bright sun
exposure in the early
morning
Titled "Improve Water
Quality in Rural Immigrant
Communities," the paper by
researchers at the
University of California,
Davis, found that in
communities where clean
water is not accessible,
sugary sodas often take its
place.
Scientists have developed
targeted, biodegradable nano
"drones" to deliver
anti-inflammatory drugs that
heal and stabilize arterial
plaque in mice. Their work
could pave the way for more
effective prevention of
heart attack and stroke in
humans caused by
atherosclerosis, in which
artery walls thicken and
suffer reduced plasticity
due to an accumulation of
white blood cells.
As certain politicians,
industry groups, and
citizens continue to push
back on the EPA’s proposal
to extend regulatory power
under the “Waters of the
United States” (WOTUS) rule,
the EPA is doing anything
but backing down. Instead,
you might say the agency is
“doubling down” on their
play, recently issuing a
report through its own
Office of Research and
Development that amounts to
a scientific defense of its
contentions.
With the economy growing 2.4
percent last year, its best
performance since 2010, and
major stock indexes
continually hitting record
highs, enthusiasm is running
rampant among many
investors.
But,
"high degrees of certainty
can be dangerous,..
It is really interesting to
see how the Fed chair in her
testimony first says: “If
economic conditions continue
to improve, as the Committee
anticipates, the Committee
will at some point begin
considering an increase in
the target range for the
federal funds rate on a
meeting-by-meeting basis.”
Senate Minority Leader Harry
Reid (D-Nev.) on Monday
dismissed a Republican
request to hold a
House-Senate meeting to
discuss the Department of
Homeland Security spending
bill as a “charade,” even
though just a few years ago,
he hailed these kinds of
meetings as a tool that has
been used successfully by
Congress for more than two
centuries.
“It would be fair to say, as
we are looking at additional
ways to protect our brave
men and women in law
enforcement, and believe
that this process is
valuable for that reason
alone,” White House press
secretary Josh Earnest told
TheBlaze during the press
briefing. “This seems to be
an area where everyone
should agree that if there
are armor-piercing bullets
that fit into easily
concealed weapons, that puts
our law enforcement at
considerably more risk.”
The computer server that
transmitted and received
Hillary Clinton's emails --
on a private account she
used exclusively for
official business when she
was secretary of state --
traced back to an Internet
service registered to her
family's home in Chappaqua,
New York, according to
Internet records reviewed by
The Associated Press.
HyperSolar, Inc., the
developer of a breakthrough
technology to produce
renewable hydrogen using
sunlight and water,
commented today on the
recent announcement from the
California Energy Commission
(CEC) to invest $20 million
in pursuit of its plan to
build enough stations to
allow a driver of a hydrogen
car to travel with ease
around the entire state of
California.
In 1905, Albert Einstein
provided an explanation of
the photoelectric effect –
that various metals emit
electrons when light is
shined on them – by
suggesting that a beam of
light is not simply a wave
of electromagnetic
radiation, but is also made
up of discrete packets of
energy called photons.
Though a long accepted tenet
in physics, no experiment
has ever directly observed
this wave/particle duality.
Now, however, researchers at
the École polytechnique
fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
in Switzerland claim to have
captured an image of this
phenomenon for the first
time ever.
President Obama's regulatory
policies and poor economic
incentives have cost the
U.S. economy approximately
$1.7 trillion of GDP per
year, according to
Investor's Business Daily
editors.
Iran said Thursday that a
team of special operatives
has freed an Iranian
diplomat abducted more than
19 months ago in Yemen, a
rare acknowledgement by
Tehran of an intel operation
carried out on foreign soil.
The official IRNA news
agency quoted deputy Foreign
Minister Hossein
Amirabdollahian as saying
that intelligence officers
undertook a "difficult and
complicated operation" to
secure Nour Ahmad Nikbakht's
freedom from the "hands of
terrorists."
The IRS on Tuesday told
Congress it would like an
additional $490.4 million in
the next fiscal year to
implement the Affordable
Care Act, also known as the
ACA or Obamacare.
“This additional funding,
the majority of which is for
required information
technology upgrades, will
allow the IRS to increase
efforts to ensure compliance
with a number of tax-related
provisions of the ACA,
including the premium tax
credit and individual shared
responsibility provision...
In the film, White Plume
attributes the in-situ leach
mining operation at Crown
Butte for contaminating the
aquifer that flows under her
homeland. Dr. La Garry
serves at the expert witness
in White Plume’s defense.
