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Turkish
authorities have arrested
the cafeteria manager of the
opposition Cumhuriyet
newspaper for insulting the
president after he said he
would not serve tea to
Tayyip Erdogan, one of the
manager's lawyers told
Reuters on Monday.
Senol Buran, who
runs the cafeteria at the
Istanbul office of
Cumhuriyet, was taken into
custody after police raided
his home late on Saturday,
lawyer Ozgur Urfa said. The
newspaper is among the few
still critical of the
government.
Insulting the
president is a crime
punishable by up to four
years in prison in Turkey.
Former Senate Majority
Leader Trent Lott entitled
his memoir of his service in
that august body “Herding
Cats.” Nothing could more
aptly describe the
centrifugal tendencies of US
Senators and their
resistance to leaders.
Now, with only a 52-48
majority in the Senate,
President-elect Donald Trump
must navigate these
dangerous waters with rocks
on either side. He can only
afford to lose three of this
fifty-two Republican
senators (assuming Vice
President-elect Pence votes
to break a tie his way).
Thae Young-ho, formerly the
No. 2 person at the North
Korean Embassy in London,
said political uncertainty
in the United States and
South Korea could give North
Korean leader Kim Jong-un
"an apt time" to develop the
weapons.
Like it or not, emotions
share some very real
biochemical links with your
nervous, endocrine, immune
and digestive systems. Isn’t
it time you learned
something about how your
body responds to what you
feel—and vice versa?
President-elect Donald
Trump's goal of overhauling
the U.S. tax code in 2017
will depend partly on the
work of an obscure
congressional committee
tasked with estimating how
much future economic growth
will result from tax cuts.
Known as the Joint
Committee on Taxation, or
JCT, the nonpartisan panel
assigns "dynamic scores" to
major tax bills in Congress,
based on economic models, to
forecast a bill's ultimate
impact on the federal
budget. The higher a tax
bill's dynamic score, the
more likely it is seen as
spurring growth, raising tax
revenues and keeping the
federal deficit in check.
...job creation is only half
the challenge. Americans
must have the skills
necessary to do the jobs
that are created under this
new, more dynamic economy.
Recent research has revealed
some of the changes that
take place in women's brains
during motherhood, and
experts say that
understanding how a mom’s
brain works could help them
figure out what motivates
moms to care for their
babies.
Mars and the far side of the
Moon are on the itinerary
for China's National Space
Administration (CNSA),
according to a new white
paper released this week.
The document, from the State
Council Information Office,
recaps the country's
space-faring achievements
over the past five years,
and outlines its goals for
the next five.
President Barack Obama
appeared to spend $360,236
of taxpayer money on a
campaign trip to North
Carolina on Air Force One
with Hillary Clinton, a
Freedom of Information Act
request by a watchdog group
found.
Just days before
Christmas, unprecedented
warmth was recorded at
the North Pole. A buoy
that sits nearly 90
miles to the south
registered a temperature
of 31 degrees. Although
still below freezing,
this is around 50
degrees above normal.
There were two major
players in this unusual
event. The first was a
large and very strong
low pressure system
north of Greenland. The
counterclockwise flow
around this system
pushed abnormally warm
and moist air toward the
pole. The second is the
lack of sea ice in the
Arctic, particularly in
the Barents Sea.
resident Barack Obama is
about to invoke a
seldom-used provision of a
1953 law that gives
presidents the power to
withdraw U.S. waters from
future oil and gas leasing,
said two people who spoke to
Bloomberg News anonymously
because the decision has not
yet been announced. It is
expected this week.
An unprecedented
presidential election, court
battles over hydraulic
fracturing and oil
pipelines, Arctic drilling
plans and additional
Renewable Fuel Standard
drama rounded out the top
five US oil policy stories
of 2016.
But rather
than just serving to fill
out a year-end list, the
biggest policy events of
this year are likely to
shape the policy path of the
next, perhaps more than ever
before.
Social media may have
contributed to a series of
possibly related incidents
in which groups of people,
many of them teens, fought
and created disturbances at
shopping malls in at least
nine states, according to
authorities.
The disturbances erupted in
malls from Arizona to North
Carolina and drew hundreds
of spectators in some cases,
causing several malls to be
closed.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low on day one
(30 Dec) and expected to be
very low with a slight
chance for a C-class flare
on days two and three (31
Dec, 01 Jan). The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet
to active levels on day one
(30 Dec), unsettled to minor
storm levels on day two (31
Dec) and unsettled to active
levels on day three (01
Jan).
Russian President Vladimir
Putin said on Thursday that
Syrian opposition groups and
the Syrian government had
signed a number of documents
including a ceasefire deal
that would take effect at
midnight on the night of
Dec. 29-30.
Parents hope their children
will get along, but probably
not like this. For years, a
retired couple—we'll call
them Bob and Sue—financially
supported two of their seven
adult children. The two
daughters were divorced and
helped care for their aging
parents, who lived in the
Washington, D.C., area. But
when the couple developed
dementia in their 80s, the
sisters didn't alert their
far-flung siblings about
their parents' deteriorating
condition. Instead, they
began to sell stock and
write themselves checks,
spending $700,000 over four
years on vacations, cars,
and down payments.
For half a century, many
experts have recognized a
link between Alzheimer's
disease and aluminum. Since
there was no definite proof,
there has been no agreement
in the scientific community.
Now, however, a new study
published in the Journal
of Trace Elements in
Medicine and Biology
may provide the proof needed
of aluminum's role in the
mind-robbing disease.
The ruling from Judge
Stephen Williams, of the
U.S. Court of Appeals for
the District of Columbia
Circuit, revives one of a
number of legal challenges
involving Clinton's handling
of government emails when
she was secretary of state
from 2009 to 2013.
Working together, the
National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration,
NOAA, and the Mid-Atlantic
Fishery Management Council
have designated a large
offshore area in the
Mid-Atlantic Ocean for the
protection of deep-sea
corals.
The new coral-protection
zone encompasses more than
38,000 square miles of
federal waters off the
Mid-Atlantic coast, an area
roughly the size of the
state of Virginia.
President Barack Obama
expelled 35 Russian
diplomats Thursday and
closed two Russian compounds
in New York and Maryland in
executive orders to punish
Moscow for harassment
against American diplomats
and cyberattacks that
interfered in the
presidential election.
"These actions follow
repeated private and public
warnings that we have issued
to the Russian government,
and are a necessary and
appropriate response to
efforts to harm U.S.
interests in violation of
established international
norms of behavior,"
Obama said in a statement
announcing the actions
...while rates rose by .83
percent in less than two
months – a huge increase –
we don't quite know why.
How much of the spike
happened because we believed
the Federal Reserve would
hike bank rates in December?
Or was the sharp
uptick caused by the
surprise Trump electoral
victory? And what about
other factors like firming
oil prices?
Newsmax Finance Insider and
economist Edward Yardeni has
hiked his earnings forecast
for 2017 as he expects
Donald Trump to foster a
more business friendly
environment than Barack
Obama.
The United States could
have killed a key United
Nations resolution that
condemned Israel for its
West Bank settlements by
voting against it
rather than abstaining, former
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton
said Friday night, but he
thinks President Barack
Obama took the action to
"box the incoming Trump
administration in."
"This was a stab in the
back against the
Israelis,"...
For the first time,
researchers at the
University of Illinois at
Chicago have mapped the
location of thousands of
tons of polyhalogenated
carbazoles in the sediment
of the Great Lakes and
estimated their amount.
Based on soil samples
from the lake bottom and
core samples from beneath
it, they estimate that about
3,000 tons of PHCZs lie in
the sediment under lakes
Michigan, Superior and
Huron. But not all of it is
pollution.
In camp and in court, those
fighting the Dakota Access
Pipeline expand to other
arenas
When
the U.S. Department of the
Army announced its denial of
the easement that would have
allowed Energy Transfer
Partners to complete the
Dakota Access Pipeline
crossing the Missouri River
just north of the Standing
Rock Reservation on December
4, exultation ensued. The
Corps’ decision suggested
that a full environmental
assessment and pipeline
re-route would be the only
possible way for the company
to complete the now $4
billion project. The permit
denial was, thus far, the
most profound victory for
both the grassroots water
protector groups and for the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
Many #NoDAPL supporters
celebrated, while many more
proceeded with cautious
optimism, fearing that this
political victory wouldn’t
be the end of the fight.
The International Energy
Agency has estimated the
growth in global coal demand
will slow over the next five
years.
Global
coal demand should grow
from 5.4 billion tons in
2015 to 5.636 billion tons
in 2021, or an annual growth
of 0.6 percent, Reuters
reported. Over the past
decade, coal had grown by
2.5 percent yearly.
Nine years after the
collapse of the U.S. housing
market sent shockwaves
through the global economy,
two European banks have
agreed to offer American
homeowners and borrowers
billions of dollars’ worth
of help under a settlement
related to the sale of risky
securities that helped spark
the 2008 crisis.
Deutsche Bank and Credit
Suisse said Friday they
agreed to the tentative
settlements with the U.S.
Justice Department over
their dealings in
mortgage-backed bonds.
An experimental Ebola
vaccine completely protected
people from the killer virus
at the end of the west
African epidemic,
researchers report.
They used the same
strategy that was used to
eradicate smallpox in the
1970s. Called ring
vaccination, it calls for
vaccinating people who have
been in contact with
patients, and contacts of
contacts.
It worked, the team led
by the World Health
Organization found.
The Solar Energy
Industries Association
reported the third quarter
of the year shattered all
previous quarterly solar
photovoltaic installation
records.
Approximately 4,143 MW of
solar was installed in the
United States during that
quarter, a rate of one
megawatt every 32 minutes.
However, that record
might not stand long, as
SEIA estimates the fourth
quarter will record even
higher solar installations.
