and other toxic chemicals, including diethylene glycol and N-nitrosamines (A d. Flouris and D. N. Oikonomou Br.
in part because the chemicals in e-cigarettes vary so widely. Some countries, such as Norway and Brazil, have banned the products.
agricultural land is responsible for about 14%of the world s greenhouse-gas emissions, slightly more than the global contribution from planes, trains and automobiles.
On 13 september, researchers announced that they have bred a tropical pasture grass that can significantly suppress greenhouse-gas emissions.
this positively charged ion stays put in the soil, sticking to negatively charged clay particles. But then nitrifying soil bacteria go to work,
wreaking environmental havoc. They convert ammonium to nitrate (NO3 Ë), which washes into ponds and causes ecologically harmful algae blooms.
Nitrate can also be converted to nitrous oxide (N2o) gas, which warms the planet 300 times more powerfully than carbon dioxide.
Farmers can buy synthetic nitrification inhibitors such as dicyandiamide, but these are not ideal. The chemicals can be washed away,
and it would be impossible to target them to where they are needed most where grazing animals have left urine
After years of hunting, they identified a nitrification inhibitor secreted by the grass s roots.
Peters says that they have doubled the release of nitrification inhibitors and are now checking that this has decreased not the overall productivity of the grass.
He has used Fermi to discover two galaxy-sized bubbles of ionized gas blowing from the centre of the Milky way,
would enhance carbon storage and reduce the risk of the catastrophic fires that threaten lives and property,
and pour carbon into the atmosphere. That these reasons hold little water with the protesters highlights an emerging fissure among environmentalists and ecologists.
Farmers dig into soil qualityefforts to bring chemical fertilizers to Sub-saharan africa are met often with concerns over harmful environmental and economic side effects.
Rapid soil-fertility assessment, a new spectroscopy technique used to analyse samples and produce site-specific soil maps for farmers,
Widespread use of chemical fertilizer has increased greatly food sufficiency in many countries, for example in China and India,
but the ecological and health effects of fertilizer chemicals raise serious concerns. China in particular, is facing a major pollution problem from overuse of nitrogen fertilizer,
Field trials to assess the ecological efficiency of organic and chemical fertilizers in different geographic and climatic settings are under way in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda and Tanzania.
To help, researchers at CIAT developed the spectroscopy technique, which uses mid-infrared light, to precisely determine the mineral properties, nutrient content and organic chemistry of sub-Saharan soils.
Although still in its infancy, the technology could one day be used to evaluate and map the yield potential of soils across the region information that would then be relayed to farmers."
Advances in soil spectroscopy are"very promising, he adds, and spectral ana  lysis is on the agenda of a special FAO workshop on soil monitoring in Rome this December.
"Its use produces greenhouse gases and it ruins soil fertility rather than improving it. He points out that many smallholders in Sub-saharan africa can scarcely afford to buy mineral fertilizers anyway.
Most agricultural scientists acknowledge that applying only chemical fertilizers is not the solution to Africa s yield problem.
A study in New zealand now shows that the chemical can also change how native and invasive ants interact.
But he suggests that the chemicals could be used to counter The argentine ant invasion. Because they reduced the invaders'brood size,
Congo carbon plan kicks offthe data will also enhance scientists understanding of tropical forests role in global climate regulation."
who has mapped already out carbon across the world s tropics, but at relatively low resolution of 1 kilometre.
His calculations suggest that the DRC s forests contain 22 billion to 24 Â billion tonnes of carbon,
equivalent to more than double the greenhouse gases emitted last year. But the measurements need to be more precise,
to produce a measure of carbon for all 155 million hectares of jungle.""We have limited only areas where it s safe to land.
and in the past few years Peru has mapped the carbon in its part of the Amazon (see Nature 461,1048-1052;
) Brazil has made less-detailed assessments of forest carbon, but its system for monitoring deforestation is the world s most advanced.
and ultimately to verify reductions in such losses and sell carbon offsets. Matthew Hansen, a remote-sensing scientist at the University of Maryland in College Park who works with forest mappers in Kinshasa, says that the DRC project faces hurdles.
the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology today fulfilled its threat to retract a controversial paper claiming that a genetically modified (GM) maize causes serious disease in rats,
The paper, from a research group led by Gilles-Eric SÃ ralini, a molecular biologist at the University of Caen, France,
who previously worked for biotechnology giant Monsanto for seven years.""The magazine reviewed our paper more than any other,
Food and Chemical Toxicology asked me to become an associate editor in January 2013 because of my extensive experience in the area,
The study found that rats fed for two years with Monsanto s glyphosate-resistant NK603 maize (corn) developed many more tumours
says Sun. One of these induces trees to release large amounts of the compound 3-carene a strong attractant to the beetles that is not released in response to the north American fungal variant.
that also includes the use of other chemical attractants and pesticides, and efforts to replace single-species forests with a mix of plants.