"Without water, there is
no life," White Plume says
in a quote that is featured
on the film's website. "It's
like Mother Earth against
Father Greed.You're either
for uranium or against it.
There is no middle ground."
All honey contains
varying degrees of hydrogen
peroxide, which is formed
when worker bees secrete an
enzyme (glucose oxidase)
into the nectar.
Manuka honey, however,
has healing properties that
extend beyond the healing
effects attributed to its
hydrogen peroxide content
alone; properties such as
improved dental health.
For the second year in the
2013-2015 three-year
efficiency plans, 2014 set
"top-in-the-nation targets"
for energy-efficiency
savings in Massachusetts,
producing large consumer
savings and environmental
benefits, according to
preliminary data released by
Acadia Center, a nonprofit
clean energy research and
advocacy organization, and
the program administrators
of Mass Save.
Michigan's legislative
Democrats have released a
list of energy principles to
increase renewable energy
generation in the state.
Rep. Bill LaVoy and Sen.
Hoon-Yung Hopgood said they
hope the principles will
help bring businesses to the
state -- while making sure
utility costs stay
affordable.
Biotech company Oxitec
and the Florida Keys
Mosquito Control
District (FKMCD) are
moving forward to
introduce genetically
modified (GM) mosquitoes
to the area in an
attempt to stop the
spread of two tropical
diseases
FKMCD states that
“Dengue fever and
chikungunya are
currently not an active
health threat in the
Florida Keys”
The GM mosquitoes
contain protein
fragments from the
herpes virus, E. coli
bacteria, coral, and
cabbage
House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi (D-Calif.) said
Tuesday she was close to
tears during Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s address to
Congress, and implied that
Netanyahu vastly
underestimated the ability
of the Obama administration
to negotiate an agreement
that keeps nuclear weapons
away from Iran.
Whilst there is an abundance
of solid evidence backing
the existence of smaller
black holes (with masses
ranging from 5 - 30 times
that of our Sun), and a good
amount of data supporting
the presence of the
supermassive holes that
reside at the center of
galaxies (including our own
Milky Way), there is
relatively little known of
the black holes that lay
between these two extremes.
"If the deal now being
negotiated is accepted by
Iran, that deal will not
prevent Iran from developing
nuclear weapons - it will
all but guarantee that Iran
will get those nuclear
weapons, lots of them," the
Israeli leader said in a
39-minute speech to the U.S.
Congress that offered a
point-by-point critique of
Obama's Iran diplomacy.
The United States Federal
Communications Commission
(FCC) today voted 3-2 to
uphold the principles of
network neutrality – that
is, to force Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) to
treat all web traffic as
equal. This prevents ISPs
from being able to throttle
or block users' connections
to certain websites, or to
offer "Internet fast lanes"
whereby large websites could
pay for their content to be
delivered at a higher speed.
Open Internet advocates see
this as a huge step to
protect the internet's
current status as a free and
open platform that offers
equal opportunities to small
and large content providers.
New rules that aim to
protect the openness of the
Internet will allow telecom
and cable groups to
prioritize and earn
potentially vast income from
some types of data, setting
up likely clashes with
regulators in the future.
“The fact is that it gets
hot in Arizona. There are
periods in the summer in
which we are utilizing every
possible source of
electricity, from natural
gas to nuclear to renewable
energy and coal,” said Henry
Darwin, the director of the
Arizona Department of
Environmental Quality. “At
times we even throw our
extension cord into
California.”
Northeastern University
immunologists have found
that a new therapy that
floods tumors with
supplemental oxygenation can
shrink them and dramatically
improve the effectiveness of
cancer immunotherapy.
The findings — published
in the journal
Science Translational
Medicine, founded by
the American Association
for the Advancement of
Science — are being
hailed as potential
“breakthrough” that
could dramatically
increase the survival
rate of patients with
cancer, which kills some
8 million people each
year.
While government agencies
like the FDA keep stalling
on demanding rigorous
scientific testing of
numerous questionable
ingredients, GMO foods, and
the correct labeling of such
foods, PepsiCo has
recently agreed to settle
out of court for $9 million
over a class action lawsuit
that claimed ‘natural’ and
‘non-GMO’ on their bottles
was misleading since they
are made with GMO
ingredients, as well as
synthetic and ‘unnatural’
items.
Georgia Power, a subsidiary
of Southern Co. filed
documents with the state of
Georgia that said overruns
at the Plant Vogtle
expansion project are now
pushing the price tag to
more than $7.5 billion.
