What has six-hundred tons of volcanic rocks sitting in a giant steel tub, thousands of gallons of water spouting from a network of pipes, and 1,800 sensors scattering three identical hillslopes collecting information? If you guessed the world's only and largest manmade experimental watershed, then you're correct! Recently completed at the University of Arizona’s Biosphere 2, the Landscape Evolution Observatory (LEO) is an engineering masterpiece where three 100 feet by 40 feet hillslopes will provide results used to improve global climate models and make predictions more realistic and reliable.
>> Read the Full Article
With all the stories of the struggles of mountain gorillas and the illegal poaching they are suffering, it is a welcome relief to hear some good news. That news has come from a recent survey supported by the Wildlife Conservation Society of the great apes in one of Uganda's national parks. The survey revealed that their population has actually risen since the last count in 2006, an increase of roughly 33 percent to a minimum total of 400. When added to the famous mountain gorilla population of the Virunga Volcanoes to the south (the only other place where they exist), the entire global population of mountain gorillas now stands at 880.
>> Read the Full Article
Traditionally new chemicals are made within a solvent solution. This aids in the active chemicals reaching one another. Solvents are flammable and often pose other hazards, For the first time, scientists have studied a milling reaction in real time, using highly penetrating X-rays to observe the surprisingly rapid transformations as the mill mixed, ground, and transformed simple ingredients into a complex product. This research, reported Dec. 2 in Nature Chemistry, promises to advance scientists' understanding of processes central to the pharmaceutical, metallurgical, cement and mineral industries – and could open new opportunities in green chemistry and environmentally friendly chemical synthesis.
>> Read the Full Article
Countless studies demonstrate the benefits of quitting smoking altogether, benefits which include lowered risk of disease, increased life expectancy, and an overall improvement in quality of life. But health professionals acknowledge that quitting altogether can be a long and difficult road, and only a small percentage succeed. A recent study at Tel Aviv University has shown that even reducing the quantity of cigarettes smoked daily has many health benefits.
>> Read the Full Article
Oil shale, also known as kerogen shale, is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons called shale oil can be produced. Shale oil is a substitute for conventional crude oil and the USA has a lot of it. The global energy map is changing, with potentially far-reaching consequences for energy markets and trade. It is being redrawn by the resurgence in oil and gas production in the United States due to shale and could be further reshaped by a retreat from nuclear power in some countries, continued rapid growth in the use of wind and solar technologies and by the global spread of unconventional gas production.
>> Read the Full Article
Around the world, we are emitting more carbon dioxide than ever. For 2012, according to new projections by the Global Carbon Project, there is likely to be a 2.6 percent rise in global CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels compared to the year before. That puts emissions of the gas at 58 percent higher than 1990 levels.
>> Read the Full Article
The Metcalf Institute at the University of Rhode Island recently held the second in series of seminars on climate change. Here are a few noteworthy points that were offered Nov. 30 by 15 scientists, engineers, planners and other experts:
Snowpack in the Northeast has decreased its annual volume by 11 percent since 1900.
Sea level is projected to rise between 2.5 and 6 feet by 2100. "If you want to see what 5 feet of sea level rise will look like, you look at Hurricane Sandy," said Bryan Oakley, a URI researcher and professor of earth sciences at Eastern Connecticut State University.
>> Read the Full Article
