but it claims to be the first to demonstrate how its technology can be scaled up to have both an actual environmental impact and commercial potential.
-because there are existing machines that do this pretty well-the Carbon Engineering'direct air capture plant'will deal with everyday carbon emissions from buildings, transportation, and agriculture."
"Normal cooling systems use chlorofluorocarbon chemicals that destroy the ozone layer and contribute to greenhouse gases, ours is friendly to the environment,
and has extremely low carbon emissions.""This means we have demonstrated the most important step toward a hydrogen economy--producing distributed and affordable green hydrogen from local biomass resources,
and causes fossil carbon emissions. To produce distributed hydrogen at affordable costs product yield, reaction rate,
#Researchers test smartphones for earthquake warning The study, led by scientists at the U s. Geological Survey
and similar devices could be used to build earthquake warning systems. Despite being less accurate than scientific-grade equipment,
the GPS (Global positioning system) receivers in a smartphone can detect the permanent ground movement (displacement) caused by fault motion in a large earthquake.
earthquakes could be detected and analyzed, and customized earthquake warnings could be transmitted back to users.""Crowd-sourced alerting means that the community will benefit by data generated from the community,
"said Sarah Minson, USGS geophysicist and lead author of the study. Minson was a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech
Earthquake early warning systems detect the start of an earthquake and rapidly transmit warnings to people and automated systems before they experience shaking at their location.
While much of the world's population is susceptible to damaging earthquakes, EEW systems are currently operating in only a few regions around the globe,
"Most of the world does not receive earthquake warnings mainly due to the cost of building the necessary scientific monitoring networks,
Researchers tested the feasibility of crowd-sourced EEW with a simulation of a hypothetical magnitude 7 earthquake,
and with real data from the 2011 magnitude 9 Tohoku-oki, Japan earthquake. The results show that crowd-sourced EEW could be achieved with only a tiny percentage of people in a given area contributing information from their smartphones.
the earthquake could be detected and analyzed fast enough to issue a warning to areas farther away before the onset of strong shaking."
"The speed of an electronic warning travels faster than the earthquake shaking does explained Craig Glennie, a report author and professor at the University of Houston.
and similar devices could be used to issue earthquake warnings for earthquakes of approximately magnitude 7 or larger,
but not for smaller, yet potentially damaging earthquakes. Comprehensive EEW requires a dense network of scientific instruments.
will be able to help minimize the impact of earthquakes over a wide range of magnitudes.
"The U s. earthquake early warning system is being built on our high-quality scientific earthquake networks, but crowd-sourced approaches can augment our system
Douglas Given, USGS coordinator of the Shakealert Earthquake Early warning system. The U s. Agency for International Development has agreed already to fund a pilot project, in collaboration with the Chilean Centro Sismologico Nacional,
to test a pilot hybrid earthquake warning system comprising stand-alone smartphone sensors and scientific-grade sensors along the Chilean coast."
"Thirty years ago it took months to assemble a crude picture of the deformations from an earthquake.
but for larger earthquakes that cause large shifts in the ground surface, they contain enough information to detect that an earthquake has occurred,
#Major advance in artificial photosynthesis poses win/win for the environment A potentially game-changing breakthrough in artificial photosynthesis has been achieved with the development of a system that can capture carbon dioxide emissions before they are vented into the atmosphere
as well as organic and inorganic pollutants.""The methodology is founded on molecularly dissociating water pollutants to recover the minerals necessary and sufficient in order for the human body to function properly nourished,
"technical staff explained. Notably, the engineers developed eight dissociating elements, and after extensive testing on different types of contaminated water, implemented a unique methodology that indicates
what and how much of each element should be combined.""During the purification process no gases, odors nor toxic elements that may damage
and as a catalyst for removing pollutants from vehicular emissions or other industrial byproducts, Zeng said.
but also represents a significant reduction of CO2 EMISSIONS compared to the direct application of manure waste on soils.
However, its high-volume production and the generation of environmental problems (eutrophication and pollution of groundwater due to its high concentration of nutrients
Pyrolysis of manure waste can drastically reduce CO2 EMISSIONS compared to the direct application of manure waste to soils.
and even alleviates environmental concerns. In three years, Erdemir and his team took an abstract concept
Paulino sees particular potential for quick-assembling emergency shelters, bridges and other infrastructure in the wake of a natural disaster."
Fuel suppliers are required also to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of the EU fuel mix by 6 per cent by 2020 in comparison to 2010.
and seriously improve the quality of life by reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuels and encourage efficient use of resources."