The utility is asking the
state to certify $1.4
billion in cost overruns and
push the completion date
back 18 months, according to
The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution.
Pessimism...
“I don't believe in
pessimism. If something
doesn't come up the way you
want, forge ahead. If you
think it's going to rain, it
will.” ― Clint Eastwood
Leakages of nutrients
necessary for food
production – especially
nitrogen and phosphorus –
cause severe eutrophication
to the Earth's aquatic
ecosystems and promote
climate change. However,
this threat also hides an
opportunity. An enhancement
of the nutrient economy
creates new business models
and enables developing
recycling technology into an
export.
As the price of solar energy
credits in
Pennsylvania
continued to tumble last
year, other renewable energy
resources saw a boost,
giving hope to some
alternative energy advocates
that such credits might
incentivize more clean power
development.
Although enhanced oil
recovery (EOR) currently
accounts for merely 7.5
percent of total crude oil
production in North America,
Frost & Sullivan expects the
market to grow rapidly as
oil fields deplete and oil
extraction becomes more
complex. In fact, Frost &
Sullivan predicts that the
market earned revenues of
$20.10 billion in 2014 will
reach $70.60 billion in
2020.
M1 event observed.
Solar activity is likely to
be low with a slight chance
for an M-class flare on days
one, two, and three (06 Mar,
07 Mar, 08 Mar). The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
unsettled levels on days one
and two (06 Mar, 07 Mar) and
quiet to active levels on
day three (08 Mar).
With an eye toward a
possible run for the White
House, Republican Sen. Marco
Rubio signed onto an
extensive plan Wednesday to
cut taxes for investors,
parents and businesses in an
effort to spur economic
growth and create jobs.
In what is being called the
“highest power ever
documented by a laser of
this type,” Lockheed Martin
announced this week that it
fired a 30-kilowatt fiber
laser weapon system at a
truck more than a mile away.
The Senate on Wednesday
failed to override President
Barack Obama’s veto of a
bill to construct the
Keystone XL pipeline, the
first of many confrontations
between the
Republican-controlled
Congress and the White House
this year over energy
policy.
Developers in the geothermal
industry report a common
challenge: they often must
wait years for permits
before they can even
determine whether a site is
worth the trouble. Something
must be done to address this
grueling Catch-22, the
industry has been saying for
years. The Energy
Department’s Geothermal
Technologies Office and
National Renewable Energy
Laboratory (NREL) have also
identified permitting as a
major barrier to geothermal
development in the U.S.
Health officials are blaming
unvaccinated children for
the recent measles outbreak
that started at Disneyland.
However, with no known
status for over 90% of the
cases, one blood test
showing the patient’s
measles was actually a
reaction to the MMR vaccine,
and only 9 cases confirmed
as wild genotype B3 measles, another
likely source of the
outbreak is a recently
vaccinated individual,
according to published
science...
Scientific evidence
demonstrates that
individuals vaccinated with
live virus vaccines such as
MMR (measles, mumps and
rubella), rotavirus, chicken
pox, shingles and influenza
can shed the virus for many
weeks or months afterwards
and infect the vaccinated
and unvaccinated alik
The renewable energy market
has been slowly
strengthening ties with
energy storage, and it now
seems to be tying a secure
knot. Wind and solar
developer SunEdison
announced today that it
bought the energy storage
team, projects and 100-MW
pipeline of
Pennsylvania-based Solar
Grid Storage (SGS).
In recent months, a
veritable open patent war
has erupted between Tesla
Motors and Toyota. Both
companies have been widely
cited in the industry and
financial press for their
respective announcements
opening up their electric
vehicle (Tesla) and fuel
cell (Toyota) patents. Tesla
CEO Elon Musk opened the
first salvo with a blog post
last June in which he
announced that Tesla would
“not initiate patent
lawsuits against anyone who,
in good faith, wants to use
our technology.”
More than half the members
in the House, including
nearly every Republican, are
calling the Obama
administration’s proposed
ban on a popular kind of
ammunition “preposterous,”
and say the government’s
consideration of that ban is
based on a brazen
misinterpretation of federal
law.
No injuries to humans have
been reported, but the
environment in Illinois’
northwest corner was injured
today after a BNSF Railway
oil train from North Dakota
derailed at about 1:20 pm
local time in a rural area
south of Galena in Illinois’
northwest corner.