Scientists have detected
six radio bursts from a
region in deep space, far
beyond our Milky Way, where
they had previously
uncovered similar signals according
to a report in The
Astrophysical Journal.
The fast radio bursts, or
FRBs, only last milliseconds
but can generate as much
energy as the Sun in one
day. The signals have caused
some head scratching and,
theories that intelligent
beings are trying to
communicate with us.
Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu is
reportedly reaching out to
President-elect Donald Trump
and the U.S. Congress in
order to prevent the Obama
administration from what the
Israeli government fears is
an American attempt to have
the U.N. Security Council
pass more resolutions
against Israel by approving
principles for a Palestinian
state, The Times of Israel
reports.
As harmful as some
bacteria can be to humans,
it can be a help, too. There
is now research that shows
the energy in sewage can be
collected by hungry
bacteria.
Though sewage can be
harmful to the environment,
it also contains energy that
can be useful. Recently,
researchers from Ghent
University have figured out
how to take energy from the
wastewater. Using the
“contact-stabilization
process, up to 55 percent of
the organic matter could be
recovered from sewage.”
Unveiling a sobering
state-of-the-climate report,
President Obama makes clear
the dire consequences of
unabated global warming.
As if parading its best
evidence against an expected
onslaught of climate denial,
the Obama Administration
released on Thursday an
updated compendium of the
accepted science about
global warming.
Russia hopes oil prices will
stabilize in the second half
of 2017 at around the
current level of $55/b and
is ready to continue
cooperation with the OPEC,
President Vladimir Putin
said Friday.
"We
believe the surplus of oil
will be removed from the
market and oil prices will
stabilize in the second half
of 2017. We expect they will
stabilize at the current
level," Putin said, speaking
at an annual major briefing
broadcast on major Russian
TV networks.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low on days one,
two, and three (27 Dec, 28
Dec, 29 Dec). The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
active levels on day one (27
Dec) and quiet levels on
days two and three (28 Dec,
29 Dec).
Russia suggested to the
five-country committee
monitoring the OPEC-led
global oil production cut to
meet around January 20 to
look into the participants'
compliance but no final
decision on the date has
been taken so far, Russia's
energy minister Alexander
Novak said.
"The
dates have not been agreed
on. The work is under way.
We believe we have to meet
around the 20th," Novak said
late Tuesday.
The first four or five years
of our lives are the most
formative years of our
lives. Our minds are like
dry sponges, absorbing
everything around us. In our
most impressionable state,
we learn from our parents,
friends, family, teachers,
neighbors, and everyone we
interact with, as well as
media, conventions,
traditions and institutions
of all sorts. We learn what
we’re taught, but we also
pick up on queues and absorb
lessons from our experiences
and observations, both
subtle and obvious, direct
and indirect, as we learn to
navigate and interpret the
world around us.
Incidentally, these are the
very same years most
children in Christian-based
societies are influenced by,
even infatuated with, the
Santa Clause myth – a common
sociological influence we
shar
Since 2007, atmospheric
levels of methane, a
powerful greenhouse gas,
have increased by more than
3%, puzzling and concerning
scientists, who have tried
to pin the growth on
increased natural gas
drilling, rising rice
cultivation, and a surge in
cow-related emissions. At a
meeting of the American
Geophysical Union,
scientists flagged two more
potential culprits: In one
scenario, methane's rise may
come in part from a drop in
hydroxyl, a chemical that
acts as an atmospheric
detergent; in the other, the
gas is emanating from
tropical wetlands flooded by
heavy rains in recent years.
Human-caused climate change
very likely increased the
severity of heat waves that
plagued India, Pakistan,
Europe, East Africa, East
Asia, and Australia in 2015
and helped make it the
warmest year on record,
according to new research
published today in a special
edition of the Bulletin of
the American Meteorological
Society.
Are you still under the
misapprehension that solar
power is more expensive than
traditional sources of
energy? Think again. Two
really interesting articles
this week underlines the
reality.
The solstice is a
significant occurrence for
many Tribes. It is a time
for celebration that not
only marks the changing of
the seasons but also speaks
to the symbolic renewal and
healing of the world.
Medicine wheels and other
sacred structures from those
found at Chaco Canyon in New
Mexico to the Druidic
Stonehenge of the British
Isles, show that tribal
peoples around the world
understood and revered the
importance of this celestial
event.
As Americans, we seem to
have lost our way where
happiness is concerned. Over
the last hundred years,
we’ve become confused about
how to create true joy in
our lives ...
Fortunately, a quiet
revolution is taking place
behind the scenes:
sustainable happiness.
Instead of consumption and
expansion, the idea of
sustainable happiness is
based on building “a healthy
natural world and a vibrant
and fair society.” It’s not
at the mercy of good or bad
times, but endures because
this form of happiness is
supported by the fundamental
aspirations of being human.
Loving relationships,
thriving ecosystems and
human communities,
meaningful work and simple
practices like gratitude,
all come into play.
Boko Haram is one of the
world's deadliest terror
groups, having killed
roughly 11,000 people in
2015 alone.
Nigerian armed forces had
been in a heated fight with
the terrorists in the
Sambisa forest — a Boko
Haram stronghold located in
the northeastern part of the
country. The group's
headquarters was taken
around midday on Friday.
Trump has bemoaned the
increased use of the term
"Happy Holidays" in place of
"Merry Christmas" as a sign
that Christianity is under
attack. As president, he's
said, he'll reverse the
trend.
President-elect Donald Trump
will be able to reshape the
judicial system once he
takes office by filling an
estimated 103 court
vacancies, The Washington
Post reported.
The number, which does
not include the opening on
the U.S. Supreme Court, is
almost double the 54 open
judicial openings President
Barack Obama was faced with
when he took over eight
years ago, the newspaper
noted.
The deal, agreed to in July
2015 between the P5+1 and
Tehran, essentially mandates
that Iran cut uranium
enrichment activities in
exchange for sanctions
relief. Now however, it
appears there were secret
concessions made that
allowed Iran the ability to
“keep low-enriched uranium
in various forms beyond
what’s allowed under the
nuclear deal.”
The Obama administration
abstained from voting Friday
on a UN Security Council
resolution critical of
Israel’s settlements in the
West Bank, drawing
accusations from the Israeli
government that Washington
had abandoned its closest
Middle East ally and dealt a
blow to the chances of peace
talks with the Palestinians.
The core of the matter is
this: When you at any point
stop, if only for a
nanosecond to look for
validation, you are not yet
free. We know knowledge can
lead to wisdom, but there
might not be applause from
the crowd. It is a lonely
path until you find the
value of it. It is an
empowering path. As long as
it is yours, it leads to
“home”.
Recently Yahoo disclosed a
three-year-old massive data
breach in its company that
exposed personal details
associated with more than 1
Billion user accounts, which
is said to be the largest
data breach of any company
ever.
The new
development in Yahoo!'s 2013
data breach is that the
hacker sold its over
Billion-user database on the
Dark Web last August for
$300,000, according to
Andrew Komarov, Chief
Intelligence Officer (CIO)
at security firm InfoArmor.
It’s well known among the
country’s wastewater
treatment professionals that
nutrient pollution has
become one of the most
challenging water quality
problems. High levels of
nitrogen and phosphorus,
combined with rising
temperatures, have made
toxic algal bloom a seasonal
rite of passage that poses
serious health risks.
Evolution is typically
thought of as a slow
process, happening over
millennia—but that's not
always the case. A new study
suggests that the success of
Caesarian births in the
second half of the 20th
century could be influencing
the evolution of human
populations.
Since World War II,
Caesarian births (also known
as C-sections) have been on
the rise thanks to surgical
advancements, making them
safer and cheaper. While
once considered only an
emergency option, that is no
longer the case
Matter's mysterious twin,
antimatter, has become
slightly less mysterious,
thanks to new research at
the CERN particle physics
lab in Switzerland.
Scientists working on the
ALPHA experiment, which
makes, captures and studies
antimatter atoms, have
zapped antihydrogen atoms
with lasers to measure their
optical spectrum for the
first time. By comparing the
results with the
well-documented spectrum of
regular hydrogen, the team
can check if antimatter
behaves as predicted by the
Standard Model of particle
physics – and so far, it
seems to.
A federal judge on Monday
ordered the release of the
search warrant the FBI used
to reopen their probe into
Hillary Clinton’s private
email server days before the
November election.
U.S. District Judge P.
Kevin Castel ruled Monday
morning that the public had
a right to see the warrant,
which he said was secretly
filed with the court on Oct.
30.
The Obama administration
fired a scientist,
intimidated staff at the
Department of Energy, and
allegedly ordered officials
to obstruct Congress – all
in order to push its climate
change agenda, a House
committee report asserted.
You know graphene, that
thin, strong and wonderfully
versatile material that
might help produce drinking
water on the cheap, turn
carbon dioxide into liquid
fuels and build better
batteries? Well, a team of
scientists at the University
of Illinois Chicago (UIC)
say cancer detection can be
added to its list of
potential applications,
after discovering that it is
capable of revealing
cancerous cells in the
brain.
President Obama on Monday
granted clemency to 231
federal inmates, the most in
a single day by any
president in U.S. history.
Obama commuted the prison
sentences of 153 people and
pardoned 78 others, a sign
he is ramping up his use of
clemency power during his
final weeks in office.
Ransomware has risen
dramatically since last few
years, so rapidly that it
might have already hit you
or someone you know.
With hundred of thousands of
ransomware variants emerging
every day, it is quite
difficult for traditional
signature-based antivirus
tools to keep their
signature database
up-to-date.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low on days one,
two, and three (23 Dec, 24
Dec, 25 Dec). The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
active levels on days one
and two (23 Dec, 24 Dec) and
quiet to unsettled levels on
day three (25 Dec).
Just about a week ago it
was clear that Rep. Cathy
McMorris Rodgers was headed
to the Interior Department.
Nope. It was a headfake.
