tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83941391076207322542024-02-18T17:36:23.545-08:00Know your Worldcontains anything you wantanandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-51505460573806910472011-04-11T18:34:00.000-07:002011-04-11T18:34:57.496-07:00Do the Mountains Grow?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 10px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">In 1850 the height of Mount Everest ,the tallest peak of the world was surveyed and estimated as 29,002 feet.In a study conducted after a century ,the height was found to be 29,028.Height increased by 26 feet.In the studies involved mountains grow slightly every year .The height of the mountains increases because of some geological process taking place in the depth leading totheir slow and spasmodic uplift .These include folding of rock layers .Uplift of those layers often accompanied faulting or dislocation of rock layers .The term orogeny collectively denotes all process leading to formation of mountains</span></div><div style="font-size: 10px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 10px; text-align: left;"><span _mce_style="font-size: x-small;" size="2" style="font-size: xx-small;"><img _mce_src="http://files.fbstatic.com/PostImages/1591130/0/cea9d4d2-488a-493e-852f-95ce7dc143fd.jpg" src="http://files.fbstatic.com/PostImages/1591130/0/cea9d4d2-488a-493e-852f-95ce7dc143fd.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px;" /><img _mce_src="http://files.fbstatic.com/PostImages/1591130/0/d01279c5-d425-4735-8fa9-175368a1ceda.jpg" src="http://files.fbstatic.com/PostImages/1591130/0/d01279c5-d425-4735-8fa9-175368a1ceda.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px;" /><img _mce_src="http://files.fbstatic.com/PostImages/1591130/0/f47e8a6a-9834-49ae-9614-7e7a434ebf55.jpg" src="http://files.fbstatic.com/PostImages/1591130/0/f47e8a6a-9834-49ae-9614-7e7a434ebf55.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px;" /><img _mce_src="http://files.fbstatic.com/PostImages/1591130/0/32c0efd9-2f9c-4bd9-93f6-13e590c1f5eb.jpg" src="http://files.fbstatic.com/PostImages/1591130/0/32c0efd9-2f9c-4bd9-93f6-13e590c1f5eb.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px;" /><img _mce_src="http://files.fbstatic.com/PostImages/1591130/0/d715ef77-625b-4a75-8211-09737b2df733.jpg" src="http://files.fbstatic.com/PostImages/1591130/0/d715ef77-625b-4a75-8211-09737b2df733.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px;" /><img _mce_src="http://files.fbstatic.com/PostImages/1591130/0/6f0339eb-dafd-46f6-9f08-9c232af63b56.jpg" src="http://files.fbstatic.com/PostImages/1591130/0/6f0339eb-dafd-46f6-9f08-9c232af63b56.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px;" /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span _mce_style="font-size: x-small;" size="2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://blogs.fanbox.com/smartplanet">READ MORE</a></span></span></div></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-35901319753408278932011-04-10T19:27:00.000-07:002011-04-10T19:27:12.468-07:00Did the Earth always look the same?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYJM62eo1gerScdtIE3RdRkGPtk6t3gZYDhiXlZYNHhWA0PyMiWkjN5sIO6zyd7ZNY_zcIsG-nf33hDYtyuFX-NZCFEYTeC0fpRm7rohYvbzHo1ixfZLdKekshNx10Q8kQ74Z7ggnRiT0/s1600/cdf.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYJM62eo1gerScdtIE3RdRkGPtk6t3gZYDhiXlZYNHhWA0PyMiWkjN5sIO6zyd7ZNY_zcIsG-nf33hDYtyuFX-NZCFEYTeC0fpRm7rohYvbzHo1ixfZLdKekshNx10Q8kQ74Z7ggnRiT0/s1600/cdf.jpeg" /></a></div>Look at the map of the world .Examine the outlines of continets of South America and Africa.Aren't the jutting portions of South America suiting the western portion of Africa like a jigsaw puzzle?Can these two be joined?About 90 years ago a German scientist called Alfred Wegner proved that South America and Africa were once joined together .Wegner knew that there is similarity between rock strata and plant fossils of the continents of South America and Africa.He came to the conclusion that at some remote time,these two continents had been connected ,also on the basis of several other evidences he noted.He propounted the 'Continental Drift Theory'.According to this theory ,it was surmised that all the present continents had been united to a single land mass he named 'Pangaea',surrounded by"Panthalassa'an ancestral primitive ocean.Later this single continent disintegrated and drifted into different continents as we see them today.<br />
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<div id="art_title" style="float: left; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium; width: 530px;"><h1 style="color: #ad5836; font-size: 2em; font: normal normal normal 22px/1.2em georgia, arial; letter-spacing: 0.04em; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;">Alzheimer’s Disease </h1><h2 class="subtitle" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; clear: both; color: #815a4a; font-size: 1.5em; font: normal normal bold 14px/1.2em arial; letter-spacing: 0.05em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: -2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; text-transform: uppercase;">SIGNS, SYMPTOMS, AND STAGES OF ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE</h2></div><div id="printoff" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="newssidebar" style="float: left; min-height: 170px; padding-bottom: 5px; width: 450px;"><div class="topphoto" style="float: left; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><img alt="Alzheimer's Stages, Causes & Risk Factors" border="0" class="pagephoto" height="145" src="http://www.helpguide.org/images/alzheimers/alzheimers_225.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 2px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 2px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 2px; margin-right: 10px;" width="225" /></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font: normal normal normal 12px/18px verdana; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Alzheimer’s disease is a disorder that affects millions of older adults and causes more worry for people over 55 years of age than any other condition. Suspecting you or a loved one may be exhibiting signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease can be a stressful and emotional experience for everyone involved. Of course, even if your family history includes Alzheimer’s disease and you find yourself forgetting things, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have this disease. Even when you fear the worst, it is important to share your concerns and seek expert advice. The earlier you recognize the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and seek help, the better your chances of getting the care you need and maximizing your quality of life.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font: normal normal normal 12px/18px verdana; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><h2 style="border-bottom-color: rgb(235, 215, 207); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; clear: both; color: #ad5836; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font: normal normal normal 18px/1.385em Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 7px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 26px; padding-top: 0px;">What is Alzheimer’s disease?</h2><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font: normal normal normal 12px/18px verdana; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;">Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of<em>dementia,</em>a serious brain disorder that impacts daily living through memory loss and cognitive changes. Although not all memory loss indicates Alzheimer’s disease, one in ten people over 65 years of age, and over half of those over 85 have Alzheimer’s disease. Currently, 26 million people worldwide have this dementia, and over 15 million Americans will be affected by the year 2050.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font: normal normal normal 12px/18px verdana; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;">Symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease usually develop slowly and gradually worsen over time, progressing from mild forgetfulness to widespread brain impairment. Chemical and structural changes in the brain slowly destroy the ability to create, remember, learn, reason, and relate to others. As critical cells die, drastic personality loss occurs and body systems fail.</div><h3 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #eeeeee; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font: normal normal bold 13px/17px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.4em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 3px; padding-right: 3px; padding-top: 3px;">Who is at risk of Alzheimer’s disease?</h3><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"></div><ul style="list-style-type: square; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1.7em; margin-right: 1em; margin-top: 0.05em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><li style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font: normal normal normal 12px/16px verdana; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 2px;"><strong>The primary risk factors of Alzheimer’s are age, family history, and genetics</strong>. However, there are other risk factors that you can influence. Maintaining a healthy heart and avoiding high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and high cholesterol can decrease the risk of Alzheimer’s. Watch your weight, avoid tobacco and excess alcohol, stay socially connected, and exercise both your body and mind.</li>
<li style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><strong>Early-onset Alzheimer’s</strong> affects patients under the age of 65. This relatively rare condition is seen more often in patients whose parents or grandparents developed Alzheimer’s disease at a young age, and is generally associated with three specific gene mutations (the APP gene found on chromosome 21, the PSI gene on chromosome 12, and the PS2 gene on chromosome 1).</span></li>
</ul><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-family: verdana; font-size: large; line-height: 16px;"><a href="http://blogs.fanbox.com/getanythingyouwant"><b>Read More</b></a></span></div></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-9585677927676455462011-04-10T05:06:00.000-07:002011-04-10T05:06:55.260-07:00Can Earthquake be predicted?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Earthquakes are terrible.It can devastate large areas and takes lives of millions .The earthquake that took in Equador in 1906 had the power of 300 hydrogen bomb.That which happened in China in 1976 had the power of 1000 hydrogen bombs.In this quake that occurred in Tang Shan 3 lakh people were perished.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5TRV2NyJiFBipa2AFd7BRlLBH7g4cVKevv2VFIFS0C6Vmq4B8cl4WgfVE3LdNuxvOcpqHuPu4MpgTpds26gQZ_gFRFdR0ulCX0Agr_AjVkGIFVb4494szhRoowotKcRQ0T-yI8Dd78sRX/s1600/t.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5TRV2NyJiFBipa2AFd7BRlLBH7g4cVKevv2VFIFS0C6Vmq4B8cl4WgfVE3LdNuxvOcpqHuPu4MpgTpds26gQZ_gFRFdR0ulCX0Agr_AjVkGIFVb4494szhRoowotKcRQ0T-yI8Dd78sRX/s320/t.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The crust of the earth when subjected to forces breaks along fractures resulting in earthquakes .When the waves originating from the sight of the fracturing move upward and reach the surface ,the earth seams to shake,bringing about large scale destruction.<br />
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Man had attempted to study earthquakes from ancient times,1500 years ago a Chinese mathematician Chang Heng made a device to detect earthquakes.made of pendulum that could respond to the slightest movement of earth ,fixed to a huge 2m diameter vessel,we don't know how efficient this device had been.<br />