The test cloud was created on 30 Â October by spraying particles collected from Iceland s Eyjafjallajã kull volcano into the air off the west coast of France (see Nature 502,422-423;
and will explore how atoms escape from the Martian atmosphere. MAVEN should reach its destination next September;
) Japan emissions Japan has scaled back its commitment to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, according to news reports on 15 Â November.
Franklin Orrus energy nominees Chemical engineer Franklin Orr (pictured) has been tapped by US President Barack Obama to serve as the undersecretary for science at the Department of energy.
But potentially bioactive molecules described in research journals are still rising, according to a data-mining study of molecular structures in more than 140,000 journal articles and patents (C.  Southan et  al.
Our chemical ecology group which is led by chemist John Pickett is world leading. The idea of introducing aphid alarm pheromones into wheat to protect it against aphid attack that comes out of that group.
The other area that is outstanding is the lipid-biochemistry work of Johnathan Napier. His group has done fantastic fundamental work in plant lipid biochemistry.
One of the key outcomes has been to develop terrestrial oilseeds that produce fish oils. We ve mobilized the genes from algae that make some of these oils and put them into oilseed crops.
8 14 november 2013greenhouse gases Atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations reached a record high in 2012. According to a 6 Â November report by the World meteorological organization (WMO) in Geneva, Switzerland, carbon dioxide levels climbed last year to an average 393.1 parts per million (p. p m.)141%above preindustrial levels.
Long-lived greenhouse gases including CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons rose collectively by 2. 6 Â p. p m. to an equivalent CO2 concentration of 475.6 Â p. p m..The observations come from the WMO s global monitoring network,
the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed eliminating most artificial trans-fats forms of fat associated with increased heart risk from processed foods.
The agency issued a preliminary determination that trans-fats in the form of partially hydrogenated oils should no longer be recognized"generally as safe,
The two world wars, the Great depression and a 1987 international treaty on ozone-depleting chemicals put a surprising dent in the rate at
as well as trends in emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCS) ozone-depleting substances that also trap heat in the atmosphere between 1880 and 2010.
They found that changes in warming coincided with human-initiated adjustments in greenhouse-gas emissions.
But Estrada and his colleagues found that it folllowed a reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions associated with economic downturns
The heat-trapping effect of long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has grown by nearly one-third between 1990 and 2012.
which aimed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. CO2 remains still the main cause of global warming, says Estrada.
But the effects of the Montreal Protocol on climate show that a similar international agreement could be effective against some of the other secondary greenhouse gases,
 In an earlier study, Sun and his team found that a chemical compound produced by beetle pupae,
Keith Adams, a plant molecular geneticist at the University of British columbia in Vancouver, Canada, thinks the idea that a genome duplication helped flowering plants to diversify is"an intriguing hypothesis
in that carbon locked in soils and plants on former agricultural land might be released into the atmosphere.
Schierhorn s study estimates, using vegetation modelling, that 470 million tonnes of carbon which would equate to about one-third of US CO2 emissions in 2012
and Ukraine (see Carbon goes wild). SOURCE: F. Schierhorn et al. Glob Biogeochem. Cycles http://doi. org/qg8 (2013) Wild vegetation is taking up carbon at a rate three times greater than previously estimated by some researchers,
and the sink could become even more substantial as forests form, the team reports. Abandoned land, says Schierhorn,
accounts for about one-third of the carbon sink provided by all forests in western Russia.
In a 2008 study, he and his team calculated a carbon sink of about 8 million tonnes per year in abandoned cropland in Ukraine
)" The strength of a carbon sink depends not only on current biological activity but also on former crop management practices such as fertilizer use, says Vuichard.