President-elect Donald Trump
has instead picked Montana
Rep. Ryan Zinke for the
post.
This is a much better
appointment for Indian
country. Zinke is no less
conservative than Rodgers,
but since his days in the
Montana legislature he has
had an open door. He has
reached out to tribes in a
number of ways. He
introduced and championed
the Blackfeet water compact
and he has supported federal
recognition for the Little
Shell Band of Chippewa Cree.
The budget did not reveal
any details about Saudi
Arabia's oil production
plans or targets, nor does
it say what price it expects
to receive for its oil,
though it cited the
International Monetary
Fund's estimate of 2017 oil
prices at $50.60/b. Oil
prices in 2016 averaged
$43/b, the budget document
said.
The United States of
America, showing its
exceptionalism, forwent the
death penalty for Indians
possessing gold. The
punishment was merely loss
of the lands guaranteed in
the last treaty with the
U.S. The wholesale killings
were incidental to the
evictions they accompanied.
The election of Donald
Trump marks the third great
effort to break free from
Franklin Roosevelt’s New
Deal system that has
dominated American
government for more than 80
years.
The first effort to
overturn this bureaucratic
establishment was Ronald
Reagan in 1980.
The US and Canada agreed
Tuesday to designate the
majority of their Arctic
waters off limits to oil and
natural gas drilling.
The US is also
permanently withdrawing
areas of its Atlantic waters
from future oil and gas
leasing as well, according
to the US Department of the
Interior.
Data published from
wastewater monitoring
campaigns has for the first
time been used to show
illicit drug use trends on a
population level in a timely
manner.
The army announced
earlier this month that
nearly 450 gallons of
hazardous wastewater had
leaked from a tank at a
Colorado plant where
chemical weapons are
destroyed.
Officials stated that
there was no threat to
workers or communities
nearby from the spill at the
Pueblo Chemical Depot.
Here in Northwest California
(the true north, as we are
seven hours north of San
Francisco and two hours
south of the Oregon border),
the seasonal Humboldt County
haze has dropped a blanket
of fog around us and the
cloudy skies are full of
rain. Rain is a valuable
commodity. California has
had a long stretch of
drought and each drop is
beyond precious. The Dakota
Access Pipe Line (DAPL) is
teaching the rest of our
country, in bold headlines
and nightly news reports,
that “Water Is Life.” That
is true, and better
understood this year more
than others.
Finding Certified Organic
essential oils is just the
first step… Getting them
into your body without
harming their fragile
components is the second,
and possibly most important
step of all. Are you
maximizing your potential
benefits?
China's military has
installed anti-aircraft guns
and other weapons on
man-made islands in the
South China Sea, according
to a U.S. think tank's
analysis of satellite
imagery published late
Wednesday.
In 2015, more than 800
governments, businesses and
organizations participated
in EPA’s Food Recovery
Challenge. Participants
include organizations such
as grocers, restaurants,
educational institutions and
sports and entertainment
venues, who together kept
more than 690,000 tons of
food from being wasted.
These efforts reduced carbon
emissions equivalent to
taking approximately 86,000
cars off the road for a year
and saved businesses up to
$35 million in avoided waste
disposal fees.
We've already heard that
things like special enzymes
and fresh produce may help
ward off Alzheimer's disease
and other forms of dementia.
According to new research
from the University of
Eastern Finland, however,
you can now add "taking
saunas" to that list – and
the more often you take
them, the better.
We humans like to think that
we are freethinkers, but how
many of us truly are? How
many people actually think
for themselves, without
falling victims to beliefs
or ideologies? How many are
not heavily influenced by
the biased information that
the media is presenting them
with?
How many are choosing to
have certain opinions just
because an authority figure
told them to or because
tradition holds them to be
true?
The reality is that most
people don’t know how to
think critically,
and blindly accept the
beliefs that were handed to
them by society...
In an unexpected
reversal, President Barack
Obama declined to sign a
renewal of sanctions against
Iran but let it become law
anyway, in an apparent bid
to alleviate Tehran's
concerns that the U.S. is
backsliding on the nuclear
deal.
Although the White House
had said that Obama was
expected to sign the
10-year-renewal, the
midnight deadline came and
went Thursday with no
approval from the president.
Instead, he opted to let it
become law without his
signature — a rare move that
Obama has never used before.
The U.S. Air Force had
said in October that "some
150,000 gallons of polluted
water leaked from a Peterson
Air Force Base retention
tank into the local sewer
system in Colorado Springs
and found its way into a
creek that is used by local
farmers," ABC News reported.
But military officials
say an investigation yielded
a different account of what
occurred.
At the end of the day,
everything in Washington,
D.C., comes back to one
thing — politics. That
certainly seems to be the
case with President Barack
Obama’s administration,
which reportedly delayed
retaliation against Russian
interference in the U.S.
presidential election
because Democratic
presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton was expected
to win. “They thought she
was going to win, so they
were willing to kick the can
down the road,” a U.S.
official familiar with the
Russian hacking issue told
NBC News Thursday.
The overall rating of our
antiquated electrical system
was a D+. Major power
outages in the United States
have grown from 76 in 2007
to 307 in 2011, according to
the latest available
statistics. The major outage
figures do not take into
account all of the smaller
outages which routinely
occur due to seasonal
storms.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low with a slight
chance for a C-class flare
on days one, two, and three
(20 Dec, 21 Dec, 22 Dec).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
active levels on day one (20
Dec), unsettled to minor
storm levels on day two (21
Dec) and active to minor
storm levels on day three
(22 Dec).
“The U.S. electric system is
in danger of widespread
blackouts lasting days,
weeks or longer through the
destruction of sensitive,
hard-to-replace equipment.
Yet records are so spotty
that no government agency
can offer an accurate tally
of substation attacks,
whether for vandalism, theft
or more nefarious purposes.”
Since its debut, The
Greenhouse of the Future
documentary has become a
go-to resource on
sustainable living, garnered
the interest of 12 million
online viewers. The
technologies and concepts
that inspired its design
were based on over 40 years
of research and development
by Michael Reynolds’
Earthship Homes, as
well as many scientific
studies on passive solar
greenhouses. But what
appealed to audiences most
is that the greenhouse
system is inexpensive to
build and maintain, and
utilizes previously used
resources — the epitome of
modern off-the-grid living.
According to the Washington
Post, one of the
President-elect Trump’s
targets when he gets into
office will be government
workers. According to Former
CEO of Breitbart Stephen
Bannon, government jobs now
outnumber private sector
jobs by a whopping
9,977,000, and Bannon
himself is said to lead the
quest in bringing that
number down as chief
strategist and senior
counselor to Trump in his
new administration.
As Washington hunts
ill-defined al-Qaeda groups
in the Middle East and
Africa, and concerns itself
with Iran’s eventual nuclear
potential, it has a much
more pressing problem at
home: Its energy grid is
vulnerable to anyone with
basic weapons and know-how.
Forget about cyber
warfare and highly organized
terrorist attacks, a lack of
basic physical security on
the US power grid means that
anyone with a gun—like
disgruntled Michigan Militia
types, for instance–could do
serious damage.
Looking for a movie to watch
with friends and family this
holiday season that will
make you leave the theater
feeling inspired? How about
a film that actually has an
uplifting message? If you
said yes to either, then be
sure to check out Collateral
Beauty, which is set to hit
theaters on December 16th
Richard Craib is a
29-year-old South African
who runs a hedge fund in San
Francisco. Or rather, he
doesn’t run it. He leaves
that to an artificially
intelligent system built by
several thousand data
scientists whose names he
doesn’t know.
A pipeline in North Dakota
spilled over 176,000 gallons
of oil before it was shut
down, state officials say.
The spill happened 150 miles
from the Dakota Access
pipeline protests, with
thousands of people rallying
against the construction for
months.
Evolution is working hard to
rescue some urban fish from
a lethal, human-altered
environment, according to a
new study published Dec. 9
in the journal Science.
Researchers from the
University of California,
Davis and the University of
Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School
of Marine and Atmospheric
Science conducted the study.
Geoengineering. You
might know it as the
dastardly scheme to
bail out big
polluters, a
last-ditch effort to
save humanity or a
needlessly dangerous
attempt to intervene
in the Earth's
natural systems. In
any case, swelling
CO2 emissions and
rising global
temperatures mean
that plenty of
scientists are
paying the concept
plenty of attention.
Among these is a
team of Harvard
researchers that has
discovered a new
kind of aerosol it
says could be safely
introduced into the
atmosphere to bounce
heat back out into
space, and help
repair the ozone
layer while it's at
it.
If you’ve ever looked into
the ice cream freezers at
your local grocery store you
can imagine all the
different ingredients you’d
find at the ice cream
factory: cream, sugar,
chocolate, fruit, nuts,
milk, syrups, and so on.
With a little effort, you
might also imagine that when
washing out all the
equipment used to make ice
cream, some of these
ingredients are washed down
the drain. In reality, the
volume of wastewater
generated at an industrial
ice cream factory can be
pretty significant, which
means that there is a lot to
clean up before sending that
water out to the city sewer
system.
The 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals on Thursday upheld a
California law requiring a
10-day waiting period for
gun purchases, the
Washington Examiner reports.
The decision reverses a
lower court's verdict that
the waiting period was
unconstitutional.
Scientists have for the
first time observed the
formation of clouds on an
exoplanet – and they just
might be made of the same
stuff of sapphires and
rubies.
World stocks and the U.S.
dollar edged lower, while
government bond yields fell,
with investors certain the
Federal Reserve will lift
interest rates for the first
time in a year on Wednesday
but less so about what it
may do in 2017.
