(Reuters) - A huge storm barrels down on the United States, wreaking havoc with punishing winds, record flooding, heavy snowfall and massive blackouts. Is the main culprit climate change or a freak set of coincidences?
Sandy wiped out homes along the New Jersey shore, submerged parts of New York City, and dumped snow as far south as the Carolinas. At least 50 people were reported killed in the United States, on top of 69 in the Caribbean, while millions of people were left without power.
Some scientists say that the key to Sandy's impact may be an extremely rare clash of weather systems, rather than the warmer temperatures that scientists have identified in other hurricanes and storms.
'It's a hybrid storm, which combines some features of tropical hurricanes with some features of winter storms, that operate on quite different mechanisms,' said Kerry Emanuel, a professor of Atmospheric Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
While Emanuel said that there is a clear link between climate change and general trends toward more intense tropical hurricanes, in the case of Sandy more long-term study is required to determine whether climate change played a major role.
Other scientists say climate change likely aggravated whatever unique circumstances produced Sandy. They include the global warming that has caused ocean temperatures and sea levels to rise, contributing to more destructive flooding and other damage.
'Sea level rise makes storm surges worse and will continue to do so in the future,' said Stefan Rahmstorf, professor of physics of the oceans at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Potsdam, Germany.
World sea levels have risen by 20 centimeters (8 inches) in the past 100 years, a trend blamed on melting ice and expanding water in the oceans caused by rising temperatures. 'Every centimeter adds to damage,' Rahmstorf said.
Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist in the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said the jury was still out.
'There are clearly changes in the environment that all of these storms are occurring in,' he said. As for Sandy, however, a lot of the weather conditions that lined up were due to a 'crap shoot.' A hybrid storm can be an explosive storm, 'what we might call a meteorological bomb,' without the influence of climate change.
HURRICANE, OR WINTER STORM?
Sandy began as a late-season hurricane coming up from the Caribbean in what many experts believe were conditions fueled by unusually warm water temperatures for this time of year. It then joined forces with a large Arctic weather system, which increased its size and transformed it into a winter storm with far more power than would otherwise have been expected.
The third unusual element was a high pressure system off Canada's east coast that blocked Sandy's escape route. While hurricanes usually turn eastward, the system forced Sandy to make a very sharp left turn and slam into the New Jersey coast.
'Many, many hurricanes have threatened the east coast of the United States over many, many years,' said David Nolan, an associate professor of meteorology and physical oceanography at the University of Miami. 'Virtually all of them move up the coast and eventually turn to the right and head out to sea.'
Nolan said there would likely have been a winter storm forming at about this time. Because Sandy happened to be coming up the coast at exactly the right moment, it gave that storm a head start.
'Instead of starting from nothing, the storm is starting from a circulation as strong as a hurricane,' he said.
Scientists also note that world temperatures in September rivaled 2005, the year hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, as the warmest in modern records, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
And a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this month said that chances of Atlantic hurricanes were higher in warmer years stretching back to 1923.
Warmer temperatures also mean that the atmosphere can hold more moisture, bringing more rain in many areas. A U.N. report this year predicted that a higher proportion of the world's rain would fall in downpours during the 21st century, making floods more likely.
'The latest research suggests that a warming climate will lead to more extreme weather events such as flooding rains and drought,' said Michael Rawlins, who manages the Climate System Research Center at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst.
Rahmstorf said a record thaw of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean in September also might have helped build up high pressure in the North Atlantic that drove Sandy westward.
'I would be very cautious,' he said. 'But there is reason to suspect that there could be a connection between the record sea ice loss this summer and the path of this storm.'
Recent research indicates that greenhouse gases have raised the chances of some events, such as the Texas heatwave of 2011 or a European heatwave in 2003 that killed perhaps 70,000 people. Scientists said it was too early to know if there was a link for Sandy.
All debate aside, U.S. states still reeling from Sandy say they need to take a lesson from the increased threat of monster storms. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he has no doubt there are more extreme weather events.
'That's not a political statement; it's a factual statement,' Cuomo said after a tour of New York City's ravaged infrastructure. New Yorkers will have to deal with 'a new reality' when it comes to weather patterns, he said.