Monsanto s Droughtgard maize, which expresses a stress-response gene from bacteria. Although symbiotic plant-microbe relationships such as those of the nitrogen-fixing bacteria that live in the roots of legumes have been known for many decades,
"A lot of companies don t think this way they go for chemical control. They think the microbes get in the way,
"The endophytes somehow protect the plants from oxidation, so the plants don t turn up all their stress defences,
The researchers calculated the human trophic level for 176 countries for each year from 1961 to 2009 using a data on 102 types of food from animal fat to yams compiled by the Food and agriculture organization (FAO) of the United nations. Ref. 1globally,
Over 50 years, an increase in fat and meat consumption has moved us further up the food web
the environmental impact of producing meat in terms of everything from carbon emissions to water use is typically many times larger than that of producing vegetable foods.
Furthermore, a 2006 FAO study2 found that the livestock industry is directly or indirectly responsible for 18%of global greenhouse-gas emissions a larger share than all modes of transport combined."
The package also includes recommendations for managing shale-gas extraction by fracking, but not the binding environmental regulation that had been under consideration.
Antihydrogen made Physicists have produced a stream of antihydrogen atoms for the first time. Members of the Atomic Spectroscopy And Collisions Using Slow Antiprotons experiment at CERN,
Europe s high-energy physics laboratory near Geneva in Switzerland, reported on 21 Â January detecting 80 of the antiatoms 2. 7 Â metres from their source (N. Â Kuroda
and trap the particles, they can characterize small differences between antihydrogen and hydrogen. These differences could help to explain why the Universe contains more matter than antimatter.
Chemical treatment could cut cost of biofuela mild chemical treatment that completely dissolves wood, dried grasses and other indigestible plant matter could greatly improve the efficiency of converting waste biomass to fuel.
Other academic and industrial scientists say that the chemical treatment is promising, but that it is too early to tell
mild chemicals known as ionic liquids can do the trick, as can harsh acids. But ionic liquids are generally expensive to make,
the more kilos of carbon it puts on each year.""The trees that are adding the most mass are the biggest ones,
and their gradual move towards a plateau in the amount of carbon they store as they reach maturity2.
whereas earlier studies had looked typically at the overall carbon stored in a plot. Estimating absolute growth for any tree remains problematic,
the rate of carbon accumulation depends on how fast old forests turn over.""It s the geometric reality of tree growth:
or providing old-growth habitat and increasing carbon stocks. More broadly the research could help scientists to develop better models of how forests function
10 16 january 2014industrial blast An explosion at a chemical plant in Japan on 9 Â January killed 5 and injured 12.
while workers cleaned a tank used to cool gas during the manufacture of silicon. The company is still investigating the cause of the explosion,
Advanced natural-gas power plants are poised to meet the standards but the rule would effectively require new coal-fired plants to capture
) At Louisiana State university in Baton rouge, researchers will assess the long-term risks to bees from chemicals used in large-scale mosquito-abatement programmes.
Novartis woes The Japanese health ministry filed a criminal complaint on 9 Â January against Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis,
Novartis s Japan unit has acknowledged the complaint on its website. Cloud computing IBM has invested US$1 Â billion in the IBM Watson Group,
along with 2, 4-D could drive evolutionary selection for weeds that are resistant to the chemical,
regulate gene expression is the focus of a Keystone Symposium on Molecular and Cellular Biology in Taos, New mexico.
and interpreting changes in amyloid protein in the brain, as well as other biomarkers linked to Alzheimer s disease. go. nature. com/oi5wkp
including researchers, in areas as diverse as farming, forest carbon management, regional and local planning,
Male scent stimulates female goats fertilityresearchers had ascribed this'male effect'to chemicals known as primer pheromones a chemical signal that can cause long-lasting physiological responses in the recipient.
Now, reproductive biologist Yukari Takeuchi from the University of Tokyo and her colleagues have identified a single molecule, known as 4-ethyloctanal,
so they designed a hat containing a material that captured their odorous molecules and placed them on the goats for a week to collect the scent.
Analysis of the gases collected identified a range of compounds, many of which were unknown and were not present in castrated males.
When exposed to a cocktail of 18 of these chemicals the brains of female goats showed a sudden increase in the activity of the gonadotropin-releasing hormone (Gnrh) pulse generator the neural regulator of reproduction.