European shares
fell 0.4 percent and U.S.
stock futures were flat,
suggesting a cautious start
to Wall Street trading after
Tuesday's stock market rally
to all-time highs
Some people believe that the
chemicals used in treating
tap water, namely chlorine,
will kill or harm the
bacteria in their garden
soil. Since bacteria are
the base of the food web in
your garden it’s important
to keep them healthy and
happy. Because of this some
gardeners have resorted to
filtering their water with
costly filtrations systems,
or letting it sit out for
hours or even days in
watering cans to allow the
chlorine to evaporate. But
is any of this necessary?
The dollar rallied to its
strongest level since 2003
against the euro, while gold
plunged as the prospect of a
steeper path for U.S.
interest rates going forward
filtered through markets.
U.S. stocks rebounded from
their worst day in two
months as havens retreated.
Financial shares drove gains
in major American equity
benchmarks, while interest
rate-sensitive stocks
slipped after 10-year
Treasury yields reached
their highest level in more
than two years
Clearview Energy, a leading
residential supplier of 100%
renewable energy, now offers
free home Electric Vehicle
(EV) charging for all of its
customers.
The Energy Department
said Tuesday it won't
provide the names of
staffers who worked on
climate policy or other
issues to President-elect Donald Trump's transition team, even as
it pledges to cooperate with
the incoming administration.
Is hydraulic fracturing —
better known as fracking —
safe, as the oil and gas
industry claims? Or does the
controversial drilling
technique that has spurred a
domestic energy boom
contaminate drinking water,
as environmental groups and
other critics charge?
After six years and more
than $29 million, the
Environmental Protection
Agency says it doesn't know.
The International Joint
Commission (IJC) has urged
the Canadian and American
governments to take action
on toxic flame retardants
accumulating in the Great
Lakes basin. In
a report published in
November, the IJC stated
that levels of
polybrominated diphenyl
ethers (PBDEs) have reached
a point that could be
harmful to human health.
Levels are highest in Lakes
Erie and Huron, but are
found everywhere.
An influential government
study on the impact of
fracking on drinking water
may have downplayed the risk
this practice plays to water
supplies across the country.
“Top officials of the
U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency last year
made critical changes at the
eleventh hour to a highly
anticipated, five-year
scientific study of
hydraulic fracturing’s
effect on the nation’s
drinking water. The changes,
later criticized by
scientists for lacking
evidence, played down the
risk of pollution that can
result from the
well-drilling technique
known as fracking,”
Marketplace reported in
conjunction with APM
Reports.
ll new cars and light trucks
would be able to talk
wirelessly with each other,
with traffic lights and with
other roadway infrastructure
under a proposal released
Tuesday by the
Transportation Department.
Officials say the technology
holds the potential to
dramatically reduce traffic
deaths and transform
driving.
The recount effort by Green
Party presidential candidate
Jill Stein in three crucial
U.S. states came to an end
on Monday, after weeks of
legal wrangling yielded only
one electoral review in
Wisconsin. A U.S. judge
in Pennsylvania rejected
Stein’s request for a
recount and an examination
of that state’s voting
machines for evidence of
hacking in the Nov. 8
election won by Republican
Donald Trump. Meanwhile,
Wisconsin election officials
said on Monday they had
completed their 10-day
recount with only small
changes to the vote total.
A new study published in
PLoS scientifically
validates what so many drum
circle participants have
already experienced first
hand: group drumming
produces significant changes
in well-being, including
improvements in depression,
anxiety and social
resilience.
Fifteen to 20 percent of
the general population
experience chronic
constipation,
characterized by hard,
dry and difficult to
pass stools, and/or
having less than three
bowel movements per week
Chronic constipation has
been linked to several
serious health problems,
including
diverticulitis, kidney
disease, certain
cancers,
hyperthyroidism,
Parkinson’s disease and
more
Squatting when
defecating, getting
regular exercise and
eating a fiber-rich diet
of real food can go a
long way toward
remedying the problem.
Certain foods can also
be used to relieve
constipation and help
keep you regular
Immunotherapy drugs, aka
checkpoint inhibitors,
are considered a
breakthrough in cancer
treatment, but side
effects are severe, even
lethal, and occur in
anywhere from 20 to more
than 50 percent of
patients
Chimeric antigen
receptor technology
(CAR-T) involves
genetically
reengineering a
patient’s immune cells
to target
tumor-associated
antigens, thereby
destroying malignant
cells
While effective in
killing cancer, the
treatment often creates
out-of-control cytokine
storms, resulting in
life-threatening
effects, as well as
acute onset of type 1
diabetes and other
surprising ailments
In Flint, Michigan, tap
water in residents’ homes
contained
astonishing levels of lead,
as high as 104 parts per
billion (ppb). The
Environmental Protection
Agency’s limit for lead in
drinking water is 15 ppb,
but there is no
safe level of lead exposure.
There has been much buzz in
the global semiconductor
industry about the
accelerated consolidation of
chip vendors. But the
biggest untold story this
year is the presence at the
negotiating table — in
almost every M&A deal — of
Chinese investors, or
U.S.-based private equity
funds whose money can be
traced back to China.
Do men experience more
severe symptoms than women
when infected with the same
virus? Recent studies have
suggested that man flu is
actually a thing – men are
more vulnerable to the
influenza virus due to
having higher levels of
testosterone and the fact
that women are protected by
estrogen, which has strong
anti-viral properties. Now,
researchers in the UK say
that you can thank evolution
for this too – viruses tend
to be "kinder" to women to
ensure they are passed on to
their offspring.
“Today, nearly 90 percent of
our waste water is
recycled,” Minister Erdan
stated. “That's around four
times higher than any other
country in the world. It is
a remarkable achievement and
this benefits not only
Israel. Israeli companies
are helping save water
around the world, from
Africa to California to
India.”
Levitas seal rings are
suited for installation in
all forms of automated
transmissions. A special
seal design produces a
hydrodynamic oil film
between the seal ring and
its dynamic counter surface,
which reduces friction to
the point that merely
replacing conventional
transmission seals in an
automatic transmission
reduces the vehicle's
CO2 emissions by 0.8 grams
per kilometer. If a million
new vehicles were equipped
with Levitas seals, the
total emissions over their
entire operating life would
decline by 192,000 tons.
Oil futures were nearly
unchanged Thursday after
technical support helped
lift prices from session
lows, as the complex came
under pressure from the US
dollar rallying to a 14-year
high against a basket of
major currencies.
NYMEX January crude settled
down 14 cents to $50.90/b.
ICE February Brent settled
12 cents higher at $54.02/b.
For OPEC, there are few
enemies more fearsome than
the tiny Oklahoma town of
Cushing.
With oil inventories at
Cushing creeping near an
all-time high, U.S.
benchmark futures prices are
struggling to advance
despite the promised
production cuts agreed to by
OPEC, Russia and other
producers. And the storage
tanks are likely to stay
full as refiners park crude
in Oklahoma to lower their
tax bills.
Pennsylvania regulators
revealed the results of an
investigation into
perfluorinated chemical
(PFC) contamination that has
dogged several water
supplies in the Philadelphia
suburbs.
According to the National
Post, a teacher in British
Columbia was fired from a
“posh” private high school
after offhandedly
mentioning “a difference
between people’s private
morality and the law.”
“I find abortion to be
wrong,” he said to his
students to point out a fair
example, “but the law is
often different from our
personal opinions.”
The U.S. government will
push forward with conspiracy
charges against the
remaining seven people who
helped take over a national
wildlife refuge in Oregon,
just weeks after the
stunning acquittal of the
first group of defendants.
Noticed at an amber market
in Myanmar, an amber
specimen is now said to hold
one of the best, most
beautiful and most useful
examples of dinosaur
feathers.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low on days one,
two, and three (16 Dec, 17
Dec, 18 Dec). The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet
levels on day one (16 Dec)
and quiet to unsettled
levels on days two and three
(17 Dec, 18 Dec).
We’ve been attempting to
reverse-engineer
intelligence since the dawn
of our own history — or at
least since the time of the
ancient Greeks, who carved
the inscription “know
thyself” at the temple of
Apollo, Delphi. Throughout
the ages, one old chestnut
has stubbornly resisted
yielding up its secret: the
organizational principle
behind the human brain. Now
a group of scientists at
Augusta University, Georgia,
led by Dr. Joe Tsien, think
they may be onto the
answer...
Despite Hollywood's
depictions in the twin
disaster movies Deep
Impact and
Armageddon—scientists
have little grasp on how to
actually handle a comet or
asteroid hurdling toward
Earth. And NASA researcher
Dr. Joseph Nuth is
concerned, writes Alan Yuhas
at The Guardian.
Polar bears aren't the only
creatures feeling the
effects of climate change up
at the top of the world.
Scientists tracking the
wellbeing of reindeers in
the Arctic have uncovered a
concerning trend, with
warming temperatures in the
region actually freezing
access to food and leading
to a 12 percent decrease in
average body mass over just
16 years.
China appears to have
installed weapons, including
anti-aircraft and
anti-missile systems, on all
seven of the artificial
islands it has built in the
South China Sea, a U.S.
think tank reported
Wednesday, citing new
satellite imagery.
Since the Deepwater Horizon
incident, we've seen an
increased focus on
developing new ways to
contain and clean up oil
spills more efficiently.
These range from studying
water-repellant plants to
create new oil absorbent
materials, to creating
porous materials that can
soak up many times their
weight in oil. But here's
the thing: the Arctic is a
different beast compared to
the Gulf of Mexico and what
works in warmer climates may
not necessarily work in the
former's cold waters. There
are several reasons for
this, not least being the
fact that conventional booms
lose their effectiveness
when ice fragments push the
oil below the surface and
rough waters cause it to
disperse.
Global concentrations of
methane, a powerful
greenhouse gas and cause of
climate change, are now
growing faster in the
atmosphere than at any other
time in the past two
decades.
