Archive for the 'Environment' Category
Hawaii’s Forecast: Icy and Dangerous Conditions. No, Really.
December 2nd, 2016Via: USA Today: Forget the swimsuits for Hawaii and pack raincoats and winter parkas. The National Weather Service issued a winter-storm warning until 6 p.m. Saturday local time, with heavy, flooding rainfall across the chain of Pacific islands and up to 30 inches of snow on the peaks of the Big Island. Drifting snow, freezing […]
A Radioactive Berry-Picking Boom Outside Chernobyl
November 30th, 2016Via: CNBC: While many rural towns across Eastern Europe face economic struggle, the Ukrainian region of Polesia, 200 miles east of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site, has become something of a boomtown for foragers seeking mushrooms and berries — nearly all of which are contaminated with radiation. … The berry picking brings in money for […]
Police Fire Water Cannon at Dakota Pipeline Protesters in Freezing Weather
November 21st, 2016Via: Reuters: Police fired tear gas and water at hundreds of protesters in the freezing North Dakota weather late Sunday and early Monday, in the latest violent clash over a pipeline project running through the state. An estimated 400 protesters mounted the Backwater Bridge just north of Cannon Ball, North Dakota, and attempted to force […]
Japanese Earthquake
November 21st, 2016Update: Tsunami Warnings Lifted Japan Meteorological Agency — UPDATE: COOLING AT FUKUSHIMA DAINI REACTOR 3 HAS RESUMED Via: NHK – Live — UPDATE: Miyagi Prefecture – Evacuate Immediately Via: NHK – Live — Update: One Week to Restore Power Before Dangerous Temperature Reached at Fukushima Daini Via: NHK – Live — UPDATE: COOLING AT FUKUSHIMA […]
Particular Seaweed Fed to Cows Nearly Eliminates Methane
November 20th, 2016Via: CBC News: The agricultural scientist, then at Dalhousie University, helped test Dorgan’s seaweed mix, and discovered it reduced the methane in the cows’ burps and farts by about 20 per cent. Kinley knew he was on to something, so he did further testing with 30 to 40 other seaweeds. That led him to a […]
Delhi Pollution: The Road to Hell
November 6th, 2016Via: Quartz: New Delhi is ghastly right now. So much so that the government in the national capital has shut down 1,800 schools for the first time ever, forcing a million students to stay at home to avoid breathing in the deadly smog that continues to shroud the city. This comes a week after firecracker […]
Batteries May Trip ‘Death Spiral’ in $3.4 Trillion Credit Market
October 23rd, 2016Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Via: Bloomberg: Battery technologies starting to disrupt the electricity and automobile industries may also emerge as a trillion-dollar threat to credit markets, according to Fitch Ratings. A quarter of outstanding global corporate debt, or as much as $3.4 trillion, is linked to the utility- and […]
Nano-Spike Catalysts Convert Carbon Dioxide Directly Into Ethanol
October 20th, 2016Via: PhysOrg: In a new twist to waste-to-fuel technology, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed an electrochemical process that uses tiny spikes of carbon and copper to turn carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into ethanol. Their finding, which involves nanofabrication and catalysis science, was serendipitous. “We discovered somewhat by […]
Tick Bites That Trigger Severe Meat Allergy on Rise Around the World
October 6th, 2016Via: Guardian: People living in tick-endemic areas around the world are being warned of an increasingly prevalent, potentially life-threatening side effect to being bitten: developing a severe allergy to meat. The link between tick bites and meat allergies was first described in 2007, and has since been confirmed around the world. Sufferers of “tick-induced mammalian […]
Pacific Garbage Patch Far Worse than Previously Thought
October 5th, 2016Via: Guardian: The vast patch of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean is far worse than previously thought, with an aerial survey finding a much larger mass of fishing nets, plastic containers and other discarded items than imagined. A reconnaissance flight taken in a modified C-130 Hercules aircraft found a vast clump of mainly plastic […]