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</div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-31977300306441224892011-04-09T11:03:00.000-07:002011-04-09T11:04:40.058-07:00ScienceShot: Newfound Asteroid on Earth's Tail<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">Don't panic, but Earth has a celestial stalker. An asteroid discovered last fall moves in roughly the same orbit as Earth does. However, there's no need for a restraining order. Computer models indicate that for the foreseeable future, the object (denoted with an arrow in the photo) will stay at least 19 million kilometers away from our planet and, therefore, doesn't threaten a collision. Right now, <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.0036" style="color: #51829a; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial;">the asteroid, dubbed 2010 SO16, is making one of its </a></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKhmduyd2cfO-WPEwPh2N0S6w-7KeXdqidSK_-s1nZsJ-ZlStJgpGNte42pN72Q2AjG_AsGy1wV-u8qVVNz7dTiQxTxmDTz9tO1DGsrhrq8t5QIsvmT53AYDzhDdWkoDy2i6mrrZQ6kBo/s1600/sn-asteroid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKhmduyd2cfO-WPEwPh2N0S6w-7KeXdqidSK_-s1nZsJ-ZlStJgpGNte42pN72Q2AjG_AsGy1wV-u8qVVNz7dTiQxTxmDTz9tO1DGsrhrq8t5QIsvmT53AYDzhDdWkoDy2i6mrrZQ6kBo/s320/sn-asteroid.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.0036" style="color: #51829a; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial;">closest approaches to Earth</a>, researchers at the Armagh Observatory in the United Kingdom report in April's <i>Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society</i>. Relative to Earth, the asteroid, which likely ranges between 200 meters and 400 meters across, moves in a horseshoe-shaped path that sometimes carries it to the far side of the sun. Simulations suggest that unlike the paths followed by three other known asteroids in such orbits, 2010 SO16's orbit has been stable for at least 250,000 years and will likely remain so for at least 200,000 years into the future. </span><br />
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<h1 class="title" style="font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">A long-lived horseshoe companion to the Earth</span></h1><div><div class="authors" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Christou_A/0/1/0/all/0/1" style="font-size: medium; text-decoration: none;">Apostolos A. Christou</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Asher_D/0/1/0/all/0/1" style="font-size: medium; text-decoration: none;">David J. Asher</a></span></div><div class="dateline" style="font-size: small; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">(Submitted on 31 Mar 2011)</span></div><blockquote class="abstract" style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">We present a dynamical investigation of a newly found asteroid, 2010 SO16, and the discovery that it is a horseshoe companion of the Earth. The object's absolute magnitude (H=20.7) makes this the largest object of its type known to-date. By carrying out numerical integrations of dynamical clones, we find that (a) its status as a horseshoe is secure given the current accuracy of its ephemeris, and (b) the time spent in horseshoe libration with the Earth is several times 10^5 yr, two orders of magnitude longer than determined for other horseshoe asteroids of the Earth. Further, using a model based on Hill's approximation to the three-body problem, we show that, apart from the low eccentricity which prevents close encounters with other planets or the Earth itself, its stability can be attributed to the value of its Jacobi constant far from the regime that allows transitions into other coorbital modes or escape from the resonance altogether. We provide evidence that the eventual escape of the asteroid from horseshoe libration is caused by the action of planetary secular perturbations and the stochastic evolution of the eccentricity. The questions of its origin and the existence of as-yet-undiscovered co-orbital companions of the Earth are discussed.</span></blockquote></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"><br />
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About 4500 years ago,the Harappan civilization flourished in regions now occupied by Thar desert.Rhinos and Elephants roamed in the forests that once grew there .large scale deforestation and climatic changes gradually converted the region into a desert. The Rajasthan desert is one of the most densely populated deserts of the world.The density of population is 48 persons per square kilometer. Rapid increase in live stock population and increased cultivation resulting in ploughing more and more increased vulnerability of fertile soil if any left to soil erosion<br />
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The deserts of the world show signs of expansion with time . Sahara desert is spreading southward as much as 50 km per year in some places . It has engulfed about 6500,000 square kilometers of arable land during the last century.The situation is not different in South America ,West Asia,China and other places where desert occur.Many of the regions now occupied by deserts were once fertile.For about six centuries ,North Africa was one of the principal granaries of the ancient Roman empire.The sand dunes of Sahara covers the ruins of great cities once flourished there.</div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-1550168095847411762011-04-07T19:32:00.000-07:002011-04-07T19:32:02.617-07:00Why is gooseberry first bitter and then sweet?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">When you chew a gooseberry at first it has a bitter taste.But when you drink some water or swallow the saliva,it suddenly turns sweet.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQXVjoIcSynOhmBCv1Z_2vj30730oS1UYv-vh_Grf6eCGTmiYzvF-BaEtFCmaCBMD8cp-OOBKKaXUQJ0JIiHaYE4X5hiN0eRqsAsow6XjoZZKb9tSk3xiZXx1101dtYNPFhJb0JUMTdC4/s1600/gooseberry+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQXVjoIcSynOhmBCv1Z_2vj30730oS1UYv-vh_Grf6eCGTmiYzvF-BaEtFCmaCBMD8cp-OOBKKaXUQJ0JIiHaYE4X5hiN0eRqsAsow6XjoZZKb9tSk3xiZXx1101dtYNPFhJb0JUMTdC4/s1600/gooseberry+.jpg" /></a>The salts ,gallates and tannates known as poly-phenolic compounds are present in gooseberry.These salts are responsible for the said quality of fruit.When a gooseberry is chewed ,these astringent compounds envelop the taste buds of the mouth and cause temporary desensitisation. At this time the gooseberry taste bitter.Water or saliva washes down these salts and taste buds resume their sensitivity.Then they are able to sense the apparent sweetness of the gooseberry .<br />
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</div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-86528912781207875482011-04-06T05:09:00.000-07:002011-04-06T05:09:16.772-07:00Drug to Treat a Type of Mental Retardation Shows Promise<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px;"></span><br />
<div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">A small study of 30 people with the most common inherited form of mental retardation has found encouraging evidence that some symptoms of the disorder can be alleviated with drugs. Some patients with Fragile X syndrome who received an experimental drug showed reductions in repetitive behaviors, hyperactivity, inappropriate speech, and social withdrawal. However, the drug affected only patients with a particular genetic alteration—a discouraging sign, perhaps, for those without that marker, but a potentially useful tool for identifying the patients most likely to respond to treatment.</div><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">As recently as 10 years ago, the idea of reversing mental retardation was unthinkable. That's because many of these conditions result from genetic glitches that derail brain development even before birth. But recent studies with mice and other animals have given researchers hope that it may be possible to develop treatments that improve cognition and behavior in conditions like <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/312/5773/521.summary" style="color: #51829a; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial;">Fragile X syndrome</a>, in which a mutation to a gene on the X chromosome makes part of the chromosome look unusually thin, and <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/315/5813/749.1.summary" style="color: #51829a; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial;">Rett syndrome</a>, another common cause of mental retardation.</div><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">One of the hottest prospects to emerge for treating Fragile X syndrome is a class of drugs that block a receptor in the brain called metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5). This receptor plays a role in protein synthesis at the junctions between nerve cells, and it becomes hyperactive as a result of the gene mutation that causes Fragile X. Blocking this receptor, the thinking goes, helps restore its activity to a normal level.</div><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Other studies have reported that mGluR5-blocking drugs appear to have only moderate side effects, such as fatigue, in humans, but the new study is the first systematic report on behavioral changes in people with Fragile X. The 30 patients, all men between the ages of 18 and 35, were part of a phase II clinical trial sponsored by the pharmaceutical company Novartis, which makes the drug, called AFQ056. Half of the patients received AFQ056 for 4 weeks, then a placebo for 4 weeks. The other half took the placebo first, then the drug. Neither the patients, their caregivers, nor the researchers knew which group a patient had been assigned to until after the study.</div><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">To assess a patient's behavior before and after treatment, the researchers, led by Sébastien Jacquemont, a medical geneticist at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Baltazar Gomez-Mancilla, a neurologist at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland, had his caregiver—typically a parent—fill out a battery of standardized questionnaires. At first, the drug seemed to have had no effect, says Gomez-Mancilla. "We were really puzzled," he says.</div><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">But when the team reexamined the data, they discovered that seven patients with a particular genetic signature had shown reduced repetitive behaviors, such as rocking back and forth and clapping, and other behavioral improvements after treatment. Some parents told the researchers they'd been more able to engage and interact with their children while they were taking the drug, Gomez-Mancilla says. Some reported fewer disruptive behaviors, such as tantrums. The researchers did not see any evidence of improvements in learning and memory, Gomez-Mancilla says, but he thinks such cognitive changes might require longer treatment times.</div><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The Fragile X patients who responded to AFQ056 all had a "fully methylated" version of the control region of the<i>FMR1</i> gene, the gene that is mutated in Fragile X. Methlyation is a chemical modification to DNA that turns a gene off, and the patients who responded to the drug appeared to have a completely inactive <i>FMR1</i> gene. The others had a partially active <i>FMR1</i> gene. Why this would make a difference in how people respond is still an open question, Gomez-Mancilla says. The researchers <a href="http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/3/64/64ra1.abstract" style="color: #51829a; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial;">report</a> their findings online 5 January in <i>Science Translational Medicine</i>.</div><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"It's hopeful, but it's still very small numbers," says Stephen Warren, a geneticist and veteran Fragile X researcher at Emory University in Atlanta. The idea of using methylation as a biomarker to determine who might respond to this type of treatment is potentially exciting, says Ben Philpot, who studies neurodevelopmental disorders at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. But he shares Warren's sense of caution: "They really need to replicate this in a larger group."</div><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">That's precisely what researchers at Novartis are trying to do now. In November, they began recruiting for a larger clinical trial that will test the effects of AFQ056 in 160 people with Fragile X. This time, the researchers will test for methylation of the <i>FMR1</i> gene at the outset, and patients will take the drug for 3 months.</div></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-17691705347746662432011-04-06T05:05:00.000-07:002011-04-06T05:05:05.470-07:00Is Global Warming Making Tibet Dustier?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px;"></span><br />