That is the message of a
team of international
scientists in an editorial
published 12 December in the
journal Environmental
Research Letters. The
group reports that methane
concentrations in the air
began to surge around 2007
and grew precipitously in
2014 and 2015. In that
two-year period,
concentrations shot up by 10
or more parts per billion
annually. It’s a stark
contrast from the early
2000s when methane
concentrations crept up by
just 0.5 parts per billion
on average each year. The
reason for the spike is
unclear but may come from
emissions from agricultural
sources and mainly around
the tropics – potentially
from farm sites like rice
paddies and cattle pastures.
Cyber attacks targeting the
global bank transfer system
have succeeded in stealing
funds since February’s heist
of $81 million from the
Bangladesh central bank as
hackers have become more
sophisticated in their
tactics, according to a
SWIFT official and a
previously undisclosed
letter the organization sent
to banks worldwide.
Donald Trump says he will
step away from managing his
business empire while he's
in office — but he's not
going to sell it off. If he
follows through, he will
shatter a presidential
precedent on conflicts, and
ethics experts say he will
open the door to
investigations and lawsuits
that could hobble his
administration.
"My executives will run it
with my children," he said
in a Fox News interview that
aired Sunday. He added that
he will not have "anything
to do with management" and
won't "do deals" for his
business while he's
president.
ast week, Bloomberg
News reported that
President-elect Trump is
considering Jim O’Neill as
the new FDA commissioner.
...O’Neill would be an
“unconventional” pick
because he isn’t a physician
and has little scientific
background. This could be a
good thing, considering the
problematic ties to the
pharmaceutical industry of
current and past FDA
commissioners. The
appointment of an FDA chief
who isn’t in the pocket of
Big Pharma is a welcome
development.
President-elect Donald Trump
is scheduled to testify under
oath at Trump Tower in
January, just weeks before
the inauguration, in
lawsuits tied to his
Washington D.C. hotel. His
lawyers are battling over
special conditions Trump is
seeking because of his new
position.
A record 4,143 MW of solar
photovoltaics was installed
in the US in the third
quarter, with 3,200 MW being
utility-scale PV
installations, GTM Research
said Tuesday in a report
commissioned by the Solar
Energy Industries
Association.
The
previous quarterly high was
in the fourth quarter of
2015, with 3,284 MW of solar
installed, according to GTM.
The company expects the
innovative zero-emission,
hydrogen-electric semi-truck
will be a part of its fleet
when the Nikola Motor
Company starts production in
2020. This move is the
latest example of how U.S.
Xpress continues to raise
the bar on how truck
carriers can embrace green,
sustainable solutions as a
tool to benefit their
drivers and help protect the
environment.
Arkansas is battling an
outbreak of mumps that
began in August. As of
December 2, 1,824 people
had contracted the
disease, despite 90 to
95 percent of school
aged children and 30 to
40 percent of adults
being “fully immunized,”
according to the state
health department
There have been mumps
outbreaks reported for
more than a decade in
vaccinated persons and
an Arkansas
epidemiologist is
worried the mumps strain
included in MMR vaccine
used in the U.S. may not
match the disease now
being seen in some
people
Research looking at
lab-confirmed type A or
B influenza shows flu
shots have no impact on
absenteeism among
children. Whether
they’re vaccinated or
not, children miss the
same number of days of
school due to influenza
The importance of vitamin D
during childhood development
is pretty well established –
both the UK and US health
departments recommend
infants be given daily
supplements. But new
research is throwing further
weight behind the argument
that this little nudge along
could begin earlier in the
developmental chain. It
links vitamin D deficiency
in pregnant mothers with
autistic traits in the child
a few years down the track.
Known as “produced
water,” wastewater from oil
production is being used to
irrigate crops across 95,000
acres of California’s
Central Valley, where many
of the country’s fruits and
vegetables are grown.
95,000 is not as much as
it sounds, according to
Epoch Times, when
compared to the 9.6 million
acres of farmland California
irrigates every year.
Originating in our planet's
core and ballooning out into
space, the Earth's magnetic
field has long kept humans
safe from charged particles
and deadly radiation, and it
turns out it might also know
a thing or two about our
future well being. By
tracking deviations in the
field as it passes through
the ocean, scientists say it
is possible to gauge the
temperature changes in the
sea, helping to fill in
important detail about how
our planet is responding to
global warming.
A multi-year study led by
an Iowa State University
scientist suggests the
turbines commonly used in
the state to capture wind
energy may have a positive
effect on crops.
Gene Takle, a
Distinguished Professor
of agronomy and geological
and atmospheric sciences,
said tall wind turbines
disbursed throughout a field
create air turbulence that
may help plants by affecting
variables such as
temperature and carbon
dioxide concentrations
Yahoo has disclosed that
more than one billion
accounts may have been
stolen from the company's
systems in another
cyberattack.
The company said in a
statement Wednesday after
the markets closed that
unnamed attackers stole the
accounts in August 2013, a
year prior to a previously
disclosed attack, in which
attackers stole around 500
million accounts in
September 2014.
Billionaire investor Carl
Icahn Saturday attributed
the recent Wall Street surge
"completely" on Donald Trump
because investors believe
that the president-elect is
"really going to be more
friendly with business."
A minister claimed Julian
Assange was protected from
an FBI investigation by the
Icelandic government due to
concerns of an attempt to
frame Assange. According to
former Icelandic minister
Ogmundur Jonasson, in June
of 2011, President Obama’s
administration warned that
Iceland hackers were aiming
to target Iceland’s
electronic infrastructure,
according to the Express.
The former Minister stated
Iceland politicians
immediately became
suspicious when the U.S.
swiftly offered help in
taking down the hackers.
After a recently retired
Seattle Seahawks player told
high schoolers that men
should “take the lead” and
stand up for women, some
female students got angry
and walked out of an
assembly at the Emerald
City’s Garfield High School,
the Seattle Times reported.
In a letter to Homeland
Security Secretary Jeh
Johnson, Georgia Secretary
of State Brian P. Kemp said
a computer traced back to
the federal agency in
Washington tried
unsuccessfully to penetrate
the state office's firewall
one week after the
presidential election. The
letter speculated that what
it described as "a large
unblocked scan event" might
have been a security test.
Hoover served as FBI
director from 1924 until his
death in 1972. According to
Biography.com, Hoover
“ordered illegal
surveillance against
suspected enemies of the
state and political
opponents” during his tenure
at the bureau.
For the first time ever in
the United States, deaths
caused by heroin overdoses
outnumber gun homicides,
according to new data pulled
from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention by
the Washington Post.
Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria (ISIS) militants
re-occupied Palmyra on
Sunday, taking the ancient
central city from government
troops in a major advance
after a year of setbacks in
Syria and neighboring Iraq,
a Syrian government official
and the group said.
In retaking Palmyra, the
extremist group appeared to
be taking advantage of the
Syrian and Russian
preoccupation with Aleppo,
timing its attack to
coincide with a massive
government offensive to
capture the last remaining
opposition-held
neighborhoods in the
northern city.
The problem critics have
with the proposed merger
between AT&T and Time Warner
boils down to a
"concentration of power,"
economist and best-selling
author Larry Kudlow told
Newsmax Friday.
Veteran
financial guru Larry Kudlow,
who served as the Donald
Trump campaign's senior
economic adviser, predicts
to Newsmax TV
that President-elect
Donald Trump is assembling
the type of cabinet “to end
the White House war against
business that we've
experienced under the Obama
administration.”
In June this year Bill SB277
was controversially signed
into Californian State
law, which legislates that
all school-age children in
California are subjected to
mandatory vaccinations
according to the State’s
vaccine schedule.
Its passing into law was
seen as a major loss in the
fight for freedom of choice
and parental rights by both
human rights groups and
the anti-vaccination lobby.
While much of the mainstream
media reported Sunday that
President-elect Donald Trump
said he gets intelligence
briefings when he needs
them, what many outlets are
not making clear is the
context in which said it.
As Earth heads toward
climate crisis, the pressure
is on to learn more about
CH4
Scientists have long
known that methane presents
a serious danger to a
warming world. After all,
the gas warms the planet up
to 86 times more than carbon
dioxide. So news that levels
of methane have spiked in
Earth’s atmosphere is cause
for alarm, even though
scientists aren’t sure
what’s going on. As Jonathan
Amos reports for the BBC, a
sudden surge in Earth’s
methane levels is a potent
warning that losing sight of
the impacts from this
greenhouse gas could have
terrible consequences.
The most important life
lesson I learned was trying
something three times (maybe
even four times) before you
stop trying and move on.
Also, this monk taught me
that, even after multiple
tries, you should work on
different angles to approach
things that are difficult.
If you keep trying, you’ll
eventually get where you’re
going.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low with a slight
chance for a C-class flare
on days one, two, and three
(13 Dec, 14 Dec, 15 Dec).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet
levels on days one, two, and
three (13 Dec, 14 Dec, 15
Dec).
We shouldn’t underestimate
nature — it could easily
take this planet back. Not
only do I think we should
respect it, I think we
should revere it.
Nature is sacred, and it’s
alarming that humans are so
unwilling to give it even a
shred of respect given all
that it’s done for us.
Instead we prioritize
maintaining the civilization
we’ve built on top of it.
But nature is not here for
us to plunder in any way we
please; it is life itself,
and living in harmony with
nature helps all life
prosper — and help us
prosper. But as far as
humanity is concerned, it’s
been misunderstood, misused
and abused for far too long.
And we’re biting the hand
the feeds…
Saudi Arabia, the world's
largest oil exporter, is
making it clear to the
global market: the kingdom
wants the output deal it
negotiated with major
producing countries to
stick, even if it has to cut
production more than it
already committed to.
It’s been a bone of
contention for more than 30
years, the notion that women
can, and indeed should,
serve in combat roles.
During his tenure, President
Barack Obama made women
eligible for all combat
positions. And even though
women have tried and failed
to pass some of the most
rigorous combat training
courses, it remains a
feminist battle cry that
women should have the right
to fight.