(Additional reporting by Tom Brown in Miami, David Fogarty in Singapore, Deborah Zabarenko in Washington and Martinne Geller in New York; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Eddie Evans)
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Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Poll Shows Voters Placing Energy Policy Over Environment
According to the date-preference-176568191.html'>results of a recent Harris Poll, Americans are placing a higher priority on energy policy than environmental policy in deciding which candidate to vote for. Here are the details.
* Harris Interactive surveyed 2,562 adults online between Sept. 17 and 24, 2012.
* Overall, 77 percent of respondents to the poll rated energy policy as either very important or important when asked which policies contribute most to their support of one candidate over another.
* 67 percent of respondents found environmental policy to be important or very important. Environmental policy was the least influential in Americans' presidential choice, Harris found.
* The gap in importance between energy and environmental policy grows according to age, Harris Interactive reported, with energy policy holding only a 3 percent advantage over environmental policy, 66 to 63 percent, for Americans between the ages of 18-35.
* Among 36-47 year olds, the gap in the importance of energy policy as compared to environmental policy increased to 10 percentage points, 74-64 percent. The gap grew 13 points among 48-66 year olds and 90 percent of those 67 and older found energy policy important in choosing a president, compared to 74 percent who placed importance on a candidate's environmental policy.
* Harris Interactive found that 48 percent of Americans most often identify nuclear power as an energy source that is harmful or very harmful to the environment, with clean coal being considered harmful or very harmful.
* Fewer than a fourth of Americans believe that natural gas is either harmful or very harmful. Another 40 percent rate it as "not that harmful" while nearly 20 percent believe it is not at all harmful to the environment.
* Thirty-one percent of the respondents to the Harris poll stated that the potential benefits of natural gas hydraulic fracturing -- known as "fracking" -- outweigh the risks. Thirty-two percent believe the risks outweigh the benefits. Thirty-eight percent stated that they are unsure and that more education is needed on the fracking process and its implications.
* While both energy and environmental policies were regarded as less influential in deciding on a candidate than the economy, tax, jobs, healthcare and foreign policies, Harris Interactive Vice President and Senior Consultant Sarah Simmons stated that energy remains an important policy to Americans.
* "Even after the election is over," Simmons said, "energy will remain an important subject for Americans because it is also central to so many other policies, especially economic, jobs and environmental policies."
* Energy pricing has a significant impact on families, Simmons added, as it involves the price paid at the pump, the ability of businesses to increase the workforce, its influence on the nation's economic health and way of life.
* Harris Interactive surveyed 2,562 adults online between Sept. 17 and 24, 2012.
* Overall, 77 percent of respondents to the poll rated energy policy as either very important or important when asked which policies contribute most to their support of one candidate over another.
* 67 percent of respondents found environmental policy to be important or very important. Environmental policy was the least influential in Americans' presidential choice, Harris found.
* The gap in importance between energy and environmental policy grows according to age, Harris Interactive reported, with energy policy holding only a 3 percent advantage over environmental policy, 66 to 63 percent, for Americans between the ages of 18-35.
* Among 36-47 year olds, the gap in the importance of energy policy as compared to environmental policy increased to 10 percentage points, 74-64 percent. The gap grew 13 points among 48-66 year olds and 90 percent of those 67 and older found energy policy important in choosing a president, compared to 74 percent who placed importance on a candidate's environmental policy.
* Harris Interactive found that 48 percent of Americans most often identify nuclear power as an energy source that is harmful or very harmful to the environment, with clean coal being considered harmful or very harmful.
* Fewer than a fourth of Americans believe that natural gas is either harmful or very harmful. Another 40 percent rate it as "not that harmful" while nearly 20 percent believe it is not at all harmful to the environment.
* Thirty-one percent of the respondents to the Harris poll stated that the potential benefits of natural gas hydraulic fracturing -- known as "fracking" -- outweigh the risks. Thirty-two percent believe the risks outweigh the benefits. Thirty-eight percent stated that they are unsure and that more education is needed on the fracking process and its implications.
* While both energy and environmental policies were regarded as less influential in deciding on a candidate than the economy, tax, jobs, healthcare and foreign policies, Harris Interactive Vice President and Senior Consultant Sarah Simmons stated that energy remains an important policy to Americans.
* "Even after the election is over," Simmons said, "energy will remain an important subject for Americans because it is also central to so many other policies, especially economic, jobs and environmental policies."