<div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b>SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA</b>—Sediments taken from the bottom of a lake on the Tibetan Plateau suggest that changes in wind patterns caused by global warming may be making the area dustier. That trend could accelerate the melting of crucial glaciers in the Himalayas and affect already imperiled water supplies.</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzxslMZUPnq9MFSMcRbF_FYEO7TaKATDf50RAtCKCv3O_5dwPsktMsEXmCYHk5yx4E-d89KpBOBdNLC-JTv4gKvY03SS2X8kXTZQr5x7-OlLGu_x8Aa4qStT-OloUPVBlRvv1juYJwAoI/s1600/gbtibet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzxslMZUPnq9MFSMcRbF_FYEO7TaKATDf50RAtCKCv3O_5dwPsktMsEXmCYHk5yx4E-d89KpBOBdNLC-JTv4gKvY03SS2X8kXTZQr5x7-OlLGu_x8Aa4qStT-OloUPVBlRvv1juYJwAoI/s1600/gbtibet.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-size: 11px;"><b>Tricky connections.</b> Global warming may be increasing winds that blow dust onto the Tibetan Plateau, and the sunlight-absorbing dust may be accelerating the melting of glaciers there</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Jessica Conroy, a graduate student in paleoclimatology at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and colleagues collected sediment cores from the bottom of Kiang Lake in southwestern Tibet using equipment suspended from rafts. The cores track the history of climate in the region back to 1050 C.E. According to Conroy, who presented the data here at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union on 15 December, the amount of fine-grained dust in the lake sediment increased over the 20th century. Finer dust arrives from distant desert regions hundreds of kilometers away, suggesting stronger winds with the power to deliver the material.</div><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Scientists have previously noted the rise of dust in the region but attributed it to the increase in agriculture, grazing, and other relatively local developments. Data Conroy presented showed that dusty periods coincide with summers when a Northern Hemisphere atmospheric phenomenon called the Arctic Oscillation is in a "positive phase." A positive phase of this pattern in the summer leads to stronger winds in desert areas to the north of the lake as well as south of the Himalayas.</div><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Global warming seems to be keeping the Arctic Oscillation in its positive phase more often, which Conroy says could mean that climate, not just changes in the local landscape caused by human activity, could be making southwestern Tibet dustier. Lonnie Thompson, a paleoclimatologist at Ohio State University in Columbus, who did the earlier work noting the rise of dust, says he was "impressed" with the data and called the work "thoughtful." The findings mirrored patterns he had documented within ice in a Himalayan glacier called Dasuopu, "particularly the increase in the past century or so of dust," he says. Conroy's hypothesized link between dust levels and the Arctic Oscillation "probably warrants more investigation," Thompson says.</div><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"It's going to continue to be dusty in this region, and dust can accelerate the melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas," says Conroy. That's because the dust lands on the white ice and makes it darker, absorbing radiation and accelerating melting in the Himalayas. These glaciers, which provide water for hundreds of millions of people across Asia, are in <a href="http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/2008/2008GL035556.shtml" style="color: #51829a; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial;">serious danger</a>—although a well-documented typographic error in the 2007 IPCC report <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8387737.stm" style="color: #51829a; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial;">exaggerated</a> the rate of their disappearance. Dust also warms the air above the Tibetan Plateau, enhancing monsoon circulation patterns, which could affect rain and alter rainfall patterns across the southern Asia.</div></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-71710511675973525062011-04-04T05:16:00.001-07:002011-04-04T05:16:49.812-07:00ScienceShot: Impacts Leave Marks on Rings of Saturn and Jupiter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/assets/2011/03/31/sn-saturnrings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/assets/2011/03/31/sn-saturnrings.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">Whizzing asteroids and comets have battered Earth and all the other solid bodies of our solar system over the eons, but the ethereal rings of the giant planets seemed immune. No longer. In two papers published online today in <i>Science</i>, researchers report that comet impacts in recent decades have left their mark on the rings of both Saturn and Jupiter. In August 2009, the orbiting Cassini spacecraft caught sight of 20-meter-high corrugations rippling across 1500 kilometers of Saturn's inner C ring (regular, narrow bright bands, above), which is only about 10 meters thick. The corrugations turn out to be one continuous wave spiraling outward like the groove in a vinyl LP record. And in 2007, the New Horizons spacecraft on its way to Pluto imaged two wave sets spiraling through each other in the faint, dusty ring of Jupiter. One Jovian wave appears to be still on the move 13 years after fragments from comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hit the ring on their way to pummeling Jupiter in 1994. But for any impacting object to hit a tenuous ring hard enough to tilt it and set off such reverberations, both teams agree, it would first have to disintegrate into a cloud of fine debris that can hit a broad area of ring. That's just what Jupiter's gravity did to Shoemaker-Levy 9. </span></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-16853448099559682332011-04-01T21:42:00.000-07:002011-04-01T21:42:44.752-07:00A Bacterium That Acts Like a Toothbrush<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px;"></span><br />
<div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Researchers have identified a new ally in the war against tooth decay: an enzyme produced by a mouth bacterium that prevents plaque formation. The finding could eventually lead to the development of toothpaste that harnesses the body's own plaque-fighting tools.</div><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/assets_c/2011/04/sn-bacteria-thumb-200xauto-5827.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/assets_c/2011/04/sn-bacteria-thumb-200xauto-5827.jpg" /></a>The human mouth is awash with bacteria. More than 700 species thrive in the hot, moist conditions, including <i>Streptococcus mutans</i>, one of the main components of plaque. Clinging to the teeth in thin layers called biofilms, <i>S. mutans</i> digests sugars and produces acids that can eat into enamel and cause cavities. Other bacteria are more gracious guests. In 2009, for example, scientists found that <i>S. salivarius</i>, a type of bacterium found on the tongue and other soft tissues in the mouth, decreases the buildup of <i>S. mutans</i> biofilms.</div><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Hidenobu Senpuku, a biologist at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Tokyo, and colleagues wanted to know what substance conferred <i>S. salivarius</i>'s cavity-fighting powers. Using chromatography, a method that divides the molecules in a mixture based on charge or size, they separated out individual proteins from samples of the microbe. The scientists then mixed each kind of protein with <i>S. mutans</i> cells and measured which cultures grew the smallest amount of biofilm on plates in the lab. The protein FruA, an enzyme that breaks apart complex sugars, was the most powerful biofilm blocker.</div><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The researchers also found that a form of FruA, produced by the common fungus <i>Aspergillus niger</i> and available off-the-shelf, stymies plaque equally well. This commercial FruA worked despite the fact that its amino acid sequence is somewhat different from that of <i>S. salivarius</i> FruA. That might speed the development of toothpastes that include FruA, says Senpuku.</div><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The findings, reported in <i>Applied and Environmental Microbiology</i>, are not a license to eat all the candy you want, however. When researchers increased the concentration of sucrose, a type of sugar, in mixtures containing <i>S. salivarius</i> FruA and <i>S. mutans</i>, the beneficial bacterium lost its ability to prevent biofilm formation. The authors write that this observation may help explain why a 1996 study found that FruA contributed to cavity formation in rats.</div><div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Mary Ellen Davey, a microbiologist at the Forsyth Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, agrees that the findings could spur the development of better toothpaste. But she says that won't be an easy task. Finding "the formulation that would 'guarantee' that the enzyme remained enzymatically active on the shelf of your favorite drug store is a big challenge," she says.</div></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-84344999038414289412011-03-31T22:51:00.000-07:002011-03-31T22:52:02.798-07:00Monitoring Glaciers To Watch Global Change<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Glaciers/Images/glacier_title.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="137" src="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Glaciers/Images/glacier_title.gif" width="320" /></a></div><a href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Glaciers/Images/alpine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Glaciers/Images/alpine.jpg" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"></span><br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 600px;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="350">Since well before global warming became a heated political issue, scientists have been trying to determine the rate at which our planet’s temperature is increasing. While placing many thermometers around the world would appear to be the solution, local temperatures can vary widely across regions and from one year to the next. Instead, researchers have found they can obtain a measure of average global temperatures by using satellites to monitor heat-sensitive objects on the ground. Of these objects, glaciers are among the most reliable indicators of climate change.<br />
</td><td background="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SiteIcons/vert_line_grey.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="18"></td><td style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top" width="172"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans;">Alpine glaciers, like this one near Mt. McKinley, Alaska, change in response to the local climate. By monitoring the change in size of glaciers around the world, scientists can learn about global climate change. (Photograph by Klaus J. Bayr, Keene State College, 1990)</span></td></tr>