Unusually high air
temperatures over the Arctic
Ocean, persistent winds from
the south, and a warm ocean
have resulted in a record
low Arctic sea ice extent
for November, say scientists
at the National Snow and Ice
Data Center, NSIDC, at the
University of Colorado,
Boulder.
One might have hoped that
the alarm about “fake news”
would remind major U.S. news
outlets, such as The
Washington Post and
The New York Times,
about the value of
journalistic skepticism.
However, instead, it seems
to have done the opposite.
[Editor: Our
policy is to always publish
the original web address of
the "news" so you can track
back to source. We do not
believe that "credentials"
automatically results in
authenticity. We do not
have the credentials
normally referred to here.
We do, however, always give
authorship its due.
Copyright or otherwise...see
directly above.]
In
order to create thermal
generators that capture and
convert waste heat into
electricity from objects of
almost any shape, scientists
at the Ulsan National
Institute of Science and
Technology claim to have
created a thermoelectric
coating that can be directly
painted onto almost
any surface
Turkey declared a national
day of mourning and paid
tribute to the dead Sunday
after two bombings in
Istanbul killed 38 people
and wounded 155 others near
a soccer stadium. The
carnage was claimed by a
Turkey-based Kurdish
militant group.
The U.S. Senate
overwhelmingly passed a
compromise version of an
annual defense policy bill
on Thursday without
controversial provisions
such as requiring women to
register for the draft or
allowing contractors to make
religion-based hiring
decisions.
Ninety-two senators
backed the $618.7 billion
National Defense
Authorization Act, or NDAA,
and seven opposed it.
Because it passed the House
of Representatives by a
similarly large margin last
week, the bill now goes to
the White House for
President Barack Obama to
veto or sign into law.
A door to the pavilion
of the Prairie Knights
Casino and Resort slammed
shut behind a gust of
powdery snow whipping in the
frigid December day. On
Tuesday, December 6, a
location normally reserved
for weekend concerts and
comedy shows was now
bustling with people—mostly
veterans—who had spent the
night stranded by a
relentless blizzard that
pounded for a second day. A
network of North Dakota
highways and roads were
closed due to icy
conditions, snowdrifts and
poor visibility.
This fight is not
over, not even close. In
fact, this fight is
escalating. The incoming
Trump administration
promises to be a friend to
the oil industry and an
enemy to Indigenous people.
It is unclear what will
happen with the river
crossing. Now more than
ever, we ask that you stand
with us as we continue to
demand justice.
Before the dinosaurs, giant
insects ruled the world more
than 300 million years ago.
Okay, prehistoric insects
weren’t this big, but many
were much larger than
insects today...
There are two main reasons.
The most important is that
our atmosphere has changed.
Millions of years go, the
air surrounding our planet
was warmer, moister and
contained more oxygen.
The United States endures
more blackouts than any
other developed nation as
the number of U.S. power
outages lasting more than an
hour have increased steadily
for the past decade,
according to federal
databases at the Department
of Energy (DOE) and the
North American Electric
Reliability Corp. (NERC).
According to federal
data, the U.S. electric grid
loses power 285 percent more
often than in 1984, when the
data collection effort on
blackouts began. That’s
costing American businesses
as much as $150 billion per
year, the DOE reported, with
weather-related disruptions
costing the most per event.
Federal officials with
the Department of Army
announced on Sunday,
December 4 that they would
not approve permits for
construction of the Dakota
Access Pipeline. The denial
halts construction of the
$3.8 billion dollar project
that has been partially
stalled at the easement of
the contested Missouri
River, the primary water
source for the Standing Rock
Sioux Tribe.
The decision is a
significant victory for the
tribal nation and thousands
of water protectors camped
near the construction site
of the pipeline project who
have until tomorrow, Monday
Dec. 5 to evacuate the
sprawling Oceti Sakowin
Camp.
Life off the grid requires a
few adjustments in lifestyle
and habits for most people.
One of the most crucial is
called “load shifting,”
which is simply running
large loads only when there
is extra power coming in
that can’t be stored, thanks
to a fully charged battery
bank.
Unfortunately, some very
critical loads can’t be
shifted. Refrigerators and
freezers are two of the
worst offenders—they turn
themselves on and off based
on internal temperature,
without any regard to the
status of your battery bank
or incoming power.
No sooner than we at camp
got word that the Army
Corps. of Engineers denied
the easement permit for
Energy Transfer Partners,
L.P. and Sunoco Logistics
Partners L.P. to drill under
the river and continue their
illegal pipeline through
protected Native Land, the
corporations just announced
that the Obama
Administration’s statement
Sunday that it would not at
this time issue an
“easement” to Dakota Access
Pipeline was a purely
political action.
A
fake U.S. embassy that
operated for "about a
decade" in Ghana's capital
issuing counterfeit and
fraudulently obtained visas
has been shut down, the U.S.
State Department announced.
The scam was orchestrated by
"Ghanaian and Turkish
organized crime rings" and a
Ghanaian attorney, a
statement said. Several
suspects have been arrested,
though others remain at
large.
Over the past eight years,
President Barack Obama and
his family have spent more
than $10 million a year for
travel and vacations,
totaling in excess of $85
million — and the number is
still growing.
La Niña conditions persisted
during November, with
negative sea surface
temperature (SST) anomalies
present across most of the
central and eastern
equatorial Pacific
As a popular renewable
energy, wind power has the
potential to help lower the
desalination carbon and
energy footprint. Yet the
coupling of the two
industries, for direct wind
powered desalination, has
not progressed. Why?
A massive rift in the
Antarctic Peninsula’s Larsen
C ice shelf has been growing
steadily, threatening to cut
all the way across. If
it does, an iceberg roughly
the size of the state of
Delaware — and perhaps even
bigger — will float off. New
observations by scientists
on NASA’s IceBridge mission,
an airborne survey of polar
ice, reveal that the rift is
now about 70 miles long. And
it cuts down about 1,700
feet, all the way through
the floating shelf of ice.
Microplastics have emerged
as a growing environmental
threat but what specific
problems do they cause for
water and wastewater
treatment plants? What
developments can we expect
over the next few years?
Former Green party candidate
for president Jill Stein’s
effort to root out voter
fraud in Wisconsin where
President-elect Trump won
isn’t having the desired
effect Stein had likely
hoped for. This especially
stings, when Stein fronted
$3.5 million that has, so
far, made little difference.
According to interviews and
confidential memos obtained
by the Washington Post, the
Pentagon last year produced — and
quickly suppressed — a
study that, according to one
person familiar with the
report, was akin to
“[turning] on the light in a
very dark room,” revealing
$125 billion in waste in its
administrative bureaucracy.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low with a slight
chance for a C-class flare
on days one, two, and three
(09 Dec, 10 Dec, 11 Dec).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at unsettled
to minor storm levels on day
one (09 Dec), unsettled to
active levels on day two (10
Dec) and quiet to active
levels on day three (11
Dec).
Discovered in 1899, the
creature recently popped up
in Monterey Bay
In the late 1890s, Carl
Chun, a biologist at Leipzig
University, found something
unusual: a candy
bar-sized larvacean
surrounded by a translucent
blob of snot the size of a
balance ball. But the slimy
creature wasn't seen again,
until now
Two years in the making, the
21st Century Cures Act was
passed last week by the
House of Representatives and
will now go to President
Barack Obama to sign into
law. Supporters say it will
speed access to new drugs
and devices, in part by
allowing clinical trials to
be designed with fewer
patients and cheaper,
easier-to-achieve goals.
f only there were such an
easy fix for climate change
Today, the amount of
carbon dioxide humans are
pumping into Earth’s
atmosphere is threatening to
skew the accuracy of this
technique for future
archaeologists looking at
our own time. That’s because
fossil fuels can shift the
radiocarbon age of new
organic materials today,
making them hard to
distinguish from ancient
ones.
If you’re a professional in
the water industry you might
have heard of Ice Pigging -
a method of cleaning pipes
with ice. The technology has
now been fully adopted and
is in use in the water and
wastewater sectors in 11 of
the world’s most advanced
nations, including
Australia, Sweden, Italy,
Spain, Japan, UK, Ireland,
USA, Holland, CZ Rep, Canada
and Chile.
Thousands of U.S.
military veterans and first
responders are arriving in
Lakota Treaty territory to
support the Standing Rock
Sioux Tribe and Oceti
Sakowin (Seven Council
Fires) peaceful protests to
stop the Dakota Access
Pipeline. An estimated 2,000
veterans are expected, but
that number is growing as
caravans of veterans
continue roll in from
throughout the nation.
President-elect Donald
Trump’s selection of a chief
opponent of the Obama
administration’s climate
agenda and a staunch oil
industry ally to lead the
Environmental Protection
Agency prompted vows to
battle the nomination.
Oklahoma Attorney General
Scott Pruitt -- who sued the
EPA to overturn some of
President Barack Obama’s
signature initiatives -- is
Trump’s pick to lead the
agency, the president-elect
announced Thursday.
American life expectancy is
in decline for the first
time since 1993, when
H.I.V.-related deaths were
at their peak. But this
time, researchers can’t
identify a single problem
driving the drop, and are
instead pointing to a number
of factors, from heart
disease to suicides, that
have caused a greater number
of deaths.
US production of crude oil
will take around 18 months
to recover to the
multi-decade highs seen in
2015, and total US
production is unlikely to
change much throughout 2017
from the current rate of
around 8.6 million b/d,
Harold Hamm, chairman and
CEO of energy group
Continental Resources, said
Thursday.
Producers in the US have
emerged from two years of
hard times in better shape
than ever and are well
positioned to begin ramping
up production, said Hamm --
who has said many times that
the US is capable of more
than doubling crude and
condensates production from
current levels to 20 million
b/d.
When veterans Wes Clark
Jr. and Michael Wood Jr.
sent out the call for U.S.
military veterans to deploy
to Standing Rock, they felt
confident they could muster
at least 2,000 people.