* Energy pricing has a significant impact on families, Simmons added, as it involves the price paid at the pump, the ability of businesses to increase the workforce, its influence on the nation's economic health and way of life.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Scientists look at climate change, the superstorm
WASHINGTON (AP) - Climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer stood along the Hudson River and watched his research come to life as Hurricane Sandy blew through New York.
Just eight months earlier, the Princeton University professor reported that what used to be once-in-a-century devastating floods in New York City would soon happen every three to 20 years. He blamed global warming for pushing up sea levels and changing hurricane patterns.
New York 'is now highly vulnerable to extreme hurricane-surge flooding,' he wrote.
For more than a dozen years, Oppenheimer and other climate scientists have been warning about the risk for big storms and serious flooding in New York. A 2000 federal report about global warming's effect on the United States warned specifically of that possibility.
Still, they say it's unfair to blame climate change for Sandy and the destruction it left behind. They cautioned that they cannot yet conclusively link a single storm to global warming, and any connection is not as clear and simple as environmental activists might contend.
'The ingredients of this storm seem a little bit cooked by climate change, but the overall storm is difficult to attribute to global warming,' Canada's University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver said.
Some individual parts of Sandy and its wrath seem to be influenced by climate change, several climate scientists said.
First, there's sea level rise. Water levels around New York are a nearly a foot higher than they were 100 years ago, said Penn State University climate scientist Michael Mann.
Add to that the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean, which is about 2 degrees warmer on average than a century ago, said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University. Warm water fuels hurricanes.
And Sandy zipped north along a warmer-than-normal Gulf Stream that travels from the Caribbean to Ireland, said Jeff Masters, meteorology director for the private service Weather Underground.
Meteorologists are also noticing more hurricanes late in the season and even after the season. A 2008 study said the Atlantic hurricane season seems to be starting earlier and lasting longer but found no explicit link to global warming. Normally there are 11 named Atlantic storms. The past two years have seen 19 and 18 named storms. This year, with one month to go, there are 19.
After years of disagreement, climate scientists and hurricane experts have concluded that as the climate warms, there will be fewer total hurricanes. But those storms that do develop will be stronger and wetter.
Sandy took an unprecedented sharp left turn into New Jersey. Usually storms keep heading north and turn east harmlessly out to sea. But a strong ridge of high pressure centered over Greenland blocked Sandy from going north or east, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, an expert in how a warming Arctic affects extreme weather patterns, said recent warming in the Arctic may have played a role in enlarging or prolonging that high pressure area. But she cautioned it's not clear whether the warming really had that influence on Sandy.
While components of Sandy seem connected to global warming, 'mostly it's natural, I'd say it's 80, 90 percent natural,' said Gerald North, a climate professor at Texas A&M University. 'These things do happen, like the drought. It's a natural thing.'
On Tuesday, both New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo said they couldn't help but notice that extreme events like Sandy are causing them more and more trouble.
'What is clear is that the storms that we've experienced in the last year or so, around this country and around the world, are much more severe than before,' Bloomberg said. 'Whether that's global warming or what, I don't know. But we'll have to address those issues.'
Cuomo called the changes 'a new reality.'
'Anyone who says that there's not a dramatic change in weather patterns I think is denying reality,' Cuomo said. 'I told the president the other day: 'We have a 100-year flood every two years now.''
For his published research, Oppenheimer looked at New York City's record flood of 1821. Sandy flooded even higher. This week's damage was augmented by the past century's sea level rise, which was higher than the world average because of unusual coastal geography and ocean currents. Oppenheimer walked from his Manhattan home to the river Monday evening to watch the storm.
'We sort of knew it could happen, but you know that's different from actually standing there and watching it happen,' Oppenheimer said from a cell phone. 'You don't really imagine what this looks like until you see it.'
___
Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz and Malcolm Ritter in New York and Michael Gormley in Albany contributed to this report.
___
Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears .
This article is brought to you by FREE DATING SITES.
Just eight months earlier, the Princeton University professor reported that what used to be once-in-a-century devastating floods in New York City would soon happen every three to 20 years. He blamed global warming for pushing up sea levels and changing hurricane patterns.
New York 'is now highly vulnerable to extreme hurricane-surge flooding,' he wrote.
For more than a dozen years, Oppenheimer and other climate scientists have been warning about the risk for big storms and serious flooding in New York. A 2000 federal report about global warming's effect on the United States warned specifically of that possibility.
