Biology
Breach
June 2, 2011, from Associated Press
Scientists on Thursday blamed Europe's worst recorded food-poisoning outbreak on a "super-toxic" strain of E. coli bacteria that may be brand new... Chinese and German scientists analyzed the DNA of the E. coli bacteria and determined that the outbreak was caused by "an entirely new, super-toxic" strain that contains several antibiotic-resistant genes, according to a statement from the Shenzhen, China-based laboratory BGI. It said the strain appeared to be a combination of two types of E. coli.
"This is a unique strain that has never been isolated from patients before," Hilde Kruse, a food safety expert at the World Health Organization...
June 2, 2009, from McClatchy Newspapers
Just like megasize toy manufacturers and stores that sell products from China, the notoriously broad and confusing federal Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act applies to you and your front yard.
Anyone selling products, even used ones, that have been recalled or banned by the act is in violation. The act covers everything from toys with lead paint to cribs that might strangle babies.
"Ignorance of the law is not an excuse," warns a 27-page Consumer Product Safety Commission resellers' handbook, released this month. "But more importantly ... you do not want to sell products that have the potential to harm anyone, especially a child."
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Climate
Chaos
June 2, 2011, from North Carolina State University via ScienceDaily
Research from North Carolina State University shows that so-called biodegradable products are likely doing more harm than good in landfills, because they are releasing a powerful greenhouse gas as they break down. "Biodegradable materials, such as disposable cups and utensils, are broken down in landfills by microorganisms that then produce methane," says Dr. Morton Barlaz, co-author of a paper describing the research and professor and head of NC State's Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering. "Methane can be a valuable energy source when captured, but is a potent greenhouse gas when released into the atmosphere."
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Resource
Depletion
June 2, 2009, from Telegraph.co.uk
Karen Alexander, a crop circle expert, said: "We have seen butterfly and bird patterns in the past, but this is the first jellyfish crop circle in the world.... It is absolutely huge -- roughly three times the size of most crop patterns and extremely interesting. People have been aghast at the size of it. It is a complete monster.
"We are looking into the meaning of it, but at present it just seems to have appeared out of nowhere."
Crop circle theorists known as 'croppies' - believe the patterns are created by UFOs during nocturnal visits, or caused by natural phenomena such as unusual forms of lightning striking the earth.
But it has been proven the patterns can be easily created by artists.
June 2, 2009, from CNET
While the Obama administration has expressed increasing hopes that wind power will play a key role in America's future energy system, one of the world's leading scientists is ruling out the technology.
Jack Steinberger, the 1968 Nobel Prize winner in physics and director of CERN's particle-physics laboratory, spoke at a conference of Nobel laureates at the 350-year-old Royal Society in London last week.... The reason? Wind power still requires backup power when the wind isn't blowing, and that decreases its contribution to emissions reductions.... On the other hand, solar thermal power--where collectors concentrate sunlight using mirrors and lenses to produce electric power and heat--is already economical and can handle the storage problem, he said. The heat produced can be stored, enabling solar thermal plants to produce electricity during hours without sunlight.
Steinberger now wants funding for a big pilot project. The idea is to link solar thermal power from Northern Africa to Europe via high-voltage undersea cables. The proposed 3- to 3.5-gigawatt power plant would cost an estimated $32 billion to build.
June 2, 2009, from Bloomberg News
Power companies are burning more trees because the renewable fuel can be cheaper than coal and ignited without needing permits to release carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.... Industrialized nations drew 4 percent of their energy from biomass in 2006, the most recent data available from the IEA. That was the equivalent of about 1.1 billion barrels of oil.
Chips of wood stumps and branches, heated to 400 degrees Celsius (750 degrees Fahrenheit) at the Novus furnace, are as efficient as coal and cheaper: European Union rules don’t require carbon-dioxide permits because the trees absorbed a like amount of the gas before harvest, making them carbon-neutral.... Trees like pine retain an advantage over wind and solar energy as being readily convertible into power, heat and transportation fuel.
"We're really only at the beginning of using biomass efficiently," German Green Party member Juergen Trittin, a former environment minister and parliamentarian, said in an interview.
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Recovery
June 2, 2014, from The Hill
... a new survey from an environmentally-friendly business group finds a majority of people would support efforts to overhaul the nation's electric power grid to make room for more renewable forms of energy.
The Advanced Energy Economy (AEE) survey found that two-thirds of people said it is a good idea to "modernize" the nation's power system, while three in four respondents said they would like to use electricity more efficiently in order to reduce the need for old power plants.
But 58 percent of people believe say they would like to move from old power sources like coal to new renewable forms of energy like wind, solar, and hydropower, even if it costs more to do so.
June 2, 2014, from Washington Post
The Environmental Protection Agency will propose a regulation Monday that would cut carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal plants by up to 30 percent by 2030 compared with 2005 levels, according to individuals who have been briefed on the plan.... Ever since a climate bill stalled in the Senate four years ago, environmental and public health activists have been pressing Obama to use his executive authority to impose carbon limits on the power sector, which accounts for 38 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions.... The American Wind Energy Association, which also supports a federal carbon cap on existing plants, recently published a study that found that consumer rates declined over the past five years in the 11 states that use the most wind, while rates increased collectively in all the other states during that same time period.
June 2, 2009, from Guardian (UK)
Barack Obama is prepared to stake his own political prestige on getting climate change legislation through Congress, and would be willing to intervene directly to ensure passage of America's first law to reduce the carbon emissions that cause global warming.
Nancy Sutley, who is pivotal in setting Obama's green agenda as the chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, told the Guardian that the president is ready to use his considerable personal popularity to rally Congress behind a sweeping climate change bill.... The accelerated pace set by some Democrats seems designed to capitalise on recent momentum behind a climate change bill which cleared a crucial committee in late May. The strategy also seeks to take advantage of Obama's current popularity -- Gallup gave him a 65 percent average approval rating last month.
June 2, 2009, from CBC (Canada)
The directory will be a free resource that everyone — not just those working in the scientific community — can contribute to or use, say the people behind the project. The idea is to link together the efforts of thousands of observers around the world who already log their observations of flora and fauna online into one comprehensive, searchable directory.... The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), one of the databases chronicling life on earth, will contribute data to the new directory. Those running EOL -- based out of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. -- are among the major backers of the project.
"We are creating a virtual observatory for world biodiversity, where environmental observations, specimen data, experimental results, and sophisticated modelling can be done across all levels of biodiversity -- from genes to ecosystems," Dr. James Edwards, executive director of EOL, said of the proposed directory.
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