<tr><td style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="350"><img alt="scientists on the muir" border="0" height="213" hspace="0" src="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Glaciers/Images/muir_glacier_scientists.jpg" vspace="2" width="350" /><br />
</td><td background="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SiteIcons/vert_line_grey.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="18"></td><td style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top" width="172"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans;">One method of measuring glaciers is to send researchers onto the ice with surveying equipment. The Muir Glacier, shown here around 1950, has been studied for over 200 years. (Photograph from the American Geographic Society Collection archived at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado at Boulder)</span></td></tr>
<tr><td style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="350"><div style="line-height: 20px;">Despite typical glaciers’ massive sizes, monitoring them is not always an easy task. Only specific types of small glaciers are good measures of climate change. Some glaciers are too large to measure accurately, and others are simply too unpredictable. Once scientists find a suitable glacier, they must take satellite images of the ice for a minimum of five years and compare the results. They then have to look closely at the outside edge of the glacier (the glacier’s terminus). If a large percentage of the glacier’s edge is receding then the area around the ice is growing warmer, and if a large percentage is expanding then the area is growing cooler. When enough measurements from many different parts of the world have been gathered, the researchers can determine whether the earth is growing warmer or cooler.</div><div style="line-height: 20px;"><br />
</div><div class="caption" style="font-family: 'ITC Avant Garde Gothic', 'Century Gothic', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 13px;"><br />
</div></td><td background="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SiteIcons/vert_line_grey.gif" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="18"></td><td style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" valign="top" width="172"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans;"><img alt="terminus" border="0" height="172" hspace="0" src="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Glaciers/Images/terminus.jpg" vspace="2" width="172" /><br />
The terminus of the Pasterze glacier, Austria. It dwarfs the three hikers at lower right. (Photograph by Klaus J. Bayr, Keene State College, 1988)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-14478377954015197492011-03-28T10:25:00.000-07:002011-03-28T10:25:03.423-07:00News Release : Scientists Find Part of New Zealand's Submerged "Pink Terraces"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 10px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 10px; color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">They were called the Eighth Wonder of the World. Until the late 19<sup>th</sup> century, New Zealand’s Pink and White Terraces along Lake Rotomahana on the North Island, attracted tourists from around the world, interested in seeing the beautiful natural formations created by a large geothermal system. But the eruption of Mt. Tarawera on June 10, 1886, buried the terraces in sediment and caused the lake basin to enlarge, engulfing the land where the terraces stood. For more than a century, people have speculated whether any part of the Pink and White Terraces survived the eruption.<br />
<br />
This week, scientists from New Zealand’s GNS Science, one of several government laboratories, in collaboration with engineers and scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and colleagues from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and NOAA-PMEL, located portions of the long-lost Pink Terraces.<br />
<br />
The research team, using autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to map the bottom of Lake Rotomahana, are certain they have found the lower portions of the Pink Terraces on the lake floor. Project leader Cornel de Ronde, of GNS Science, said the team was elated by the discovery.<br />
<br />
“The first sidescan sonar image gave a hint of a terraced structure so we scanned the area twice more and we are now 95 percent certain we are seeing the bottom two tiers of the Pink Terraces,” de Ronde said. </span></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Side-scan sonar and bathymetric data collected by two REMUS 100 AUVs clearly show crescent-shaped terraced structures in about 60 meters of water where the Pink Terraces were located prior to 1886. They are covered by a brownish lake sediment.</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The free-swimming REMUS vehicles were developed by WHOI with funding from the US Navy and were operated by Amy Kukulya and Robin Littlefield of the WHOI Oceanographic Systems Laboratory (OSL) who travelled to New Zealand for the expedition. Dan Fornari, a scientist with the WHOI Geology & Geophysics department, helped lead the expedition and, along with Marshall Swartz of the WHOI Physical Oceanography department, developed the underwater camera system used in the lake.</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After detecting areas of interest with the AUV’s sonar systems, the team used the underwater camera system, developed with funds from the U.S. National Science Foundation, to capture images of the lake floor where they were able to photograph some of the stepped terrace edges.</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dr. de Ronde said the rest of the Pink Terraces were either destroyed during the eruption, or are still concealed under thick sediment not able to be penetrated by high-frequency AUV sonars.</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The scientists found no sign of the larger White Terraces in the part of the lake that matched their location prior to 1886. The two terraces, part of a very large on-land geothermal system, were separated by several hundred meters prior to the eruption. </span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There are very few examples of large land-based geothermal systems that have been torn apart by an eruption and become inundated in this way. Scientists hope the data collected during this expedition will help them better understand how geothermal systems respond to disruptions of this kind.</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“It was very gratifying to take the tools and knowledge we’ve developed for ocean research and apply them to work in the lake, especially for a scientific project with so much Maori cultural significance.”</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In 2009, WHOI signed a memorandum of understanding with GNS and New Zealand’s National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) to expand research and technology development collaborations across the scientific disciplines in the southwest Pacific and within New Zealand territorial waters. In addition to the work in Lake Rotomahana, the organizations are also collaborating on deep ocean research on the Kermadec Seamounts north of New Zealand’s North Island using the Sentry AUV and TowCam deep-sea imaging system.</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“We hope the success in Lake Rotomahana is the first of many scientific collaborations in this part of the world where there are many interesting research problems to investigate.”</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The project was a collaboration involving GNS Science, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle, and the University of Waikato.</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 6px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After this week’s discovery, de Ronde paid tribute to colleagues from WHOI, saying “This result would not have been possible without the team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and their American colleagues. Their contribution has been huge.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</div></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-69218585508991184852011-03-25T02:54:00.000-07:002011-03-25T02:56:00.910-07:00Why wars Happen?(1)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><br />
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Many discussions of lies that launch wars quickly come around to the question “Well then why did they want the war?” There is usually more than one single motive involved, but the motives are not terribly hard to find.</span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Unlike many soldiers who have been lied to, most of the key war deciders, the masters of war who determine whether or not wars happen, do not in any sense have noble motives for what they do. Though noble motives can be found in the reasoning of some of those involved, even in some of those at the highest levels of decision making, it is very doubtful that such noble intentions alone would ever generate wars.</span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Economic and imperial motives have been offered by presidents and congress members for most of our major wars, but they have not been endlessly hyped and dramatized as have other alleged motivations. War with Japan was largely about the economic value of Asia, but fending off the evil Japanese emperor made a better poster. The Project for the New American Century, a think tank pushing for war on Iraq, made its motives clear a dozen years before it got its war — motives that included U.S. military dominance of the globe with more and larger bases in key regions of “American interest.” That goal was not repeated as often or as shrilly as “WMD,” “terrorism,” “evildoer,” or “spreading democracy.”</span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The most important motivations for wars are the least talked about, and the least important or completely fraudulent motivations are the most discussed. The important motivations, the things the war masters mostly discuss in private, include electoral calculations, control of natural resources, intimidation of other countries, domination of geographic regions, financial profits for friends and campaign funders, the opening up of consumer markets, and prospects for testing new weapons.</span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If politicians were honest, electoral calculations would deserve to be openly discussed and would constitute no ground for shame or secrecy. Elected officials ought to do what will get them reelected, within the structure of laws that have been democratically established. But our conception of democracy has become so twisted that reelection as a motivation for action is hidden away alongside profiteering. This is true for all areas of government work; the election process is so corrupt that the public is viewed as yet another corrupting influence. When it comes to war, this sense is heightened by politicians’ awareness that wars are marketed with lies.</span></div></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-64766094996618760182011-03-22T21:34:00.000-07:002011-03-22T21:34:58.150-07:00Advanced economies at advantage in disaster recovery<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans;"><span class="focusParagraph"></span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0tanUTydYSgb-8_SFj-oFSkS3JsM7LZOuUv6OhBXMFPcr8F54RF5MPVCHrf6OWqiVjEYjw1gS2UN07PX9l_OEXzDimyQeZdbfN2aoxaSBRp2cSj02UDdkYq_knUKWEV_lVeM8F7mPmWw/s1600/downloa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0tanUTydYSgb-8_SFj-oFSkS3JsM7LZOuUv6OhBXMFPcr8F54RF5MPVCHrf6OWqiVjEYjw1gS2UN07PX9l_OEXzDimyQeZdbfN2aoxaSBRp2cSj02UDdkYq_knUKWEV_lVeM8F7mPmWw/s320/downloa.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #dddddd; font-size: 11px;">A man sits surrounded by rubble after a magnitude 8.9 earthquake and tsunami in Rikuzentakata, northern Japan March 13, 2011.