From May 2007 through
September 2011, a team
of researchers watched a
deep-sea octopus brood
her eggs while perched
on a rocky ledge 4,600
feet below the ocean’s
surface. That’s an
amazing four and a half
years spent keeping
several dozen eggs
oxygenated and safe from
predators
Over the months and
years, the researchers
watched the eggs grow
larger. They could even
see the tiny hatchlings
inside their translucent
shells. During 18 dives
over 4.5 years, the
researchers never saw
the mother octopus leave
her eggs, or even eat
After such a long time
in their shells, the
offspring of this
species of octopus are
born larger than other
hatchlings and more
highly developed. They
are able to survive on
their own immediately
On January 24, a
statement signed by 300
scientists, researchers,
physicians, and scholars
asserts that there is no
scientific consensus on
the safety of GMOs
The paper states that
the claim of scientific
consensus on GMO safety
is “an artificial
construct that has been
falsely perpetuated”
Increasing numbers of
federal lawsuits against
polluting CAFOs
demonstrates that
opposition against the
status quo of toxic food
production is
strengthening
Recent tests found that
62 percent of
conventional honeys and
45 percent of organic
varieties contained
levels of glyphosate
above permissible limits
Trust...
“Be courteous to all, but
intimate with few, and let
those few be well tried
before you give them your
confidence.” ― George
Washington
In August 2014, dangerous
levels of a toxin produced
by harmful algal blooms in
Lake Erie compromised the
water supply in Toledo,
Ohio, as well as many other
smaller cities and towns.
The bloom, spawned by large
concentrations of
cyanobacteria that occur
naturally in all ecosystems,
produced toxins that have
broad implications for human
health.
Farmers and rural
small-business owners now
can apply for resources to
purchase and install
renewable energy systems or
make energy efficiency
improvements.
The resources announced
recently by Secretary of
Agriculture Tom Vilsack are
made possible by the 2014
Farm Bill.
In recent years, key
enabling technology in shale
gas extraction has really
advanced, including
hydraulic fracturing,
horizontal drilling,
microseismic monitoring
technologies, information
and communication
technologies, and produced
water technologies.
Ever wonder what the federal
budget would look like if
Congress worked with your
salary instead of a few
trillion dollars in public
money? This calculator helps
you make the conversion.
"The true reason Allegheny
Energy cancelled the
agreement," Tunnel Ridge
wrote in its lawsuit filed
Jan. 15 in Allegheny County
Court of Common Pleas , is
"its desire to purchase coal
at a lower price."
Pheromones are chemical
signals that influence
the behavior or
physiology of other
members of the same
species
Subtle odors may
influence mood, hormone
levels, perceptions of
attractiveness, timing
of a woman’s menstrual
cycle, aspects of
cognition, behavior, and
more
“Dog shaming” pictures
and videos are hugely
popular these days,
which has led many
people to wonder what’s
really behind their
dog’s guilty look
Most veterinary
behaviorists believe
that despite “the look,”
dogs don’t feel shame
A small scientific study
conducted in 2009
suggests the “guilty”
reaction dogs display is
in response to being
scolded by their owner,
not from feelings of
shame
White women in the U.S. have historically enjoyed low mortality
rates. But in recent years,
the death rate for adult
white women 15 to 54 years
old has increased even as
the rates for black and
Hispanic women have
declined, according to a new
analysis from the Urban
Institute.
Big Pharma in general—and
biotech in particular—are
having trouble coming up
with new-to-nature molecules
they can successfully patent
and turn into blockbuster
medicines. They know the
healing power of natural
substances. But natural
substances are not supposed
to be patentable. Or if they
are patentable because a new
process is involved, the
patent protection may be
weaker. As we have noted
many times, drug companies
are not interested in
medicines that cannot be
patented or that hold weak
patent protections, because
they don’t earn enough money
for the substances to be
taken through the
multi-billion-dollar FDA
approval process and thereby
gain a complete
government-enforced
monopoly, which brings with
it the power to charge huge
sums for the product.
The words ‘organic’ and
‘sustainability’ are bandied
around quite a bit. While
some won’t eat anything but
organic, others deny that
there’s any future in
organic farming. After all,
with a population that’s
seven billion-strong and
growing, how can we possibly
expect organics to feed the
world? Or so the critics
ask. In their view, feeding
the masses simply can’t be
done without strong
chemicals and genetic
modification.
The owners of a bakery in
Indianapolis, Indiana, who
came under fire after they
refused to bake a cake for a
gay couple’s commitment
ceremony have officially
closed their doors — but
they say it isn’t due to a
lack of business.