But one molecule stood out: 4-ethyloctanal, a chemical not previously found in nature and that has an orangy, floral odour.
When presented to the female goats on its own, the chemical elicited a similar, albeit weaker, response,
and the cocktail showed less of an effect when that ingredient was removed. None of the other chemicals appeared to have a statistically significant effect.
The work is published today in Current Biology1. Peter Brennan, a physiologist at the University of Bristol, UK, says that the work will be useful in husbandry in goats and other ruminants, such as sheep,
Pollution curbs On 23 Â February, Colorado lawmakers adopted the first regulations in the United states for reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.
Competition from natural gas and renewable energy as well as safety concerns have prompted several US nuclear plants to shut in the past year.
The reduction is the result of power-plant closures arising from competition from lower-priced natural gas
Scientists use molecular clock models of evolution to piece together relationships among organisms by tracking genetic mutations over time.
Some models assume the rates of molecular evolution are roughly equal but there is evidence that the influenza virus evolves at different rates in different hosts faster in birds than in horses, for example.
says Philippe Lemey, a molecular epidemiologist at the Rega Institute for Medical Research at KU Leuven in Belgium.
to help farmers to reduce carbon emissions and cope with climate change. The hubs will provide climate data and assessments,
which means they re pushing down more air molecules, says Dillon.""Increasing the frequency of wing beats is one way to do that but it s probably very energetically expensive,
Europe HFC ban The European parliament has approved a ban on potent greenhouse gases used in some cooling systems,
Once in the atmosphere, the warming effect of hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) gases is thousands of times that of carbon dioxide,
The legislation aims to cut use of the gases by 79%over the next 15 years.
The industry has promised long that this second-generation biofuel will cut greenhouse-gas emissions, reduce US reliance on imported oil and boost rural economies.
says Zia Haq, a chemical engineer and senior analyst at the US Department of energy, which has helped to fund the plants.
and companies towards an alternative approach that converts cellulose into hydrocarbon fuels using chemical rather than biological processes.
It offers only modest savings in greenhouse-gas emissions compared to petrol (see Nature 499,13-14;
Ethanol made from corn stover produces at least 60%less greenhouse-gas emissions than petrol, and making it does not require any extra farmland.
Producers must dismember large, indigestible molecules such as cellulose and hemicellulose to yield fermentable sugars. The process requires the biomass to be ground up and pretreated with acids.
He and others see more promise in a different approach to breaking up cellulose a brute-force combination of temperature, pressure and chemistry.
After further treatment and refining with the help of chemical catalysts both can be turned into hydrocarbons such as petrol, diesel and jet fuel.
the system could be switched to making hydrocarbon fuels or higher-value chemical products. Enerkem plans to build similar plants in Mississippi and Quebec next year,
Research funding, too, is shifting to thermo  chemical methods, says Haq.""That doesn t mean we re abandoning cellulosic ethanol,
Haq thinks that longer-lived catalysts will further reduce the costs of thermo  chemically produced cellulosic hydrocarbons in coming years.
and oil and gas exploration, but says the development poses little risk to US national security.
but preliminary tests suggest that they inhaled radioactive particles. Energy department officials said the health and environmental impacts of the leak seem to be minor,
because they put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Even a pine tree burned in a forest fire does not release as much carbon as a pine tree burned in a power plant Niel Lawrence a National Resources Defense Council lawyer told Greenwire.
Some environmental groups such as the council are worried also about the Forest Service encouraging logging for biomass plants.
We pump BILLIONS of tons of carbon into the air annually. This is carbon that does not exist in a natural cycle.
We're taking it from well below the surface and putting it into the air.
which are powerful greenhouse gases! Why do they allow this? Because climate change is a tool to control the people.
Also they periodically hand the vehicle back to the carbon based life form. I don't disagree with the approach I'm just saying that many things are yet to be proven.
and then into protein retroviruses operate backwards retroviruses have RNA which they use to make DNA
Specifically it changes the chemistry of the eggshell so that it can take in biliverdin a bile pigment from the chicken's uterus.
) particles penetrating the earth's atmosphere. Svensmark's theory which pitted him against today's mainstream theorists who claim carbon dioxide (CO2) is responsible for global warming involved a link between the earth's magnetic field
and climate since that field helps regulate the number of GCR particles that reach the earth's atmosphere.
they happen when patches of iron atoms in Earth's liquid outer core become reverse-aligned like tiny magnets oriented in the opposite direction from those around them.