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The earthquake that devastated northeast Japan displaced the country's main island by 2.4 metres and even tilted the axis of the Earth by nearly 10 centimetres. The shock sounds awesome but it was imperceptible. History suggests the same will be true of the economic impact.</div><span id="midArticle_1"></span><div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The instinctive reaction when viewing the extensive damage and frantic efforts to secure damaged nuclear reactors is to assume economic havoc will follow.</div><span id="midArticle_2"></span><div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">But researchers who have studied similar disasters in rich countries reach a reassuring conclusion: human resilience and resourcefulness, allied to an ability to draw down accumulated wealth, enable economies to rebound quickly from what seem at first to be unbearable inflictions - be it the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York or Friday's 8.9-magnitude earthquake, the worst in Japan's history.</div><span id="midArticle_3"></span><div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Japan itself provides Exhibit No. 1 in foretelling the arc of recovery. A 6.8-magnitude temblor struck the western city of Kobe on Jan. 17, 1995, killing 6,400 people and causing damage estimated at 10 trillion yen, or 2 percent of Japan's gross domestic product.</div><span id="midArticle_4"></span><div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The importance of Kobe's container port, then the world's sixth-largest, and the city's location between Osaka and western Japan made it more significant for the economy than the more sparsely populated region where the latest quake and tsunami struck. Extensive disruption ensued, yet Japan's industrial production, after falling 2.6 percent in January 1995, rose 2.2 percent that February and another 1.0 percent in March. GDP for the whole of the first quarter of 1995 rose at an annualised rate of 3.4 percent.</div><span id="midArticle_5"></span><div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"Despite the scale of the disaster, it is hard to find much evidence in the macroeconomic data of the effects of the Kobe earthquake," said Richard Jerram, chief Asian economist at Macquarie in Singapore and a veteran Japan-watcher.</div><span id="midArticle_6"></span><div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Indeed, Takuji Okubo, chief Japan economist at Societe Generale in Tokyo, noted that Japan's economy grew by 1.9 percent in 1995 and 2.6 percent in 1996, above the country's trend growth rate at the time of 1.5 percent. Private consumption, government spending and, especially, public fixed investment all grew above average in 1995 and 1996, Okubo said in a report. By analogy, the medium-term impact on growth from the latest quake was also likely to be positive, he said.</div><span id="midArticle_7"></span><div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Today's circumstances are, of course, different. Japan's economy has floundered in the intervening 16 years and its public finances have deteriorated. On paper, the country, is perhaps less well prepared at this stage of the economic cycle to pick itself up off its feet.</div><span id="midArticle_8"></span><div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">But Mark Skidmore, an economics professor at Michigan State University, attaches greater importance to a rich society's capacity to constantly adapt to the risks it faces. In the case of Japan, prone to regular earthquakes, this means improving its disaster response systems and adopting the latest techniques to help buildings withstand shocks.</div><span id="midArticle_9"></span><div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Most of the damage wrought in Japan was by the ensuing tsunami, for which there was no time to prepare, and not by collapsing buildings - even though the quake was 1,000 times more powerful than the Kobe one.</div><span id="midArticle_10"></span><div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"We don't know yet how devastating this is going to be economically, or even in terms of human casualties, but Kobe was able to rebound very quickly and I think there is the same potential here," Skidmore said in a telephone interview.</div><span id="midArticle_11"></span><div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Skidmore and Hideki Toya from Nagoya City University in Japan have examined data for 151 countries over the period 1960-2003 and found that countries with higher levels of income, education and financial development suffer fewer losses from a natural disaster. Other researchers have reached similar conclusions.</div><span id="midArticle_12"></span><div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"As incomes rise in a society, you can devote more resources to safety. So economies that have relatively high exposure to earthquakes or hurricanes start taking the precautions they need. Japan is among the best prepared in the world because they have high exposure and high income," Skidmore said.</div></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-82215300961970536242011-03-21T06:01:00.000-07:002011-03-21T06:01:42.578-07:00Flooding at home not polar bears convinces people of man made climate change<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #282828; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px;"></span><br />
<div class="firstPar"><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.7em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Nick Pidgeon, Professor of Environmental Psychology at Cardiff University, showed for the first time that people with a direct experience of flooding are more likely to believe in man made climate change.</div></div><div class="secondPar"><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.7em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">He said “scare” tactics, such as warning people of floods in Bangladesh or desertification in Sudan, are less likely to motivate people to take action.</div></div><div class="thirdPar"><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.7em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">“Polar bear images and melting glaciers do raise people's concern but they feel disempowered because they cannot do anything about it, whereas the local thing they understand,” he said.</div></div><div class="fourthPar"><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.7em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The survey of 2,000 people in Britain, published in Nature, also found victims of floods are more willing to change their lifestyles to tackle global warming. For example by reducing energy use and taking less long haul flights.</div></div><div class="fifthPar"><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.7em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Prof Pidgeon said people are becoming immune to the extreme risks of climate change in the Arctic and Amazon but they are likely to engage on the real risks of flooding and drought at home.</div><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.7em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: normal;"></span></div><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.7em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">He also said people are more likely to act if they are given positive messages about what they can do.</div><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.7em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">“All the evidence shows you should be measured in showing people the risk but you can also be clear about the actions they can take. Scaring them will just put them off,” he added.</div><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.7em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">A separate study by the Carbon Trust found that more than half of people in Britain want big business to be more responsible when it comes to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.</div><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.7em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">However just seven per cent believe public announcements from a company about how it is reducing its impact on climate change are accurate</div><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.7em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">This week a number of initiatives to cut carbon are being held around the country for<a href="http://www.climateweek.com/" style="color: #234b7b; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"> Climate Week</a>, a nationwide event sponsored by Tesco and supported by Al Gore and Sir Paul McCartney.</div><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.7em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The idea is to celebrate the positive things people can do to cut carbon emissions such as saving energy at home and taking public transport.</div><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.7em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">However campaigners say that some of the companies involved have failed to do enough to tackle climate change.</div><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.7em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The World Development Movement claim that one of the main sponsors, the Royal Bank of Scotland, has invested more in coal-fired power stations than any other UK bank over the last few years.</div><br />
<div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.7em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br />
</div></div></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-37264048378190241392011-03-19T09:32:00.000-07:002011-03-19T09:32:41.930-07:00As the Seasons Change, Will the Plankton?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 18px;"></span><br />
<div class="section" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 468px;"><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font: normal normal normal 13px/18px Georgia, serif; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 18px; margin-right: 18px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 468px;">Antonio Mannino had been at sea for more than a week, collecting samples of seawater and plankton and measuring the conditions in the North Atlantic Ocean. It was not exactly a luxury cruise, but to understand the planet’s biggest food source—phytoplankton—and perhaps its most important sink for carbon dioxide, you’ve got to get out on the water.</div></div><div class="figure medium" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="image" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 0px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Scientists and crew sampling phytoplankton from the deck of the Delaware II in poor weather." height="312" src="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanProductivity/images/sampling_poor_weather.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 18px; margin-right: 18px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="468" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">As is common in late autumn—when cold north winds of winter battle for supremacy of the North Atlantic against the lingering warm fronts of summer—the weather grew messy. Seas churned with waves rising seven to fourteen feet, and Mannino and colleagues struggled to cast water samplers and nets over the sides of the <span class="ship" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Delaware II</span>research vessel. After several days, the foul weather made it impossible to work, and the captain began steaming back from Georges Bank toward Provincetown, Massachusetts. He planned to lay anchor in the (hopefully) calmer waters of Cape Cod Bay and ride out the storm.</span></div><div class="figure medium" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="image" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 0px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Large waves off the stern of the Delaware II." height="312" src="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanProductivity/images/delaware_2_heavy_seas.