Starstream was able to remove biological contamination, including brain tissue from surgical steel. Cleaning instruments between patients is critical to avoid transmission of agents leading to conditions such as Creutzfeldt-jakob disease.
Once in the aquifers, they can build up for years because of their low biodegradability, posing a threat due to their high toxicity.
and more suited to climate change in order to feed Earth's increasing population. Currently European union GMO regulations don't allow for food with added DNA.
in collaboration with a nonprofit organisation, has designed a book with silver-impregnated pages that can be used to filter contaminated water.
which are not only hazards and pollutants, but also very expensive and inconvenient to refill. Hoping to provide a solution, SALT IS an efficient,
#The Brazilian deforestation puzzle Brazil rate of deforestation went down dramatically over the last ten years.
the decade-long decrease in deforestation. What was behind that? One possible reason, advanced by ecologist Philip Fearnside in an interview on Yale 360,
which was in the opposite direction of increasing deforestation. Both economic circumstances and the drivers of deforestation vary from place to place,
but it not obvious why the Brazil living in the same world economy as Peru,
Bolivia, and other countries with tropical forest should have responded to global economic changes with a big dip in deforestation
while the deforestation in the other countries grew sharply. Also, deforestation decreases in different Brazilian states weren lockstep,
which also suggests the possibility that uniform national forces applying to the whole country may not be the complete explanation.
when deforestation was falling. The other plausible cause involves Brazil forest policy. Brazil adopted a number of anti-deforestation measures,
including increased enforcement. In a particularly interesting move the government used its controls of state banks to deter agriculture
These policies are being studied carefully in other countries with deforestation problems. It frustrating that we don have better empirical analysis of the role of policy
Satellite evidence suggests that deforestation has doubled in the past year. The government has confirmed this shift. The reasons for this change are also unclear.
which may have made profits from deforestation more appealing compared to the alternatives. There an oddity about where deforestation is increasing.
In 2013, deforestation in Pará was about as great as in Rondônia and Mato grosso combined.
see this chart. But in 2014, each of those state had more deforestation than Pará (see here.
There seem to be two possible explanations. One is that the drivers of deforestation in those states are much different,
so countrywide economic or legal changes have very different effects in each state. Mato grosso, for example, is a far bigger soybean producer than the other two states.
along with national policy, in the earlier decrease in deforestation, so maybe changes at those levels are part of the current increase.
The most obvious explanation for the overall trends is the change in national policy first to sharply restrict deforestation,
we can only hope that Brazil gets back on track in its efforts to control deforestation
#Major Advance in Artificial Photosynthesis Poses Win/Win for the Environment A potentially game-changing breakthrough in artificial photosynthesis has been achieved with the development of a system that can capture carbon dioxide emissions before they are vented into the atmosphere
diseases and higher temperatures and droughts expected to accompany climate change. Cotton growers have experienced a plateau in yields since the early 1990s
and breeders in the years ahead develop cotton varieties with improved fiber qualities, higher yields and more tolerance to heat, drought and diseases anticipated due to climate change.
#The Quake that Shook Mt everest The earthquake, which wreaked havoc in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal on Saturday about noon local time,
The large quake triggered a major avalanche on the south slopes of Mt everest which devastated the base camp,
More than a dozen people are feared to have died in the avalanche. Mt everest lies 140 miles east of the epicenter.
The earthquake caused huge cracks to open in the streets of Kathmandu. The Nepalese capital lies in a sediment filled basin,
Calculations by all major earthquake monitoring agencies in the US and Europe put the depth between 7 and 10 miles.
During the shaking of an earthquake such sedimentary basins tend to amplify the ground motion
The worst historic effect of this kind led to the huge destruction in Mexico city during an earthquake in 1985.
The cause for Saturdays earthquake is the northward movement of the Indian Plate. It crawls with a speed of about 2 inches per year, roughly the same rate with which the Pacific Plate slides past North american in our area.
This plate collision also causes some of the most devastating earthquakes in the world. In the last 125 years, this eastern section of the Himalayan Front alone has seen at least three quakes of magnitude 8 or greater.