Still, they say it's unfair to blame climate change for Sandy and the destruction it left behind. They cautioned that they cannot yet conclusively link a single storm to global warming, and any connection is not as clear and simple as environmental activists might contend.
'The ingredients of this storm seem a little bit cooked by climate change, but the overall storm is difficult to attribute to global warming,' Canada's University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver said.
Some individual parts of Sandy and its wrath seem to be influenced by climate change, several climate scientists said.
First, there's sea level rise. Water levels around New York are a nearly a foot higher than they were 100 years ago, said Penn State University climate scientist Michael Mann.
Add to that the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean, which is about 2 degrees warmer on average than a century ago, said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University. Warm water fuels hurricanes.
And Sandy zipped north along a warmer-than-normal Gulf Stream that travels from the Caribbean to Ireland, said Jeff Masters, meteorology director for the private service Weather Underground.
Meteorologists are also noticing more hurricanes late in the season and even after the season. A 2008 study said the Atlantic hurricane season seems to be starting earlier and lasting longer but found no explicit link to global warming. Normally there are 11 named Atlantic storms. The past two years have seen 19 and 18 named storms. This year, with one month to go, there are 19.
After years of disagreement, climate scientists and hurricane experts have concluded that as the climate warms, there will be fewer total hurricanes. But those storms that do develop will be stronger and wetter.
Sandy took an unprecedented sharp left turn into New Jersey. Usually storms keep heading north and turn east harmlessly out to sea. But a strong ridge of high pressure centered over Greenland blocked Sandy from going north or east, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, an expert in how a warming Arctic affects extreme weather patterns, said recent warming in the Arctic may have played a role in enlarging or prolonging that high pressure area. But she cautioned it's not clear whether the warming really had that influence on Sandy.
While components of Sandy seem connected to global warming, 'mostly it's natural, I'd say it's 80, 90 percent natural,' said Gerald North, a climate professor at Texas A&M University. 'These things do happen, like the drought. It's a natural thing.'
On Tuesday, both New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo said they couldn't help but notice that extreme events like Sandy are causing them more and more trouble.
'What is clear is that the storms that we've experienced in the last year or so, around this country and around the world, are much more severe than before,' Bloomberg said. 'Whether that's global warming or what, I don't know. But we'll have to address those issues.'
Cuomo called the changes 'a new reality.'
'Anyone who says that there's not a dramatic change in weather patterns I think is denying reality,' Cuomo said. 'I told the president the other day: 'We have a 100-year flood every two years now.''
For his published research, Oppenheimer looked at New York City's record flood of 1821. Sandy flooded even higher. This week's damage was augmented by the past century's sea level rise, which was higher than the world average because of unusual coastal geography and ocean currents. Oppenheimer walked from his Manhattan home to the river Monday evening to watch the storm.
'We sort of knew it could happen, but you know that's different from actually standing there and watching it happen,' Oppenheimer said from a cell phone. 'You don't really imagine what this looks like until you see it.'
___
Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz and Malcolm Ritter in New York and Michael Gormley in Albany contributed to this report.
___
Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears .
This article is brought to you by FREE DATING SITES.
Did Climate Change Cause Hurricane Sandy?
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Monday, October 29, 2012
Weather or Climate: What Caused Hurricane Sandy?
An unusual trio of weather factors conspired to create Hurricane Sandy, the enormous storm churning toward the mid-Atlantic states today - that much is clear. What researchers aren't as sure of is how much climate change influenced this particular storm.
Attributing a certain event to climate change is always tricky territory, so much so that some scientists contacted by LiveScience said it was too early to make any judgments. Others were more willing to say that global warming contributed to, but did not cause, the massive Category 1 storm.
'The climate influences on this are what we might call the 'new normal,' the changed environment this storm is operating in,' Kevin Trenberth, who heads the climate analysis section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told LiveScience.
Sandy's cause
In the immediate term, three factors have come together to make Sandy what it is: A huge storm with winds gusting up to 90 mph (145 kph) set to make landfall somewhere on the East Coast Monday night. First, hurricane season is still on, meaning the tropics are still actively generating storms. That's Sandy's origin. [Photos: Hurricane Sandy From Space]
But a storm like Sandy would normally be losing steam by now as it moved into colder, less energetic waters, said David Robinson, a Rutgers University professor and New Jersey's state climatologist. In this case, however, a trough of low pressure dipping down from the Arctic is feeding the hurricane, actually strengthening its intensity as it moves northward. (Higher tides because of a full moon may also increase flooding from the storm.)