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 18px; margin-right: 18px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="468" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov/osb/personnel/index.php?id=213" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #0d4391; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mannino,</a> an oceanographer from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, was sitting in the ship’s galley, while graduate student Dave Munro dozed on a nearby couch. It was Friday the 13th.</span></div><div class="section" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 468px;"><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font: normal normal normal 13px/18px Georgia, serif; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 18px; margin-right: 18px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 468px;"><em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Thud. Splash. Slosh.</em></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font: normal normal normal 13px/18px Georgia, serif; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 18px; margin-right: 18px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 468px;">A wave crashed through the porthole window, knocking out the glass and dousing Munro in a bath of seawater. A few tens of gallons sloshed around on the galley floor as the crew sealed the porthole hatch. No one was injured, and the ship was never in serious danger, but it was enough to send them back to port in Woods Hole.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font: normal normal normal 13px/18px Georgia, serif; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 18px; margin-right: 18px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 468px;">The 155-foot Fisheries Survey Vessel <span class="ship" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Delaware II,</span> operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is a 40-year-old workhorse. Spare parts are not exactly lying around on a shelf. So the crew did what seamen do: they bolted steel plates over the porthole, soldered things shut, and got back out to sea. There was research to be done, and time spent in port is time and money lost.</div></div><div class="figure medium" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="image" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 0px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Photograph of the Fisheries Survey Vessel Delaware II." height="312" src="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanProductivity/images/delaware_2.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 18px; margin-right: 18px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="468" /></div><div class="caption" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font: normal normal normal 11px/18px 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, sans-serif; left: 504px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 18px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 216px;"><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font: normal normal normal 11px/18px 'Lucida Sans', 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The 155-foot survey vessel <span class="ship" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Delaware II</span> is operated by the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service for studies of fish stocks and for support of basic research like CliVEC. (Photo courtesy Charles Byrne, NOAA.)</div></div></div><div class="section" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 468px;"><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font: normal normal normal 13px/18px Georgia, serif; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 18px; margin-right: 18px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 468px;">Mannino and colleagues from NASA, NOAA, and Old Dominion University headed back out into the North Atlantic for another week, sharing cramped quarters, cozy labs, and choppy autumn seas to see how those turbulent waters influence the tiniest and most important ocean life forms.</div></div></div><div class="image" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 0px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br />
</div></div></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-48706904873310295862011-03-17T08:48:00.000-07:002011-03-17T08:48:28.640-07:00Laughter really is the best medicine (for leg ulcers)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5c5b56; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"></span><br />
<div class="first" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Forget technology. The best prescription for patients with venous leg ulcers is good quality nursing care – and the occasional belly laugh!</div><div class="byEditor" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A five-year study led from the University of Leeds has shown that ultrasound therapy does nothing to speed up the healing process of leg ulceration - contrary to what had been expected. Traditional methods of nursing care, which are cheaper and easier to deliver, work just as well, the authors conclude.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"The 'healing energy' of low-dose ultrasound can make a difference to some medical conditions but with venous leg ulcers, this is simply not the case," said Professor Andrea Nelson from the University of Leeds' School of Healthcare, who led the study.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"The key to care with this group of patients is to stimulate blood flow back up the legs to the heart. The best way to do that is with compression bandages and support stockings - not 'magic wands' - coupled with advice on diet and exercise. Believe it or not, having a really hearty chuckle can help too. This is because laughing gets the diaphragm moving and this plays a vital part in moving blood around the body."</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Venous leg ulcers are common in people with varicose veins or mobility problems whose 'muscle pumps' in the feet and calves struggle to drive blood up to the heart. These ulcers can be painful and unsightly, having a significant negative impact on health and quality of life.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Although most leg ulcers will clear up with good nursing care, a significant proportion of the lesions will take 12 months or longer to heal. The older and larger ulcers become the harder they are to get rid of, hence the search for solutions that could speed-up the healing process.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A number of small studies had suggested that ultrasound could be the answer. Professor Nelson (University of Leeds), working with colleagues from the Universities of York and Teeside, and many NHS Trusts, have now shown that this is not the case.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The researchers concentrated on 'hard to heal' ulcers that had not cleared up after six months or longer. Drawing on patients from across the UK and Ireland, they found that adding ultrasound to the standard approach to care - dressings and compression therapy - made no difference to the speed of healing or the chance of the ulcers coming back. Ultrasound also raised the cost of care per patient by almost £200.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Rising levels of obesity mean that the number of people who suffer from legs ulcers is likely to grow," Professor Nelson said. "We do need to find ways to helping those patients who ulcers won't go away, but our study shows that ultrasound is not the way to do that. We need to focus on what really matters, which is good quality nursing care. There really is no need for the NHS to provide district nurses with ultrasound machines. This would not be money well spent."</div><div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The study was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment Programme (HTA).</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Full details of the findings are published online today in advance of publication in the <em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">British Medical Journal</em> and <em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Health Technology Assessment</em>.</div></div></div></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-2853830242444052992011-03-16T09:21:00.000-07:002011-03-16T09:21:31.812-07:00Siberia's Lake Baikal Feeling the Heat<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15px;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8oNvoYtOt09vhVZSGAqyp4zQJs18HmLA9ROYkNTcP5dIfmBC1hPnvkpQ-bSbH_RF1_wWFOmtKB25lYoR3WZSK7tgI2_Mty2Upup1ZwpzvdanxwPtNYsRv-OK8qhkbrwCGZWY9cMm9h8c/s1600/bf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8oNvoYtOt09vhVZSGAqyp4zQJs18HmLA9ROYkNTcP5dIfmBC1hPnvkpQ-bSbH_RF1_wWFOmtKB25lYoR3WZSK7tgI2_Mty2Upup1ZwpzvdanxwPtNYsRv-OK8qhkbrwCGZWY9cMm9h8c/s320/bf.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The "Butterfly Effect" the idea that on a global scale, even small events can have a ripple effect around the world is demonstrated in the work of a Russian family in Siberia that have for three generations studied Lake Baikal -- one of the most biologically diverse of the world's oldest and deepest lakes. In the 1940's, Mikhail Kozhov began taking detailed measurements of the lake's temperature. His granddaughter, Lyubov Izmest'eva, continues the family tradition.</div><div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Izmest'eva ventures out onto the water, or ice in the winter, to collect water samples and measure temperatures, just like her mother and grandfather before her.</div><div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Along with a team of scientists from the University of California at Santa Barbara, Izmest'eva recently co-authored a study of Lake Baikal. The research sheds light on the way climate change is affecting temperatures in large bodies of water.</div><div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">NEWS: Earth's Lakes Heating Up</strong></div><div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"This consistent dedication to understanding one of the world's most majestic lakes helps us understand not only the dynamics of Lake Baikal over the past 60 years, but also to recognize future scenarios for Lake Baikal,” said lead author Steve Katz in a University of California at Santa Barbara press release.</div><div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"This work is important because we need to go beyond detecting past climate variation,” said Stephanie Hampton of the University of California at Santa Barbara in a press release by that school.</div><div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"We also need to know how those climate variations are actually translated into local ecosystem fluctuations and longer-term local changes. Seeing how physical drivers of local ecology –– like water temperature –– are in turn reflecting global climate systems will allow us to determine what important short-term ecological changes may take place, such as changes in lake productivity,” said Hampton.</div><div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">“They also help us to forecast consequences of climate variability,” Hampton said.</div><div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">NEWS: Lake Superior May Hit Record Temperature</strong></div><div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The researchers found correlations between the lake and distant parts of the Earth. The results will help scientists understand how distant climate patterns affect the weather in central Asia.</div><div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">For example, they found that changes in Lake Baikal's temperature varied along with monthly El Niño variations in the surface temperature of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles away.</div><div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The researchers also found connections between the jet stream and Lake Baikal. Three months after changes in the jet stream's strength and direction seasonal changes began to occur at the lake. Also, a less powerful jet stream resulted in less extreme cold spells in Lake Baikal.</div><div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Overall they found the lake is warming, but didn't find evidence of early springs or late winters.</div><div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The lake's temperature even reflected decade-scale changes in the Earth's rotation. Changes in the speed of Earth's rotation result in changes in the atmospheric zonal winds, the winds that travel east to west. The zonal winds affect the amount of energy available in the atmoshpere to cause storms in central Asia. And those long-term changes showed up in the Lake Baikal temperature record.</div><div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">All of these forces influence each other and created a complex pattern of climate interactions. Lower El Niño forces correlated with a stronger Siberian high pressure center and a stronger jet stream flow. That resulted in more frequent cold snaps heading southeast across East Asia, including Lake Baikal, and more intense surface winds.</div><div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">But even with the new understanding of climate interactions, some of the temperature changes in Lake Baikal remain unexplained.</div><div><br />