The report they published one year later on the likely earthquake scenario makes very eerie reading,
The speckle illumination method is surface-specific and robust to environmental noise. The new high-resolution imaging method, called Speckle Correlation Resolution Enhancement (SCORE) is reported in the Optical Society (OSA) new high-impact journal Optica
#Nepal earthquake on the radar Radar imagery from the Sentinel-1a satellite shows that the maximum land deformation is only 17 km from Nepal capital, Kathmandu,
Combining two Sentinel-1a radar scans from 17 and 29 april 2015, this interferogram shows changes on the ground that occurred during the 25 april earthquake that struck Nepal.
this interferogram shows changes on the ground that occurred during the 25 april earthquake that struck Nepal.
Products ensuring a full coverage of the affected area prior to the earthquake were available to all scientists under the Copernicus free and open data policy,
Interferogram over Kathmandu, Nepal, generated from two Sentinel-1a scans on 17 and 29 april 2015 before and after the 25 april earthquake.
Nepal generated from two Sentinel-1a scans on 17 and 29 april 2015 before and after the 25 april earthquake.
Sentinel-1a interferogram over Kathmandu, Nepal, showing deformation induced by the 25 april 2015 earthquake. Eastest ringescross the city, with each coloured fringe corresponding to 2. 8 cm of ground displacement (both uplift and subsidence.
showing deformation induced by the 25 april 2015 earthquake. Eastest ringescross the city, with each coloured fringe corresponding to 2. 8 cm of ground displacement (both uplift and subsidence.
Contains Copernicus data (2015)/ R. Grandin/IPGP/CNRS The Copernicus EMS was activated on the day the earthquake struck,
and in 2016, new rules will enter into force that will restrict emissions of nox in specific areas.
with sudden weather changes and other variables impacting projections minute by minute. Errors can have grave repercussions, from blackouts to high market costs.
The findings could also lead to new applications in environmental monitoring using genetically engineered microbes to issue warning signals in the presence of pollutants
Cima says. excited about using these sensors to bring big data to environmental monitoring
#Researchers discover cancer markers may be visible early during human development Researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute have uncovered a link between the genomes of cells originating in the neural crest
an essential step to understanding the future of the world largest glaciers as climate changes. The brown water that can be seen at the top of the picture is the subglacial discharge,
while trying to study earthquakes caused by iceberg calving when large chunks of ice break off glaciers.
Bartholomaus said the ability to identify these earthquakes, known as icequakes, varied over the season, and that they were much more difficult to detect during summer
and it uncertain whether changing their shape would make them more adaptable to changing environments. Evolutionary robotics is a growing field
biodegradability. The researchers built a nanogenerator using a flexible, biocompatible polymer film made out of polyvinylidene fluoride, or PVDF.
heat waves Droughts and heat waves are happening simultaneously with much greater frequency than in the past, according to research by climate experts at the University of California, Irvine.
While the researchers did not look into human-caused global climate change in this study Agha Kouchak said, an overall increase in the mean temperature worldwide is raising the probability of heat waves.
or perhaps locations suffering natural disasters, Styczynski explained. hese deficiencies aren treated on an individual level, but are considered on a population level
The so-called Cosgrove track was found to be nearly three times the length of the famous Yellowstone hotspot track in the United states. Most volcanoes are found along the edge of tectonic plates,
the rate at which the patch biodegrades can be slowed or accelerated depending on how quickly the surrounding tissue grows over it.
or improve industry methods related to the discharge of pollutants or oil flow in pipelines. Climate change/Environmental sciences:
Modeling atmospheric aerosols, identified as influencing the chemical composition and radiative balance of the troposphere,
Keys to hazard management for major earthquakes, hurricanes, and wildfires include the ability to predict a wide range of possibilities.
and desalination plants. Now, for the first time, researchers at MIT have found a way to control this process, literally with the flick of an electrical switch.
Those entities then would distribute the tablets to developing countries as needed, particularly during times of crises such as after a natural disaster.
#Deep-sea bacteria could help neutralize greenhouse gas, researchers find A type of bacteria plucked from the bottom of the ocean could be put to work neutralizing large amounts of industrial carbon dioxide in the Earth atmosphere,
converting the greenhouse gas into bicarbonate. The bicarbonate can then be processed further into products such as baking soda and chalk.
as well as improving communication during natural disasters, by next year. Basically, the balloons will be maneuvered by adjusting their altitude to float to a wind layer with the desired speed
we can start to investigate how galaxies evolved in these extreme environments, said Gonzalez n
#Breeding higher yielding crops by increasing sugar import into seeds Once a mother plant releases its embryos to the outside world,
delegates to the UN climate change convention annual negotiations will gather in Paris to try to conclude an ambitious and effective agreement on preventing the global average temperature rise caused by greenhouse gas emissions exceeding 2c above its preindustrial level.