Those conditions are the same as 1991's 'Perfect Storm,' a tempest that occurred when a nor'easter fed by Arctic air absorbed Hurricane Grace. But that storm never made landfall. The third weather factor feeding Sandy, a high-pressure system, is pushing the hurricane onshore, making this 'about the worst case imaginable,' Robinson said.
That block of high pressure in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean is shunting Sandy toward land like a peg in a pinball machine.
'You've got three factors here that have come together in just the right pattern to create a storm of this type,' Robinson told LiveScience. 'That's why it's very rare.'
Climate change and Hurricane Sandy
The more complex question is whether global warming has played a supporting role in the storm's strength. Trenberth said there is reason to think that climate change could be making Sandy wetter and stronger.
Hurricanes and tropical cyclones are fueled by warm water evaporating into the air. Ocean surface temperatures are up 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius) from about a century ago, a fact that may boost storm intensity. A recent study released in September in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, for example, found that hurricanes and tropical cyclones ramp up faster than they did 25 years ago. Globally, these storms reach Category 3 status, with winds up to 129 mph (208 kph), nine hours earlier on average than they used to, the study found.
With warmer ocean surfaces comes warmer air above the oceans, Trenberth said. With warmer temperatures, this ocean air now holds about 4 percent more moisture than it did in the 1970s.
'In general, we estimate it increases the risk that the intensity of hurricanes can be somewhat greater and particularly the rainfall from hurricanes is about 5 to 10 percent greater than it otherwise would be,' Trenberth said. [Video: Hurricane Sandy's Intensity]
In the case of 2005's Hurricane Katrina, which dumped at least 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain along its track on the Gulf Coast, that means about 1 inch was attributable to climate change, Trenberth said. Sandy could dump similar levels of moisture over the Northeast.
Trenberth added that 'there are signs' that storms of Category 3 and above are becoming more common, but warned that hurricanes show tremendous natural variability from year to year, driven largely by climate patterns set up by El Niño.
That sort of variability made Robinson wary of attributing any of Sandy's destructive power to climate change.
'I told myself when I got up this morning, 'I'm not going to talk about climate change,'' Robinson said. 'You can't take one rogue event like this and start ascribing anything but the current three phasing conditions that are leading to it.'
Robinson didn't rule out that storms may get worse in a warming world, however.
'I wish I was going to be around 50 years from now sitting here in this position, because we might be able to say that with the warming of the atmosphere and the greater energy of it, we can reel off these superstorms more frequently,' he said. 'To say that this one is associated with that would really be doing a disservice to the science.'
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
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Attributing a certain event to climate change is always tricky territory, so much so that some scientists contacted by LiveScience said it was too early to make any judgments. Others were more willing to say that global warming contributed to, but did not cause, the massive Category 1 storm.
'The climate influences on this are what we might call the 'new normal,' the changed environment this storm is operating in,' Kevin Trenberth, who heads the climate analysis section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told LiveScience.
Sandy's cause
In the immediate term, three factors have come together to make Sandy what it is: A huge storm with winds gusting up to 90 mph (145 kph) set to make landfall somewhere on the East Coast Monday night. First, hurricane season is still on, meaning the tropics are still actively generating storms. That's Sandy's origin. [Photos: Hurricane Sandy From Space]
But a storm like Sandy would normally be losing steam by now as it moved into colder, less energetic waters, said David Robinson, a Rutgers University professor and New Jersey's state climatologist. In this case, however, a trough of low pressure dipping down from the Arctic is feeding the hurricane, actually strengthening its intensity as it moves northward. (Higher tides because of a full moon may also increase flooding from the storm.)
Those conditions are the same as 1991's 'Perfect Storm,' a tempest that occurred when a nor'easter fed by Arctic air absorbed Hurricane Grace. But that storm never made landfall. The third weather factor feeding Sandy, a high-pressure system, is pushing the hurricane onshore, making this 'about the worst case imaginable,' Robinson said.
That block of high pressure in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean is shunting Sandy toward land like a peg in a pinball machine.
'You've got three factors here that have come together in just the right pattern to create a storm of this type,' Robinson told LiveScience. 'That's why it's very rare.'