</div></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-18366243275916799052011-03-14T05:18:00.000-07:002011-03-14T05:18:57.718-07:00Global warming may bring tsunami and quakes: scientists<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans;"><span class="focusParagraph"></span></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">- Quakes, volcanic eruptions, giant landslides and tsunamis may become more frequent as global warming changes the earth's crust, scientists said on Wednesday.</div><span id="midArticle_1"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Climate-linked geological changes may also trigger "methane burps," the release of a potent greenhouse gas, currently stored in solid form under melting permafrost and the seabed, in quantities greater than all the carbon dioxide (CO2) in our air today.</div><span id="midArticle_2"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"Climate change doesn't just affect the atmosphere and the oceans but the earth's crust as well. The whole earth is an interactive system," Professor Bill McGuire of University College London told Reuters, at the first major conference of scientists researching the changing climate's effects on geological hazards.</div><span id="midArticle_3"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"In the political community people are almost completely unaware of any geological aspects to climate change."</div><span id="midArticle_4"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The vulcanologists, seismologists, glaciologists, climatologists and landslide experts at the meeting have looked to the past to try to predict future changes, particularly to climate upheaval at the end of the last ice age, some 12,000 years ago.</div><span id="midArticle_5"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"When the ice is lost, the earth's crust bounces back up again and that triggers earthquakes, which trigger submarine landslides, which cause tsunamis," said McGuire, who organized the three-day conference.</div><span id="midArticle_6"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">David Pyle of Oxford University said small changes in the mass of the earth's surface seems to affect volcanic activity in general, not just in places where ice receded after a cold spell. Weather patterns also seem to affect volcanic activity - not just the other way round, he told the conference.</div><span id="midArticle_7"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">LONDON'S ASIAN SUNSET</div><span id="midArticle_8"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Behind him was a slide of a dazzlingly bright orange painting, "London sunset after Krakatau, 1883" - referring to a huge Asian volcanic eruption whose effects were seen and felt around the world.</div><span id="midArticle_9"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Volcanoes can spew vast amounts of ash, sulphur, carbon dioxide and water into the upper atmosphere, reflecting sunlight and sometimes cooling the earth for a couple of years. But too many eruptions, too close together, may have the opposite effect and quicken global warming, said U.S. vulcanologist Peter Ward.</div><span id="midArticle_10"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"Prior to man, the most abrupt climate change was initiated by volcanoes, but now man has taken over. Understanding why and how volcanoes did it will help man figure out what to do," he said.</div><span id="midArticle_11"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Speakers were careful to point out that many findings still amounted only to hypotheses, but said evidence appeared to be mounting that the world could be in for shocks on a vast scale.</div><span id="midArticle_12"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Tony Song of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California warned of the vast power of recently discovered "glacial earthquakes" -- in which glacial ice mass crashes downwards like an enormous landslide.</div><span id="midArticle_13"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">In the West Antarctic, ice piled more than one mile above sea level is being undermined in places by water seeping in underneath.</div><span id="midArticle_14"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"Our experiments show that glacial earthquakes can generate far more powerful tsunamis than undersea earthquakes with similar magnitude," said Song.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: small; line-height: normal;"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"Several high-latitude regions, such as Chile, New Zealand and Canadian Newfoundland are particularly at risk."</div><span id="midArticle_0"></span><div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">He said ice sheets appeared to be disintegrating much more rapidly than thought and said glacial earthquake tsunamis were "low-probability but high-risk."</div><span id="midArticle_1"></span><div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">McGuire said the possible geological hazards were alarming enough, but just one small part of a scary picture if man-made CO2 emissions were not stabilized within around the next five years.</div><span id="midArticle_2"></span><div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"Added to all the rest of the mayhem and chaos, these things would just be the icing on the cake," he said. "Things would be so bad that the odd tsunami or eruption won't make much difference."</div><div><br />
</div><span id="midArticle_3"></span></div></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-41697456097188811062011-03-12T21:21:00.001-08:002011-03-12T21:22:12.414-08:00How Earthquake Happen?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSX1pGpEtASUbmyvH3MuilR27H0GdT1vb7IAq9gIeJxV8S5VBVLbmZ122bWMz593CxHXhZcVdkHTOOe5ROvoYhdlv5bYcAoTHNTCHK-Cqipa6IboBt6ddrVfpR34A3cuX4Zb4SR3dGDvw/s1600/t.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSX1pGpEtASUbmyvH3MuilR27H0GdT1vb7IAq9gIeJxV8S5VBVLbmZ122bWMz593CxHXhZcVdkHTOOe5ROvoYhdlv5bYcAoTHNTCHK-Cqipa6IboBt6ddrVfpR34A3cuX4Zb4SR3dGDvw/s400/t.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
</div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-53400905331614856402011-03-12T21:15:00.001-08:002011-03-12T21:16:11.578-08:00World's largest earthquakes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivxvTUjtiQZ5huahJOUDD8ImmhyphenhyphenPhv_r1slSI3zT-tjJb9c1g5jR93sm-NJUqE-zdZbryHDnbVBeP2cQJwH_X8nbE8MS9COw46Yd-u93hYFlMNji9gAqDAdAA8PEZ-UOmC1cGsp6Qd0Cw/s1600/QUAKE6_CI.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivxvTUjtiQZ5huahJOUDD8ImmhyphenhyphenPhv_r1slSI3zT-tjJb9c1g5jR93sm-NJUqE-zdZbryHDnbVBeP2cQJwH_X8nbE8MS9COw46Yd-u93hYFlMNji9gAqDAdAA8PEZ-UOmC1cGsp6Qd0Cw/s1600/QUAKE6_CI.jpg" /></a></div><br />
</div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-50297070080934824412011-03-12T21:14:00.000-08:002011-03-12T21:14:04.262-08:00How Tsunamis Occur<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDE5_eN5zZ1FA5AJ2CjBReG2KcdgrZE8boNiN_FCmB2i1zCOUVzThI20ctn6558_eTAkv3MlcfarrnFNmooaDsGetnPQf5Sf-2naDsIzYFehEoUR6ZjNX61IrDiQUsDECN67s-cZmf_eU/s1600/QUAKE3_KP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="439" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDE5_eN5zZ1FA5AJ2CjBReG2KcdgrZE8boNiN_FCmB2i1zCOUVzThI20ctn6558_eTAkv3MlcfarrnFNmooaDsGetnPQf5Sf-2naDsIzYFehEoUR6ZjNX61IrDiQUsDECN67s-cZmf_eU/s640/QUAKE3_KP.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
</div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-28850413120703067312011-03-12T04:50:00.003-08:002011-03-12T04:52:57.410-08:00Japan: trying to fix nuclear plant cooling problem<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1" style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">A massive explosion has rocked a Japanese nuclear power plant after Friday's devastating earthquake.</div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">A huge pall of smoke was seen coming from the plant at Fukushima and several workers were injured.</div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Japanese officials say the container housing the reactor was not damaged and that radiation levels have now fallen.</div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">A huge relief operation is under way after the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and the tsunami it triggered, which is thought to have killed at least 1,000.</div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The offshore earthquake triggered a tsunami which wreaked havoc on Japan's north-east coast, sweeping far inland and devastating a number of towns and villages.</div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"></span></div></div><div id="story_continues_2" style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan declared a state of emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini (also known as Fukushima 1 and 2) power plants as engineers try to confirm whether a reactor at one of the stations has gone into meltdown.</div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The emergency declaration is an automatic procedure after nuclear reactors shut down in the event of an earthquake, allowing officials to take rapid action.</div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="cross-head" style="color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.231em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Evacuation zone expanded</span></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Television pictures showed a massive blast at one of the buildings of the Fukushima-Daiichi plant, about 250km (160 miles) north-east of Tokyo.</div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">A huge cloud of smoke billows out and large bits of debris are flung far from the building.</div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Japan's NHK TV showed before and after pictures of the plant. They appeared to show that the outer structure of one of four buildings at the plant had collapsed after the explosion.</div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), the plant's operator, said four workers had been injured.</div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">It is not yet clear in exactly what part of the plant the explosion occurred or what caused it.