or the detection of a volcanic eruption from a distance. nfrasound is the range of sound
a new study has shown that office climate control systems are giving women the cold shoulder. Many office air-conditioning systems are locked down to avoid arguments about how hot
according to a paper published in Nature climate change specifically it's male only. In general women like the temperature a little hotter than men 25°C (77°F) verses 22°C (72°F) respectively.
protecting buildings against earthquakes and floods. Here's the video we shot of the original Hendo hoverboard e
#China will make companies pay to pollute from 2017 China is committing to a new program designed to combat the country's pollution levels by setting limits on,
and charging companies for their greenhouse gas emissions, The New york times reports. The cap-and-trade system, which is due to come into effect in 2017,
Under the agreement, China's government will place a cap on annual carbon emissions, forcing any firms that go over that limit to buy permits allowing them to do so.
The country is the world's largest polluter, but has worked in recent years to curb its carbon emissions,
introducing cap-and-trade schemes in seven provinces in 2012 as trials for the nationwide program.
The inability of the president to produce coherent and strict policies on climate change at home contributed to a stalemate between the US and China on the issue,
but sources in the government say that Obama's new regulations on carbon emissions, detailed in August, helped break the deadlock.
China's new program makes it easier for the United states to enact its own climate change regulations.
Republicans and climate change deniers have used long China as the counterweight in their arguments, fighting against any restrictive US policies with the specter of a huge economic power unburdened by controls on emissions,
Now that power is introducing its own tight controls on carbon emissions, President Obama should have more leeway on the topic,
and more license to curb the United states'own pollution levels
#Genentech drug adds antibiotics to proteins to fight hidden bacteria Scientists at Genentech have armed the body immune system warriors with antibiotics
#A new material made from orange peels could remove mercury pollution from the ocean Since the Industrial revolution,
There have been ideas for ways to remove mercury pollution, but none have been cost-effective or able to scale up to a global solution.
and it safely stores the pollutants until it can be removed. The team's findings will be published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition
and energy saving desalination technology Researchers at the Alexandria University in Egypt have developed a new desalination technology that can produce potable water at reduced energy.
Titled as'Desalination of simulated seawater by purge-air pervaporation using an innovative fabricated membrane,
"Using pervaporation eliminates the need for electricity that is used in classic desalination processes, thus cutting costs significantly."
The research team from Egypt is also working on a pilot desalination unit for testing the method on a larger scale e
Hard sciencethe high degree of difficulty and expertise required means that relatively few climate scientists have been able to base their research on accurate models of historical precipitation.
New tool for climate change modelsfor example Shen referenced a region in the middle of the Pacific ocean that sometimes glows bright red on the computer model indicating extreme dryness
Shen hopes that its ease of use will encourage climate scientists to incorporate this historical data into their own models improving our future predictions of climate change.
and avoid 1800 million metric tons of carbon emission. White LED bulbs are already on store shelves
and measured how microbes in the seafloor sediments consume the greenhouse gas methane as part of understanding how the Earth works.
and contributing to greenhouse gas accumulation. As a byproduct of this process the microbes create a type of rock known as authigenic carbonate
because it is unrecognized an sink for a potentially very important greenhouse gas. We found that these carbonate rocks located in areas of active methane seeps are themselves more active Thurber said.
Renne is continuing his collaboration with the Italian-French team to correlate the lake record with past climate change.
With additional observations we can begin to understand the behavior in this extreme environment. While no scientific team has been able to produce a complete image of the black hole's emission astronomers have drawn inferences about scattering properties from observations at longer wavelengths.
which holds excellent potential for a lighting device with low power consumption said Norihiro Shimoi the lead researcher and an associate professor of environmental studies at the Tohoku University.
and reduce carbon dioxide emissions on the earth Shimoi said. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Institute of Physics (AIP.
when evaluating areas of potential pollution from nutrients. Research scientist Natalia Kuosmanen at MTT Agrifood Research Finland says defining sustainability quantitatively is challenging due to variety of meanings attached to this commonly used concept.
According to the research study published in Nature Communications today the Sun affects middle atmosphere ozone with potential implications on smaller scale to regional but not global climate.
Humankind is responsible for the global warming of our climate by increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
This climate variability is not a trend like climate change but rather year-to-year fluctuations following solar activity.