Climate change and Hurricane Sandy
The more complex question is whether global warming has played a supporting role in the storm's strength. Trenberth said there is reason to think that climate change could be making Sandy wetter and stronger.
Hurricanes and tropical cyclones are fueled by warm water evaporating into the air. Ocean surface temperatures are up 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius) from about a century ago, a fact that may boost storm intensity. A recent study released in September in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, for example, found that hurricanes and tropical cyclones ramp up faster than they did 25 years ago. Globally, these storms reach Category 3 status, with winds up to 129 mph (208 kph), nine hours earlier on average than they used to, the study found.
With warmer ocean surfaces comes warmer air above the oceans, Trenberth said. With warmer temperatures, this ocean air now holds about 4 percent more moisture than it did in the 1970s.
'In general, we estimate it increases the risk that the intensity of hurricanes can be somewhat greater and particularly the rainfall from hurricanes is about 5 to 10 percent greater than it otherwise would be,' Trenberth said. [Video: Hurricane Sandy's Intensity]
In the case of 2005's Hurricane Katrina, which dumped at least 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain along its track on the Gulf Coast, that means about 1 inch was attributable to climate change, Trenberth said. Sandy could dump similar levels of moisture over the Northeast.
Trenberth added that 'there are signs' that storms of Category 3 and above are becoming more common, but warned that hurricanes show tremendous natural variability from year to year, driven largely by climate patterns set up by El Niño.
That sort of variability made Robinson wary of attributing any of Sandy's destructive power to climate change.
'I told myself when I got up this morning, 'I'm not going to talk about climate change,'' Robinson said. 'You can't take one rogue event like this and start ascribing anything but the current three phasing conditions that are leading to it.'
Robinson didn't rule out that storms may get worse in a warming world, however.
'I wish I was going to be around 50 years from now sitting here in this position, because we might be able to say that with the warming of the atmosphere and the greater energy of it, we can reel off these superstorms more frequently,' he said. 'To say that this one is associated with that would really be doing a disservice to the science.'
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
- The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted
- Weather vs. Climate Change: Test Yourself
- In Photos: Hurricane Season 2012
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Friday, October 26, 2012
U.S. looks to old Arctic ship logs for climate change clues
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A project to help track Arctic climate change using volunteers to transcribe U.S. ship logs online was launched on Wednesday by the National Archives and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Using citizen scientists to transcribe thousands of pages of logbooks from Navy, Coast Guard and other ships from 1850 to World War Two will fill a big data gap, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said.
Scientists in recent decades have gotten weather data from satellites and ground observations, and such tools as ice samples show ancient patterns, she said. But the archived logs could establish a baseline of historical weather data.
'Naval and Coast Guard records are an invaluable window into the past which will let us know what it was like then,' she told Reuters after a news conference.
NOAA scientists have said that the Arctic is undergoing dramatic change as world temperatures climb. Arctic sea ice shrank to a record low of 1.32 million square miles (3.41 million square kilometers) by mid-September.
Project organizers, which include science web portal Zooniverse, hope to enlist thousands of volunteers to transcribe scanned pages from logbooks. The pages will be loaded onto Old Weather, an online weather data project (www.oldweather.org).
Information also could be used by scientists in other fields, as well as historians and genealogists, organizers said. Navy logs carried weather observations 24 times a day.
Mark Mollan, a reference archivist and a project organizer, said the National Archives had 1,000 boxes of Arctic ship logs. Each page put online will be transcribed three times to eliminate errors, he said.
In the first Old Weather project, started in 2010, 16,400 volunteers have transcribed 1.6 million weather observations from British Navy ship logs.
Four bulky logbooks, all with Arctic observations in neat 19th century handwriting, were displayed at the news conference.
The logs included one from the doomed 1879 Arctic voyage of the Jeannette, a U.S. Navy ship that sank after being trapped in ice off Russia. The commander starved to death and 18 other expedition members died.
(Reporting by Ian Simpson; editing by Philip Barbara)
This news article is brought to you by ADVANCED DATING ADVICE - where latest news are our top priority.
Using citizen scientists to transcribe thousands of pages of logbooks from Navy, Coast Guard and other ships from 1850 to World War Two will fill a big data gap, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said.
Scientists in recent decades have gotten weather data from satellites and ground observations, and such tools as ice samples show ancient patterns, she said. But the archived logs could establish a baseline of historical weather data.