</div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The Japanese government's chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, said the metal container around the reactor was not damaged in the explosion and that radiation levels in the area had actually decreased after the blast.Officials ordered the evacuation zone around the plant expanded from a 10km radius to 20km. BBC correspondent Nick Ravenscroft said police stopped him 60km from the Fukushima-Daiichi plant.</div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"></span></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Japan's nuclear agency said earlier on Saturday that radioactive caesium and iodine had been detected near the number one reactor of the power station.</span></div></div><div class="caption body-narrow-width" style="clear: both; color: #505050; display: inline; float: right; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 16px; margin-right: -160px; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><img alt="Video grab from NHK TV with before and after images of Fukushima 1 power plant showing damaged building on lower left - 12 March 2011" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51647000/jpg/_51647710_011507498-1.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #505050; cursor: move; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 16px; position: relative;" width="304" /><span style="color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; width: 304px;">Japanese broadcaster NHK screened a before and after image showing the damaged Fukushima plant</span></span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">The agency said this could indicate that containers of uranium fuel inside the reactor may have begun melting.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Air and steam, with some level of radioactivity, was earlier released from several of the reactors at both plants in an effort to relieve the huge amount of pressure building up inside.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Mr Kan said the amount of radiation released was "tiny".</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><span class="cross-head" style="color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.231em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Cooling system failure</span></span></span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Nuclear reactors at four power plants in the earthquake-struck zone automatically shut down on Friday.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">In several of the reactors at the two Fukushima plants the cooling systems, which should keep operating on emergency power supplies, failed.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Without cooling, the temperature in the reactor core builds, with the risk that it could melt through its container into the building housing the system.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Pressure also builds in the containers housing the reactor.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Tepco said it was pumping water into the Fukushima-Daiichi's number one reactor in a bid to cool it down.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">The reactors the plant are Boiling Water Reactors (BWR), one of the most commonly used designs, and widely used throughout Japan's array of nuclear power stations.</span></div></div><div class="story-feature wide " style="clear: right; color: #505050; display: inline; float: right; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 16px; margin-right: -160px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; position: relative; width: 304px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12720219#story_continues_3" style="color: #1f4f82; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; left: -5000px; line-height: 16px; position: absolute; text-decoration: none; top: -5000px;">Continue reading the main story</a></span></div><div class="caption body-narrow-width" style="clear: both; color: #505050; display: block; float: none; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><img alt="Map" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51642000/gif/_51642884_japan_quake304x171.gif" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #505050; cursor: move; display: block; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 17px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: -9px; position: relative;" width="304" /></span></div></div><ul class="links-list" style="border-top-color: rgb(216, 216, 216); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; clear: both; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 7px;"><li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12716870" style="color: #1f4f82; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none;">Japan quake: video reports</a></span></li>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/05/nuclear_fuel/html/reactor.stm" style="color: #1f4f82; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none;">How nuclear reactors work</a></li>
<li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12715415" style="color: #1f4f82; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none;">Quake: Wave forecast map</a></li>
</span></ul></div><div id="story_continues_3" style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Analysts say a meltdown would not necessarily lead to a major disaster because light-water reactors would not explode even if they overheated.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">But Walt Patterson, of the London research institute Chatham House, said "this is starting to look a lot like Chernobyl".</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">He said it was too early to tell if the explosion's aftermath would result in the same extreme level of radioactive contamination that occurred at Chernobyl.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">The explosion was most likely caused by melting fuel coming into contact with water, he told the BBC.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">The 8.9-magnitude tremor struck in the afternoon local time on Friday off the coast of Honshu island at a depth of about 24km, 400km (250 miles) north-east of Tokyo.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">It was nearly 8,000 times stronger than last month's quake in New Zealand that devastated the city of Christchurch, scientists said.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Some of the same search and rescue teams from around the world that helped in that disaster are now on their way to Japan.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">As relief workers begin to reach the earthquake zone, the scale of the damage is being revealed.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">One of the worst-hit areas was the port city of Sendai, in Miyagi prefecture, where police said between 200 and 300 bodies were found in one ward alone.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">The town of Rikuzentakada, in Iwate prefecture, was reported as largely destroyed and almost completely submerged. NHK reported that soldiers had found 300-400 bodies there.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Chief government spokesman Yukio Edano said it was believed that more than 1,000 people had died.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">A local official in the town of Futuba, in Fukushima prefecture, said more than 90% of the houses in three coastal communities had been washed away by the tsunami.</span></div></div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Looking from the fourth floor of the town hall, I see no houses standing,'' Kyodo news agency quoted him as saying.</span></div></div><div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8394139107620732254.post-61378071125693135712011-03-12T04:38:00.001-08:002011-03-12T04:38:37.596-08:00Tropical forests 're-shaped' by climate changes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"></span><br />
<div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1" style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">Future climate change could change the profile of tropical forests, with possible consequences for carbon storage and biodiversity, a study says.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">It suggests that if current trends continued, the drier conditions would favour deciduous, canopy species at the expense of other trees.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">US researchers based their findings on the changes they recorded in a Costa Rican forest over a 20-year period.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">The team's paper has been <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2010.02326.x/abstract" style="color: #1f4f82; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none;">published in the journal Global Change Biology</a>.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">"It is important because - depending on the rate of change, and the type of species that are found in the forests - it will influence a lot of ecosystem services and processes," explained co-author Brian Enquist from the University of Arizona.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">"For example, we need to know how much carbon tropical forests are storing, and will store in the future. We also need to know how much CO2 they are taking out of the air."</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">Professor Enquist and his team examined how an area of forest had changed between 1976 and 1996.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">"We were fortunate that between the two dates, there was a series of quite impressive droughts - those droughts have been increasing in severity over the longer term," he told BBC News.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">He said that there had been a "tremendous reduction" in the total number of trees in the forest.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">"Most of that reduction was in the smallest trees - such as the saplings and the smaller trees in the understorey," Professor Enquist observed.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">"That was the first change that we immediately noticed, but then we began to look very closely and asked what was causing those trees to die.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">"What we found was that there was a very distinctive signal in the types of trees that tended to survive and the types of trees that died - it came down to basic differences on how these trees functioned and worked.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">"We found that those species that tended to require more moist conditions were the ones that dropped out very quickly, and those that were able to handle more drought-like conditions persisted."</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">Professor Enquist said the species that favoured such conditions were deciduous, canopy trees, and if the trend of drier conditions continued into the future then it would change the characteristics of tropical forests.</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">"The ecosystem implication is that those types of forests (dominated by deciduous, canopy species) tend to store less carbon and hold less biomass, which would then have a detrimental impact in terms of the entire biosphere's ability to help regulate or mitigate the effects of global climate change."</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">He said the study's findings, when combined with other results from other similar projects, created a picture of tropical forests that were changing "rather quickly".</div><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">Professor Enquist added that these forests appeared to be quite suseptible to changes in rainfall, and that future projections of changes in rainfall patterns were likely to have "immediate or very quick consequences".</div></div>anandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06156952491842928092noreply@blogger.com0