More than 4,000 vets
showed up, despite a raging
blizzard and –27 degree
temperatures.
A door to the pavilion
of the Prairie Knights
Casino and Resort slammed
shut behind a gust of
powdery snow whipping in the
frigid December day. On
Tuesday, December 6, a
location normally reserved
for weekend concerts and
comedy shows was now
bustling with people—mostly
veterans—who had spent the
night stranded by a
relentless blizzard that
pounded for a second day. A
network of North Dakota
highways and roads were
closed due to icy
conditions, snowdrifts and
poor visibility.
Worrying about your
health can be a
self-fulfilling
prophesy, raising your
risk of heart disease
and death. In one recent
study, those with health
anxiety have a
significantly higher
risk of developing heart
disease compared to
those who don’t worry in
the absence of serious
symptoms
Pessimism in general
raises your risk of ill
health. The most
pessimistic had a 220
percent higher risk of
dying compared to the
most optimistic. They
also had a 73 percent
higher risk of lethal
heart disease
Getting reassurance from
a medical professional
is useless if you have
health anxiety. Instead,
seek to address your
anxiety. Strategies such
as cognitive behavioral
therapy, mindfulness and
EFT can be effective
Lawmakers are demanding
answers from the White House
after President Barack Obama
reportedly accepted up to
2,500 refugees from
countries with strong
terrorism ties in a
concealed backroom deal
after Australia allegedly
refused to relocate the
refugees in their country.
The agreement, which was
inked in November, was
described by Australian
Prime Minister Malcolm
Turnbull as a “one-off”
deal. However, the State
Department, for unknown
reasons, has reportedly
classified the details of
the exchange.
Oil's blistering rally of
up to 10 percent to $50 a
barrel on Wednesday should
continue into next week,
analysts and fund managers
said, after the world's top
producers announced a
historic deal to rein in
output.
The Organization
of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries reached its first
deal to cut oil output since
2008 - signaling its return
to managing supply in world
markets.
As we move through life, and
navigate our experiences, we
are constantly in a position
of choice. Each moment
presents yet another
opportunity to choose anew,
each second holds a new
choice point from which to
start again in the now. With
each step forward on our
path, we get to choose where
we place our foot next.
Do we walk around the
puddle? Do we jump over it?
Do we step directly in it?
Perhaps we turn and move in
an entirely new altogether?
Construction of the Dakota
Access Pipeline has been
halted. The decision was
made by the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers, who told water
protectors that the current
path of the pipeline will be
denied, according to a
statement from the Standing
Rock Sioux Tribe.
The Spiderweb Galaxy – which
spans some 3 times the
diameter of our Milky Way –
is forming inside a cluster
of protogalaxies, in a dense
soup of molecular gas.
Nearly 3 Million Android
devices worldwide are
vulnerable to
man-in-the-middle (MITM)
attacks that could allow
attackers to remotely
execute arbitrary code with
root privileges, turning
over full control of the
devices to hackers.
Duterte says he was
greatly pleased with the
"rapport" he had with
the newly elected U.S.
president..
Duterte made the
comments to reporters in
Davao City on Saturday
after a brief phone call
last night with
President-elect Donald
Trump. Government
officials earlier passed
along snippets of their
conversation.
"He was quite sensitive
to our war on drugs and
he wishes me well in my
campaign and said that
we are doing, as he so
put it, 'the right way,'
" the President said.
U.S. District Judge Mark
Goldsmith issued an order
Monday morning for the state
of Michigan to begin the
process of recounting their
ballots in the presidential
election. President-elect
Donald Trump won the state
by fewer than 10,000 votes
out of approximately 5.5
million votes cast. Michigan
state law requires that, if
a recount occurs, it must be
done by hand, and it is
unclear how long the recount
process will ultimately
take.
The death toll caused by
the wildfires in Gatlinburg,
Tenn., has climbed to 13,
according to local officials
in the Eastern Tennessee
town.
Thankfully that number
hasn’t risen since Friday
morning after it continued
to rise throughout the week.
In addition, 85 people have
sought treatment for
fire-related injuries...
The
post-election confusion over
the fate of Obamacare has
only complicated the already
difficult choices faced by
middle class consumers who
are worried they can't
afford their health
insurance options this fall.
An after-school program in
Australia has managed to
prove just what a nasty move
Martin Shkreli pulled with
the anti-parasitic drug
Daraprim....
Shkreli, recognizing he had
a legitimate in-demand hit
on his hands, proceeded to
jack the price of the drug
up from $13.50 to $750 per
tab almost literally
overnight. He bought the
rights to the drug in August
2015, and begin selling it
at the 5,000 percent
increase by September 2015.
Research proves there are
many positive effects of
contact with nature on
children and their overall
well-being. Nature can be
attributed to higher levels
of creativity, better
cognitive skills, lower
obesity rates and a whole
host of other beneficial
reasons doctors are actually
prescribing “time in nature”
to their patients.
An
estimated 400 Dakota Access
pipeline demonstrators
clashed early Monday morning
with police in North Dakota
at a highway barrier manned
by dozens of officers.
Advancing protesters met a
police response of tear gas,
rubber bullets and a water
cannon that soaked them in
below-freezing temperatures.
The protesters gathered near
Backwater Bridge, trying to
go north on highway 1806,
and law enforcement officers
formed a line north of the
bridge to stop them.
Due to shifting weather
patterns, the northeastern
coast of the United Sates
could see more frequent and
more powerful hurricanes in
the future, says new
research.
Italian Premier Matteo Renzi
announced he will resign
Monday after suffering a
stinging loss in a reforms
referendum, triggering
immediate calls from a
populist party and other
opposition forces for
elections to be held soon.
“The ‘No’s’ have won in an
extraordinary clear-cut
way,” Renzi told reporters
in Rome about an hour after
polls had closed in Sunday’s
balloting.
The number of eligible
Americans not participating
in the labor force grew to
more than 95 million in
November, according to
statistics released by the
Bureau of Labor.
The unfortunate number is
a new record.
November saw an increase
of 446,000 Americans,
according to the statistics,
making the overall number
now 95,055,000. Those
considered not to be in the
working force are Americans
who are age-eligible to
work, but are neither
working, nor actively
seeking employment.
Mylan has come under fire
for raising the price of a
pair of EpiPens to $600 from
$100 in 2008 and listing it
with Medicaid as a generic
product even though it is
listed with the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration as a
branded product. Companies
pay smaller rebates to
Medicaid for generics.
Protesters celebrated a
major victory in their push
to reroute the Dakota Access
oil pipeline away from a
tribal water source but
pledged to remain camped on
federal land in North Dakota
anyway, despite Monday's
government deadline to
leave.
Hundreds of people at the
Oceti Sakowin, or Seven
Council Fires, encampment
cheered and chanted "mni
wichoni" - "water is life"
in Lakota Sioux - after the
Army Corps of Engineers
refused Sunday to grant the
company permission to extend
the pipeline beneath a
Missouri River reservoir.
U.S. crude futures
strengthened Monday before
retreating in
post-settlement trade as the
market lost confidence OPEC
cuts would be sufficient to
reduce oversupply given
increased U.S. drilling.
U.S. West Texas
Intermediate crude rose
early in the day and began
to pare gains in the late
afternoon, settling at
$51.79 a barrel, up 11 cents
or 0.21 percent, before
retreating to as low as
$51.11 a barrel.
Brent crude
settled at $54.94 a barrel,
up 48 cents - or 0.88
percent - before retreating
to $54.22 a barrel.
Russian President
Vladimir Putin is warning
that his forces could target
NATO sites if his country
feels threatened.
But it’s not so much the
warning that’s important;
it’s the timing.
“We are forced to take
countermeasures — that is,
to aim our missile systems
at those facilities which we
think pose a threat to us,”
Putin said in an interview
with American filmmaker
Oliver Stone for a
documentary broadcast
Monday. “The situation is
heating up.”
Solar activity is expected
to be very low with a chance
for a C-class flares on days
one, two, and three (06 Dec,
07 Dec, 08 Dec). The
geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet to
unsettled levels on day one
(06 Dec), quiet to active
levels on day two (07 Dec)
and quiet to minor storm
levels on day three (08
Dec).
It's a well-known
phenomenon, seen in action
when hundreds of reindeer on
melting permafrost were
recently killed by a
lightning strike and the
same reason villains in
horror movies lob hairdryers
into the bathtub. Water is a
very good conductor of
electricity, but the precise
manner in which the
individual molecules pass
along the positive charge
has been difficult to
observe. For the first time,
scientists have now laid
eyes on this electrified
relay race, adding to our
understanding of one of
chemistry's most fundamental
processes.
Amid the increasingly
tense standoff between
Dakota Access Pipeline
protesters and militarized
police in North Dakota, law
enforcement has taken
another swipe at the
opposition.
Protesters on the ground
have enjoyed widespread
support from individuals
around the world, and as
those resisting the pipeline
brace for a freezing winter,
they have moved to set up
tents and other forms of
shelter — efforts
authorities claim are
illegal due to zoning
restrictions.
As a result, agents of
the state have announced
they will prevent protesters
from receiving building
materials, as well as food.
Talk about the last man — or
woman — standing: In just a
little more than six months,
much of the Western world’s
political landscape has been
totally rattled, and German
Chancellor Angela Merkel is
the only one remaining.
President-elect Donald
Trump drew a rebuke from
former Democratic
presidential candidate
Bernie Sanders on Saturday,
after turning his attention
to another Indiana company
planning a move to Mexico.
"Rexnord of Indiana is
moving to Mexico and rather
viciously firing all of its
300 workers. This is
happening all over our
country. No more!" Trump
said in a Friday night
Twitter post.
The magnitude 7.4
earthquake, which was felt
in Tokyo, sent thousands of
residents fleeing for higher
ground as dawn broke along
the northeastern coast.
Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan called
for an overhaul of the
United Nations on
Monday, saying its
Security Council had
failed to address the
Syria conflict and other
global challenges.
Erdogan gave an
unabashed speech in
Istanbul at the closing
of a NATO meeting, where
he slammed the Security
Council's concentration
of power, reiterating
that "the world is
bigger than five."
United Nations Secretary Ban
Ki-moon has ended—sort of--
six years of UN stonewalling
over Haiti’s mammoth cholera
epidemic with a weak apology
that the world organization
“simply did not do enough”
about the epidemic, without
mentioning that UN
peacekeepers brought the
deadly disease to the
hemisphere’s poorest country
in the first place.
Russian President
Vladimir Putin is warning
that his forces could target
NATO sites if his country
feels threatened.
But it’s not so much the
warning that’s important;
it’s the timing.
“We are forced to take
countermeasures — that is,
to aim our missile systems
at those facilities which we
think pose a threat to us,”
Putin said in an interview
with American filmmaker
Oliver Stone for a
documentary broadcast
Monday. “The situation is
heating up.”
A total of four staff
members employed at the
Department of Veterans
Affairs in Talihina,
Oklahoma, have resigned
after maggots were
discovered in the wound of a
resident who had been
hospitalized at the
facility.
Oil's blistering rally of
up to 10 percent to $50 a
barrel on Wednesday should
continue into next week,
analysts and fund managers
said, after the world's top
producers announced a
historic deal to rein in
output.
The Organization
of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries reached its first
deal to cut oil output since
2008 - signaling its return
to managing supply in world
markets.
The US
Army Corps of
Engineers will
not forcibly remove
Standing Rock activists
from a disputed protest
camp in North Dakota,
according to a
statement. It previously
said the Oceti Sakowin
camp would be closed on
December 5.
“The Army Corps
of Engineers is seeking
a peaceful and orderly
transition to a safer
location, and has no
plans for forcible
removal,” it said
in a statement on
Sunday, adding that
“those who choose to
stay do so at their own
risk as emergency, fire,
medical, and law
enforcement response
cannot be adequately
provided in these
areas.”
Bolivia's government
declared a state of
emergency on Monday due to
water shortages in large
swaths of the country amid
the worst drought in 25
years, making funds
available to alleviate a
crisis that has affected
families and the
agricultural sector.
CycloPure, Inc. today
announced a major advance in
its breakthrough adsorption
technology – the ability to
bond its polymers into
textiles. Using this
process, the company is now
able to infuse its highly
adsorbent materials into
textile fibers to
functionalize fabrics.
Canada has joined other
countries in announcing a
complete phase-out of coal
power emissions.
Canada’s Environment
Minister Catherine McKenna
announced the country’s goal
of eliminating coal by 2030
during a United
Nations-sponsored
climate-change conference in
Morocco, reported the Wall
Street Journal.
Last year, a record-breaking
147 GW of power globally
came from renewable sources.
If we’re to continue this
trend — especially in the
light of the COP21
agreement, and recently
concluded COP22 — we need to
ensure renewable energy is
as reliable and accessible
as possible.
Almost three years after
the state of Arkansas
submitted regulations from
its Department of
Environmental Quality (DEQ)
for review, the U.S. EPA has
approved some, but not all,
of it.
Arkansas Online reported
that the announcement comes
as the DEQ prepares for
another review process next
year and “is in the middle
of a public stakeholder
process of reviewing and
potentially revising the
water quality assessment
methods it uses to determine
whether a waterbody is
‘impaired.’"
The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA)
recently finalized increases
in renewable fuel volume
requirements across all
categories of biofuels under
the Renewable Fuel Standard
(RFS) program. In a required
annual rulemaking, today’s
action finalizes the volume
requirements and associated
percentage standards for
cellulosic biofuel, advanced
biofuel, and total renewable
fuel for 2017, and for
biomass-based diesel for
2018.
In
2012, Steubenville (Ohio)
high school's football team
players gang-raped an
unconscious teenage girl
from West Virginia and took
photographs of the sexual
assault.
In December
2012, a member of the hacker
collective Anonymous hacked
into the Steubenville High
School football fan website
Roll Red Roll and leaked
some evidence of the rape,
including a video taken and
shared by the crime's
perpetrators in which they
joked about the sexual
assault.
Thirty years after the
nuclear disaster in
Chernobyl, the radioactive
remains of the power plant’s
destroyed No.4 reactor have
been safely enclosed
following one of the world’s
most ambitious engineering
projects.
Sewage contains a source
of energy that can be
harvested by using hungry
bacteria, researchers from
Ghent University in Belgium
have discovered.
“The levels of organic
matter in sewage are too low
to be directly recovered. We
investigated how we can use
bacteria to capture this
material,” said one of the
researchers Francis
Meerburg.
NASA has selected Space
Exploration Technologies
(SpaceX) of Hawthorne,
California, to provide
launch services for the
agency’s Surface Water and
Ocean Topography (SWOT)
mission. Launch is targeted
for April 2021 on a SpaceX
Falcon 9 rocket from Space
Launch Complex 4E at
Vandenberg Air Force Base in
California.
When you think about the
basic ingredients for life
to thrive on Earth, no doubt
water and oxygen pop to
mind. But there was a time
on our planet when our
atmosphere only had one-one
thousandth of one percent of
the amount of oxygen it has
now, yet there were plenty
of life forms around then
too, although proof of them
has been scarce. A recent
discovery of fossilized
bacteria dating to about 2.5
billion years ago provides
long-sought-for evidence
that the Earth was crawling
with life even though it
lacked much oxygen during a
phase in our planet's
development known as the
Neoarchean Eon.
A simple model for
evaluating natural estrogen
concentrations in raw sewage
was developed by Ben-Gurion
University of the Negev
(BGU) researchers to help
predict how natural estrogen
levels change during waste
water treatment.
The study, published in
the journal Science of the
Total Environment provides a
model for predicting the
concentration of several
natural estrogens in raw
wastewater, a figure that is
relevant for regulators,
wastewater engineers and
environmental scientists.
North Dakota officials on
Tuesday moved to block
supplies from reaching oil
pipeline protesters at a
camp near the construction
site, threatening to use
hefty fines to keep
demonstrators from receiving
food, building materials and
even portable bathrooms.
Activists have
spent months protesting
plans to route the $3.8
billion Dakota Access
Pipeline beneath a lake near
the Standing Rock Sioux
reservation, saying the
project poses a threat to
water resources and sacred
Native American sites.
State officials
said on Tuesday they would
fine anyone bringing
prohibited items into the
main protest camp following
Governor Jack Dalrymple's
"emergency evacuation" order
on Monday. Earlier,
officials had warned of a
physical blockade, but the
governor's office backed
away from that.
“Poverty
is not just one thing,”
according to Cynthia
Furrh, former substance
abuse counselor and
executive director of
Old Concho Community
Assistance Center, who
knows the homeless
firsthand.
But, how
did they get there?
People have preconceived
notions to that
question. We see people
standing near the local
discount stores or by a
stop sign or stop light,
sometimes with a dog or
a little child, with a
sign asking for help.
Solar activity is expected
to be very low with a chance
for a C-class flares and a
slight chance for an
M-class flare on
days one, two, and three (02
Dec, 03 Dec, 04 Dec).
The geomagnetic field is
expected to be at quiet
levels on days one and two
(02 Dec, 03 Dec) and quiet
to unsettled levels on day
three (04 Dec).
A waste product from
coal-fired power plants may
be useful in fighting water
pollution.
Researchers are probing
how gypsum, a power-plant
byproduct, can be used to
treat fertilizer runoff on
farms, which threatens
waterways with phosphorus
pollution.
The facility has been
plagued by numerous delays
and cost overruns throughout
its development. Originally
budgeted at $2.9 billion,
the final development costs
are expected to be just
under $7 billion. It’s also
two years behind schedule,
with the last delay
announced last month.
“By sitting here and doing
nothing, the Senate has
given consent to this
expansion of government
hacking and surveillance,”
said Wyden on Wednesday.
“Law-abiding Americans are
going to ask ‘what were you
guys thinking?’ when the FBI
starts hacking victims of a
botnet hack. Or when a mass
hack goes awry and breaks
their device, or an entire
hospital system and puts
lives at risk.”
Since the industrial
revolution, the total amount
of waste has constantly
grown as economic growth has
been based on a
‘take-make-consume-dispose’
model. This linear model
assumes that resources are
abundant, available, and
cheap to dispose of. In the
U.S. and around the world,
there is a move towards a
‘circular economy’ where
products and waste materials
are reused, repaired,
refurbished, and recycled.
The U.S. Energy
Information Administration
has reported just three
manufacturers of wind
turbines are responsible for
the vast majority of wind
power generation in the U.S.
These three companies are
GE, Vestas and Siemens.
Together, they account for
55 GW of wind generation, or
76 percent of installed wind
generating capacity in the
U.S.
The federal
government is on track
to forgive at least $108
billion in student debt
in coming years,
according to a report
that for the first time
projects the full cost
of plans that tie
borrowers’ payments to
their earnings.
The report, to be
released on Wednesday by
the Government
Accountability Office,
shows the Obama
administration’s main
strategy for helping
student-loan borrowers
is proving far more
costly than previously
thought. The report also
presents a scathing
review of the Education
Department’s accounting
methods, which have
understated the costs of
its various debt-relief
plans by tens of
billions of dollars.
"During the burglary the
suspect(s) came into contact
with strains of E. coli that
were in an incubator so they
need to seek medical
attention immediately!!"
local police wrote in a
Facebook post.
A new study by Berkeley
Lab suggests that wind
turbines could continue to
grow in size and further
decrease wind energy
generation costs.
The study was based on
surveys of 163 of the
world’s foremost wind energy
experts, and aimed at
gaining insight into the
possible magnitude and
source of future wind energy
cost reductions.