'Naval and Coast Guard records are an invaluable window into the past which will let us know what it was like then,' she told Reuters after a news conference.
NOAA scientists have said that the Arctic is undergoing dramatic change as world temperatures climb. Arctic sea ice shrank to a record low of 1.32 million square miles (3.41 million square kilometers) by mid-September.
Project organizers, which include science web portal Zooniverse, hope to enlist thousands of volunteers to transcribe scanned pages from logbooks. The pages will be loaded onto Old Weather, an online weather data project (www.oldweather.org).
Information also could be used by scientists in other fields, as well as historians and genealogists, organizers said. Navy logs carried weather observations 24 times a day.
Mark Mollan, a reference archivist and a project organizer, said the National Archives had 1,000 boxes of Arctic ship logs. Each page put online will be transcribed three times to eliminate errors, he said.
In the first Old Weather project, started in 2010, 16,400 volunteers have transcribed 1.6 million weather observations from British Navy ship logs.
Four bulky logbooks, all with Arctic observations in neat 19th century handwriting, were displayed at the news conference.
The logs included one from the doomed 1879 Arctic voyage of the Jeannette, a U.S. Navy ship that sank after being trapped in ice off Russia. The commander starved to death and 18 other expedition members died.
(Reporting by Ian Simpson; editing by Philip Barbara)
This news article is brought to you by ADVANCED DATING ADVICE - where latest news are our top priority.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Smithsonian launches marine effort with $10M gift
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Smithsonian is launching a new initiative to study coastal waters and create the first global network monitoring climate change and human impacts on ocean life with a $10 million gift.
Los Angeles hedge fund manager Michael Tennenbaum is announcing the donation Thursday. He says long-term data is needed to raise the level of dialogue about climate change and biodiversity.
The project will begin with five marine observatories, studying plants and animals in the Chesapeake Bay, Fort Pierce, Fla., and sites in Belize and Panama. The Smithsonian plans to add 10 more stations within a decade, using federal money, partners and fundraising.
Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough says coastal ecosystems are highly affected by humans. He says the Smithsonian will foster long-term study, while universities and others depend on short-term grants.
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Los Angeles hedge fund manager Michael Tennenbaum is announcing the donation Thursday. He says long-term data is needed to raise the level of dialogue about climate change and biodiversity.
The project will begin with five marine observatories, studying plants and animals in the Chesapeake Bay, Fort Pierce, Fla., and sites in Belize and Panama. The Smithsonian plans to add 10 more stations within a decade, using federal money, partners and fundraising.
Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough says coastal ecosystems are highly affected by humans. He says the Smithsonian will foster long-term study, while universities and others depend on short-term grants.
This news article is brought to you by STOCK MARKET BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Symantec beats Street, new CEO begins to make his mark
BOSTON, Oct 24 - Symantec Corp reported results ahead of Wall Street expectations as its new chief executive took direct control of the company's sales force as part of an effort to turn around the maker of security software.
Shares in the company, which had fired its previous CEO, Enrique Salem, in July after its stock had languished for years, rallied 9 percent in extended trade.
'The company is performing pretty well in a tough environment. You have a new CEO who is off to a good start,' said Daniel Ives, analyst with FBR Capital Markets.
The new CEO, Steve Bennett, said in a conference call that the company is continuing with a previously announced strategic and operational review and plans to announce the results of that evaluation in late January.
'We continue to evaluate all strategic alternatives to create shareholder value,' Bennett said. He added that he was starting with 'a clean piece of paper.'
The company issued a profit outlook for fiscal third-quarter, which ends in December, that was below Wall Street expectations as Bennett said he plans to boost spending in some areas.
Symantec said it expects to post third-quarter profit, excluding items, of 36 cents to 38 cents per share, below the average forecast of 42 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. It forecast third-quarter revenue of $1.72 billion TO $1.75 billion, compared with the average forecast of $1.72 billion.
Bennett said that the profit shortfall was partly due to plans to boost investment in some areas, including providing technical support for its products, where the company had wrongly cut back to keep expenses down.
'We were reducing costs in areas that were hurting our position with customers,' he said in the conference call.
The company also disclosed that its global sales chief, William Robbins, had stepped down from that post and will be leaving the company.
Bennett, who honed his management chops during a 23-year career at General Electric Co, will directly supervise the company's regional sales executives.