Jindal says he thinks GOP
leadership in Congress and
other lawmakers are fearful
of being criticized “for
putting anything out there
that could be attacked.” He
asks why there hasn’t been a
vote yet.
China's environmental
ministry has ordered local
governments in two key
steel-producing cities to
take tougher action against
polluters from the sector as
part of efforts to improve
air quality.
That could pile pressure
on mills already struggling
with weak demand-growth as
the world's No.2 economy
loses momentum.
I know you’re quite
impressed that the Federal
Communications
Commission just passed a
sweeping set of regulations
granting themselves control
over the Internet. President
Barack Obama considers this
a glorious victory. Liberals
and Democrats across the
land are delighted. Even
some corners of cyber space
— the ones populated by
masochists and nincompoops —
are cheering loudly, excited
to finally be under the
jurisdiction of an enormous
federal bureaucracy.
Hallelujah!
Large-scale deforestation
could cause monsoon rains to
shift south, cutting
rainfall in India by nearly
a fifth, scientists say.
Deforestation has long
been known to cause
temperature increases in
local areas, but new
research published on
Tuesday shows a potentially
wider impact on monsoon
rains.
Doctors should take the lead
in supporting political
efforts to cut the pace of
climate change and
encouraging more people to
see the problem as a crucial
issue for public health,
experts say...
Studies have found that air
pollution can worsen a
variety of health problems,
from heart disease to
strokes, said Carlos Dora,
coordinator of public health
and the environment at the
World Health Organization
(WHO).
The Natural Resources
Defense Council (NRDC) filed
suit against the
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) in U.S.
District Court in New York.
The suit claimed the agency
has failed to heed warnings
about the dangers to
monarchs posed by
glyphosate, the key
ingredient in a widely used
herbicide. Glyphosate is
used in Monsanto Co's
Roundup and other
herbicides.
In a deliberate “show of
force,” federal and local
police forces raided a
political meeting in Texas,
fingerprinting and
photographing all attendees
as well as confiscating all
cell phones and personal
recording devices.
Members of the Republic of
Texas, a secession movement
dedicated to restoring Texas
as an independent
constitutional republic, had
gathered Feb. 14 in a Bryan,
Texas, meeting hall along
with public onlookers. They
were debating issues of
currency, international
relations and celebrating
the birthday of one of their
oldest members...
The application of
insecticides poisons streams
in roughly 40 percent of the
global land surface, new
research reveals. Streams in
the United States, the
Mediterranean, Central
America and Southeast Asia
are most at risk.
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.)
blasted the conservative
wing of his own party on
Friday, calling them
“delusional” amid the
internal battle over a
contentious bill to fund the
Department of Homeland
Security.
Some conservatives want
to ensure funding for
President Barack Obama’s
immigration action is
stripped from the final
bill, while other
Republicans, like King, say
DHS funding is too important
to tie it to a political
fight.
The House on Thursday
rejected legislation to
extend funding for
Department of Homeland
Security for another three
weeks, a shock result that
will send GOP leaders
scrambling for a way to fund
the department just hours
before its funding expires.
Members rejected the
spending resolution 203-224,
a tally that reflected
significant Republican
opposition to the bill. In
the final vote, more than 50
Republicans voted against
it, which meant that more
than 20 Democrats were
needed to pass the bill.
Graphene oxide has now
reached the pinnacle of any
material’s evolution,
successfully proving itself
in the lab against six kinds
of cancer cells. Researchers
from the University of
Manchester have found that
flaked graphene oxide
preferentially hits these
cancers where it hurts most,
right in the stem cells.
These are the guys that not
only are often responsible
for starting the tumor, but
they also tend to stick
around after the radiation,
chemotherapy, and surgery to
reseed a tumor just when it
looks like it was defeated.
The study of how climate
change has affected emperor
penguins over the last
30,000 years found that only
three populations may have
survived during the last ice
age, and that the Ross Sea
in Antarctica was likely the
refuge for one of these
populations.
The findings, published
in the journal Global
Change Biology, suggest
that while current climate
conditions may be optimal
for emperor penguins,
conditions in the past were
too extreme for large
populations to survive.
Love...
“Keep love in your heart. A
life without it is like a
sunless garden when the
flowers are dead.” ― Oscar
Wilde
You've surely been reading a
lot about the growth of
income inequality in recent
months. But not so fast,
says Scott Winship, a fellow
at the Manhattan Institute
for Policy Research.