Some of the particles associated with CMES can be blocked by Earth's magnetic field. With a weak field this shielding is less efficient.
The charged particles bombarding Earth's atmosphere during solar storms would punch holes in Earth's atmosphere
Ozone holes like that over Antarctica (which today are due to an entirely different cause related to man) could form as solar particles interact with the atmosphere in a cascade of chemical reactions.
and protects us from the sun's charged particles and cosmic rays by focusing them towards the poles.
and southern lights as they excite gases in the atmosphere. As the magnetic poles migrate across the world those night lights are going to light up some very strange places where they have never been seen before.
There is a growing body of evidence that the sun's highly charged particles batter the upper atmosphere so hard that some of the assault filters down into the atmosphere around us influencing the wind atmospheric pressure and temperature.
Without our magnetic shield those solar particles might create havoc with the weather. That cosmic radiation blasting the Earth's surface could cause genetic mutations and cancers.
or just changes in the atmospheric environment. 1.)The sun cycles. 2.)The recent contribution by humans and the industrial revolution with the production of pollution of material and gases-CO2 and more. 3.)The extreme rare
American oak imparts the whisky with compounds such as esters lactones and phenols. One such compound known colloquially as whisky lactone produces a strong coconut flavor in the finished dram.
Vanillin another compound extracted from the oak unsurprisingly contributes an aroma of vanilla. But because freshly charred oak has high levels of these aromatic compounds casks made from it can overpower the more delicate flavors of a Speyside malt.
Instead Glenfiddich uses barrels that have contributed already much of the wood's flavoring compounds to American bourbon.
The result is balanced a elegantly dram with notes of warm crunchy toffee marmalade on toast
How Do You Dispose of Chemical Weapons? In the midst of a particularly brutal civil war international attention focused on the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons against civilians.
With a potential deal on the table for Russia to take and store Syria's chemical weapons here is a look at what chemical weapons are and
what it takes to safely dispose of them. Broadly a chemical weapon is a toxic chemical delivered by an explosion such as a bomb artillery shell or missile.
Chemical weapons injure and kill people through horrific reactions including choking nerve damage blood poisoning and blistering.
The first chemical weapons used in World war i were released gases from canisters. Today chemical weapons are carried typically liquids in bombs or shells.
The chemicals like sulfur mustards commonly called mustard gas) or sarin are dispersed in the air like a mist. Technically this means they aren't gases;
they're liquid aerosol with droplets carried through the air. World war i saw the first major use of chemical weapons with 124000 metric tons of chemical agent unleashed by nations including the UK Germany and France.'
'There's no easy solution there's no pixie dust magic vaporization portal.''Before WORLD WAR II Italy used chemical weapons in Ethiopia and during WORLD WAR II Japan used them in China.
Throughout the Cold war both the Soviet union and the United states developed and stockpiled chemical weapons. While the United states never used them in war a declassified CIA document alleges Soviet use during their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.
Egypt was the first country to use chemical weapons in war after WORLD WAR II. Egypt joined a civil war in Yemen in 1963 where the Egyptian militarty dropped sulfur mustard bombs on enemy troops sheltering in mountain caves.
Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein used sulfur mustards and the nerve agent Tabun against Iran in the 1980s during the Iran-iraq war and against the Kurdish people in northern Iraq in 1988.
Chemical weapons appear to have been used against civilians in the ongoing Syrian Civil war between the dictatorial regime of Bashar al Assad and a loose collection of rebel groups.
Syria's chemical weapons stockpile predates the recent conflict. Following a series of military defeats in war against Israel the Syrian government began amassing sulfur mustards sarin and VX (a nerve agent.
Syria could have acquired its first chemical weapons as early as 1973 and publicly admitted to a stockpile in 2012;
a foreign ministry spokesman said the weapons would only be used against foreign intervention. There is! In fact there have been several.
The first treaty banning chemical weapons actually predates their use. At the 1899 Hague Convention signatories agreed to not use Asphyxiating or Deleterious Gases.
Germany France and the UK broke this agreement during WWI. Currently chemical weapons are banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention a treaty adopted by the General assembly of the United nations that took effect in 1997.