Fuel cell systems represent a promising alternative for low carbon emission energy production. Traditional fuel cells are limited however by the need of efficient catalysts to drive the chemical reactions involved in the fuel cell.
#Balancing renewable energy costs and optimizing energy mix Increasing reliance on renewable energies is the way to achieve greater CO2 EMISSION sustainability and energy independence.
#Plasmonic paper for detecting trace amounts of chemicals, pollutants and more Using a common laboratory filter paper decorated with gold nanoparticles,
"for detecting and characterizing even trace amounts of chemicals and biologically important molecules-from explosives, chemical warfare agents and environmental pollutants to disease markers.
including homeland security, forensics and environmental monitoring, and medical diagnostic applications.""For example, Tian noted, the plasmonic paper can be used to detect target molecules that serve as indicators for diseases such as kidney cancer."
and climate change remodel river ecosystems, it is no longer easy to define what is"natural"for river systems.
when they consume contaminated water or undercooked shellfish. Puzzled by the high rate of T. gondii infection in sea otters and other marine mammals the researchers set out to track the route of transmission.
and to lower environmental impact since this fertilizing system represents an alternative to the mineral fertilizers used so far.
#Artificial membranes on silicon Artificial membranes mimicking those found in living organisms have many potential applications ranging from detecting bacterial contaminants in food to toxic pollution in the environment to dangerous diseases in people.
and sequester carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas. The project is part of the Gates Foundation's Reinvent the Toilet Challenge an effort to develop a next-generation toilet that can be used to disinfect liquid and solid waste
greater compared to the most prevalent greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide over a 100-year period. For these reasons, methane and nitrous oxide detection is crucial to environmental considerations."
the Rice team installed it on a mobile laboratory used during NASA's DISCOVER-AQ campaign, which analyzed pollution on the ground and from the air last September.
"Tittel said smaller QEPAS device will be added this year to the mobile monitoring van currently carrying out a Rice university of Houston survey of pollutants in the city.
An earthquake and a caterpillarin general, the researchers found that when atoms in the ion crystal were spaced regularly,
as the atoms collectively jump to the next trough. t like an earthquake, Vuletic says. here force building up,
#Safe drinking water Via Solar power Desalination Natasha Wright, an MIT Phd student in mechanical engineering, has designed a solar powered system that makes water safe to drink for rural, off-grid Indian villages.
Wright began designing an electrodialysis desalination system, which uses a difference in electric potential to pull salt out of water.
This type of desalination system has been around since the 1950s, but is used typically only municipally, to justify its costs.
While other companies are already installing desalination systems across India, their designs are intended to be powered grid.
She designed a village-scale desalination system that runs on solar power. Since her system is powered by the sun,
But some ranchers find that even their livestock won tolerate the saltiness of this water. t useful to install a small-scale desalination system where people are
or to detect environmental pollutants and food conditions, says Jie Bao, a former MIT postdoc and the lead author of a paper describing the quantum dot spectrometers in the July 2 issue of Nature.
#Nanoparticles and UV LIGHT Clean up Environmental Pollutants A new study from MIT shows how nanoparticles can clean up environmental pollutants,
Many human-made pollutants in the environment resist degradation through natural processes, and disrupt hormonal and other systems in mammals and other animals.
Brandl says. hen we came up with the idea to use our particles to remove toxic chemicals, pollutants,
in a solution hydrophobic pollutant molecules move toward the hydrophobic nanoparticles, and adsorb onto their surface,
and now nrichedby the pollutants they form larger aggregates that can then be removed through filtration, sedimentation,
and molecules. he interactions we exploit to remove the pollutants are nonspecific, Brandl says. e can remove hormones, BPA,
and we can do this in one step. nd the nanoparticleshigh surface-area-to-volume ratio means that only a small amount is needed to remove a relatively large quantity of pollutants.
thus offer potential for the cost-effective cleanup of contaminated water and soil on a wider scale. rom the applied perspective,
as another example of a persistent pollutant that could potentially be remediated using these nanomaterials. nd for analytical applications where you don need as much volume to purify or concentrate,
anoparticles with photoinduced precipitation for the extraction of pollutants from water and soil, Nature Communications 6, Article number:
and reduces the environmental impact of its own operations as well as its customers. That investment has paid off.
Environmental concerns posed by fracking like the release of methane and groundwater contamination have escalated with the advent of the natural gas boom in the U s. The huge amount of water used in fracking has become a particularly touchy subject in drought-ridden areas where some 55 percent of the wells fracked
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011