"The
top 1 percent is obviously
not hurting by anyone’s
standards, but it remains
the case that income
inequality is lower and the
rich are poorer than at the
start of the recession,"..
The impossible is happening:
McDonald’s is quickly diving
out of its stable stock
position and into a world of
financial hurt as citizens
of the United States and
elsewhere have decided they
are completely done with the
company’s frankenfoods.
The decision has hit
McDonald’s so hard that its
own CEO has even stepped
down following the news of
continued decline in the
company’s most recent
briefing.
Did you know that you have
20 Natural Painkillers right
there on your kitchen
shelves? The natural
ingredients in the form of
herbs, spices and condiments
come handy and provide
timely relief. Know about
this Natural healing support
as mentioned in the ancient
Ayurveda text.
A
defiant Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
vowed that Israel will
continue to stand up for its
right to exist against the
growing threat posed by
Iran, and defended his
controversial Tuesday speech
to Congress as a chance to
warn America that this
threat is growing.
M4 event observed.
Solar Activity Forecast:
Solar activity is expected
to be low with a chance for
M-class flares on day one
(03 Mar) and expected to be
low with a slight chance for
an M-class flare on day two
(04 Mar) and likely to be
low on day three (05 Mar).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at unsettled
to active levels on days one
and two (03 Mar, 04 Mar) and
quiet to unsettled levels on
day three (05 Mar).
Secretary of the
Interior Sally Jewell signed
a historic agreement Friday
at the Department of the
Interior guaranteeing the
water rights of the
Shoshone-Paiute Tribes in
Nevada to ensure water
supplies and facilities for
their Duck Valley
Reservation. The agreement
signed by Jewell will make
$60 million dollars
available to develop water
resources and irrigation
projects for the
Shoshone-Paiutes.
Salt River Project (SRP)
has voted to impose charges
on new solar customers,
while at the same time
giving their current
customers a break from
charges -- at least for now.
However, the move appears to
bring the company one step
closer to the threat of a
lawsuit.
SolarCity threatened to
sue SRP for implementing the
new charges, alleging the
company is attempting to
remove customers' choice of
how they receive
electricity.
"That's right because the
biggest concern is that if
the dollar stays at high
value and other countries
start to move away from our
goods, then our exports will
fall. And then we will not
get the strong GDP growth
that we're anticipating," he
said on the network's
"MidPoint" program.
As the Islamic State
continues to shock the world
by exhibiting and
illustrating the sheer
depths of its depravity,
author Johnnie Moore is
sounding the alarm on the
dangers that the radical
terror group poses, not only
to Middle Eastern
Christians, but to the world
at large.
You may be pouring more than
just milk into your morning
coffee.
Dairy cows get treated with
a variety of medications to
help them fight illness.
While the industry tests
milk to make sure a handful
of common antibiotics are
under control, it doesn’t
look for many of these other
drugs.
Ticks bearing the bacterium
that causes Lyme disease are
populating Northern
California’s birds that then
fly them into suburban
areas, finds new research
from the University of
California, Berkeley.
A senior aide to Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said that Israel
knows more than Congress
does about the elements in
the emerging U.S-negotiated
deal over Iran’s nuclear
program.
“We know many details
from the agreement being put
together, details that we
feel members of Congress are
unaware of,”
If enacted, the bill would
completely dismantle what
Gowdy describes as Obama’s
“unilateral, constitutional
actions on immigration” by
cutting off any and all
funds to the initiative.
It would also strip Obama
and all future presidents of
any power to unilaterally
shut down immigration
enforcement by allowing
state and local governments
the authorization to enforce
federal immigration laws.
As much as 1,500 gallons
of used motor oil leaked
from an above-ground storage
tank in Washington state
into a creek that flows into
the Yakima River, vital to
the apple-growing state's
agricultural hub, officials
said on Monday.
The cause of the spill on
Sunday from the tank at a
former feed lot near
Sunnyside, about 170 miles
southeast of Seattle, was
under investigation.
The activity of the Sun
is an important factor in
the complex interaction that
controls our climate. New
research now shows that the
impact of the Sun is not
constant over time, but has
greater significance when
the Earth is cooler.
There has been much
discussion as to whether
variations in the strength
of the Sun have played a
role in triggering climate
change in the past, but more
and more research results
clearly indicate that solar
activity - i.e. the amount
of radiation coming from the
Sun - has an impact on how
the climate varies over
time.