It bans the creation and use of chemical weapons mandates their destruction and encourages international cooperation in chemistry and the chemical trades.
Five countries have not signed the treaty: Angola North korea Egypt South Sudan and Syria. The convention is fairly strict about what counts as a chemical weapon.
Agent orange a herbicide and defoliant used by the United states in the Vietnam war does not count as a chemical weapon under the rules of the treaty
despite the fact that it has been linked to cancer heart disease and birth defects. Al Mauroni director of the USAF counterproliferation center in Alabama and author of Chemical Demilitarization:
Public Policy Aspects tells Popular Science that disposal depends on how the weapon was designed: There are two major ways to dispose of chemical weapons:
incineration and neutralization. Incineration uses a tremendous amount of heat to turn the toxic chemical into mostly ash water vapor and carbon dioxide.
Neutralization breaks the chemical agent down using water and a caustic compound like sodium hyrdoxide. Both ways generate a waste product:
incineration generates ash and neutralization leaves a large amount of liquid waste that must be stored or further processed.
It can be though not without some problems. Mauroni describes a process used in Iraq in 1991.
We'd come across a bunch of rockets and you suspect there might be some chemicals in them he says.
The field expedient way if you're in a hurry is to blow it up in place.
Army Explosive Ordinance Demolition teams would use a 10-to-1 ratio of explosives to suspected chemical weapons.
The Army has a mobile chemical weapons disposal unit. The United states has nine chemical weapons sites where America's stockpile of chemical weapons is being disposed.
While the mobile site is getting press related to Syria Mauroni thinks it has a more mundane purpose.
and Mauroni says they both have leakers in their stored chemical weapons so the mobile unit goes out to neutralize the chemical agent.
There are precursor chemicals which are used the components to make a chemical weapon that aren't the weapon itself yet
and those are easier to dispose because they might have industrial applications and can be sold to companies.
The countries that have the most experience getting rid of chemical weapons are the United states and Russia owing to their massive Cold war chemical weapons stockpiles.
According to Mauroni Russia had 40000 tons at its peak while the United states amassed around 30000 tons.
which 16 metric tons of chemical weapons that they gave to the United states for disposal. Destruction was completed in 2007
In 1986 Congress passed a law mandating destruction of chemical weapons in the United states and while a tremendous amount of the stockpile has been destroyed the work will continue well into the next decade with the last site set to start disposal in 2020.
It's going to get very expensive very challenging to maintain security to move chemical weapons
First Use by The french Although it is believed popularly that the German army was the first to use gas it was deployed in fact initially by The french.
Nevertheless the German army was the first to give serious study to the development of chemical weapons
Initial German Experiments In the capture of Neuve Chapelle in October 1914 the German army fired shells at The french which contained a chemical irritant
It signalled in fact the first use of chlorine gas on the battlefield. Ironically its use ought not to have been a surprise to the Allied troops for captured German soldiers had revealed the imminent use of gas on the Western Front.
Their warnings were passed not on however. The effects of chlorine gas were severe. Within seconds of inhaling its vapour it destroyed the victim's respiratory organs bringing on choking attacks.
For a memoir of the first gas attack click here. A Missed German Opportunity Panic-stricken The french and Algerian troops fled in disorder creating a four-mile gap in the Allied line.
Had the Germans been prepared for this eventuality they could potentially have effected a decisive breakthrough. However the results of their experiment caused as much surprise to the German high command as confusion among their opponents.
Condemnation-and Escalation The Germans'use of chlorine gas provoked immediate widespread condemnation and certainly damaged German relations with the neutral powers including the U s. The gas attacks were placed to rapid propaganda use by The british
although they planned to respond in kind. The attack had one clear benefit at home however for it brought to an end German hesitancy (and disagreement) over its use.
Raising Special Gas companies in the wake of the Germans'April attack (of approximately 1400 men) operating under the command of Lieutenant-colonel Charles Foulkes instructions were given to prepare for a gas attack at Loos in September 1915.
Instead they referred to their gas canisters as accessories; use of the word gas brought with it a threatened punishment.
On the evening of 24 september 1915 therefore some 400 chlorine gas emplacements were established among The british front line around Loos. The gas was released by turning a cock on each cylinder.
British Setback at Loos The retaliatory attack began the following morning at 5. 20 am.
A mixture of smoke and chlorine gas was released intermittently over a period of about 40 minutes before the infantry assault began.
However releasing gas from cylinders in this manner meant that the user had to be wary of wind conditions.
and quantities of the smoke and gas were blown back into The british trenches. It has been estimated that more British gas casualties were suffered that morning than German.
and Germany-suffered similar self-inflicted gas reversals during 1915. It became apparent that if gas was to be used a more reliable delivery mechanism was called for.
In consequence experiments were undertaken to deliver the gas payload in artillery shells. This provided the additional benefits of increasing the target range as well as the variety of gases released.
Phosgene Following on the heels of chlorine gas came the use of phosgene. Phosgene as a weapon was more potent than chlorine in that
while the latter was potentially deadly it caused the victim to violently cough and choke. Phosgene caused much less coughing with the result that more of it was inhaled;
it was adopted consequently by both German and Allied armies. Phosgene often had delayed a effect; apparently healthy soldiers were taken down with phosgene gas poisoning up to 48 hours after inhalation.
The so-called white star mixture of phosgene and chlorine was used commonly on the Somme: the chlorine content supplied the necessary vapour with
Mustard gas Remaining consistently ahead in terms of gas warfare development Germany unveiled an enhanced form of gas weaponry against the Russians at Riga in September 1917:
Mustard gas an almost odourless chemical was distinguished by the serious blisters it caused both internally and externally brought on several hours after exposure.
Protection against mustard gas proved more difficult than against either chlorine or phosgene gas. The use of mustard gas-sometimes referred to as Yperite-also proved to have mixed benefits.
While inflicting serious injury upon the enemy the chemical remained potent in soil for weeks after release:
Other types of gases produced by the belligerents included bromine and chloropicrin. The french army occasionally made use of a nerve gas obtained from prussic acid.
However three forms of gas remained the most widely used: chlorine phosgene and mustard. The German army ended the war as the heaviest user of gas.
It is suggested that German use reached 68000 tons; The french utilised 36000 tons and The british 25000.
Diminishing Effectiveness of Gas Although gas claimed a notable number of casualties during its early use once the crucial element of surprise had been lost the overall number of casualties quickly diminished.
Indeed deaths from gas after about May 1915 were relatively rare. It has been estimated that among British forces the number of gas casualties from May 1915 amounted to some 9 per cent of the total
-but that of this total only around 3%were fatal. Even so gas victims often led highly debilitating lives thereafter with many unable to seek employment once they were discharged from the army.
In large part this was because of the increasing effectiveness of the methods used to protect against poison gas.
Gas never turned out to be the weapon that turned the tide of the war as was predicted often.
Protection Against Gas The types of protection initially handed out to the troops around Ypres following the first use of chlorine in April 1915 were primitive in the extreme. 100000 wads of cotton pads were manufactured quickly
By 1918 soldiers on both sides were prepared far better to meet the ever-present threat of a gas attack.
or antidote chemicals) were the norm and proved highly effective although working in a trench while wearing such respirators generally proved difficult and tiring.
http://www. firstworldwar. com/weaponry/gas. htmin Tooele they had a leak and killed about 6500 sheep were killed after a leak.
Allot of it has already been disposed of including all the gas stored in Tooele. https://www. youtube. com/watch?
http://www. hi-techcentre. com/2013/09/11/fyi-how-do-you-dispose of-chemical-weapons/You may enjoy the first picture in the article too.
That wasn't a leak from the chemical site. Really it wasn't even a leak.
What you are thinking of was a chemical weapons test in the 60s and due to a stuck valve it affected a larger than planned area.
In this instance notice the attribution on the photo Syrian Soldier In Gas Mask H. H. Deffner via Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons contains documents that have a free
Kelsey's level of ignorance when it comes to chemical weapons is astounding. Its as if he just read a few stories without any fact checking
Most countries with a chemical weapons program today use binary agents. That means there is a primary
Are some chemical weapons easier to destroy than other? There are precursor chemicals which are used the components to make a chemical weapon that aren't the weapon itself yet
and those are easier to dispose because they might have industrial applications and can be sold to companies.
Don't be such a dick. Easiest way nuke em'.'Wouldn't make many friends but effective.
It might be cheaper and safer to launch these chemicals into outer space. If the containers were designed to leak slowly the poisons may dissipate enough to become harmless.
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