'At this point, you want Mr. Bennett more involved, rather than less,' said Ives.
Symantec reported profit, excluding items, of 45 cents per share, during its fiscal second-quarter ended Sept 28, handily beating the average analyst forecast of 38 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Quarterly revenue rose 1 percent from a year earlier to $1.7 billion, beating the Street view of $1.66 billion.
Symantec shares were quoted at $18.94 in extended trade, up 9 percent from their Nasdaq close of $17.37.
(Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)
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Shares in the company, which had fired its previous CEO, Enrique Salem, in July after its stock had languished for years, rallied 9 percent in extended trade.
'The company is performing pretty well in a tough environment. You have a new CEO who is off to a good start,' said Daniel Ives, analyst with FBR Capital Markets.
The new CEO, Steve Bennett, said in a conference call that the company is continuing with a previously announced strategic and operational review and plans to announce the results of that evaluation in late January.
'We continue to evaluate all strategic alternatives to create shareholder value,' Bennett said. He added that he was starting with 'a clean piece of paper.'
The company issued a profit outlook for fiscal third-quarter, which ends in December, that was below Wall Street expectations as Bennett said he plans to boost spending in some areas.
Symantec said it expects to post third-quarter profit, excluding items, of 36 cents to 38 cents per share, below the average forecast of 42 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. It forecast third-quarter revenue of $1.72 billion TO $1.75 billion, compared with the average forecast of $1.72 billion.
Bennett said that the profit shortfall was partly due to plans to boost investment in some areas, including providing technical support for its products, where the company had wrongly cut back to keep expenses down.
'We were reducing costs in areas that were hurting our position with customers,' he said in the conference call.
The company also disclosed that its global sales chief, William Robbins, had stepped down from that post and will be leaving the company.
Bennett, who honed his management chops during a 23-year career at General Electric Co, will directly supervise the company's regional sales executives.
'At this point, you want Mr. Bennett more involved, rather than less,' said Ives.
Symantec reported profit, excluding items, of 45 cents per share, during its fiscal second-quarter ended Sept 28, handily beating the average analyst forecast of 38 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Quarterly revenue rose 1 percent from a year earlier to $1.7 billion, beating the Street view of $1.66 billion.
Symantec shares were quoted at $18.94 in extended trade, up 9 percent from their Nasdaq close of $17.37.
(Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)
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Climate Scientist Sues Over Jerry Sandusky Comparison
Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann has filed a lawsuit against The National Review and The Competitive Enterprise Institute for articles that compared him to convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky.
Mann's lawsuit concerns two blog posts. The first appeared July 13 on openmarket.org, the blog of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a nonprofit that promotes free enterprise and limited government. In the post, author Rand Simberg wrote that Mann manipulated data in creating his famous 'hockey-stick graph,' which shows global temperatures rising sharply with increased carbon-dioxide output by humans.
'Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science,' Simberg wrote, referring to the Penn State football coach now imprisoned for child sex abuse, 'except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data.'
Nine investigations of Mann's work, including one by the Environmental Protection Agency and another by the National Science Foundation, have found no evidence of academic fraud.
The CEI removed the references to Sandusky in the original blog post several days after publication, but not before the 'The Corner,' the blog of the National Review Online, picked up the quote in full and repeated the accusations. Mann and his lawyers filed suit against both organizations on Monday (Oct. 22) in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
To win the suit, Mann's lawyers will have to show that the statements made by the CEI and National Review were harmful, false and made with the malicious intent to injure Mann. They'll also have to show that the organizations should have known the statements were false but published them anyway. [How Climate Science Became Politicized]
'We do not believe he will succeed,' said Sam Kazman, the general council attorney for CEI. 'Mr. Mann is a very prominent person in a highly controversial issue involving both science and politics, and I would have thought by now he'd be accustomed to rhetoric that can be quite heated.' (Mann is typically referred to as a 'Dr.' since he has a doctoral degree.)
On his website, Mark Steyn, the author of the National Review blog post, wrote, 'I'll have more to say about this when I stop laughing.'
Mann said he was motivated to file the suit by years of similar accusations.
'There is a larger context for this latest development, namely the onslaught of dishonest and libelous attacks that climate scientists have endured for years by dishonest front groups seeking to discredit the case for concern over climate change,' Mann wrote in an email to LiveScience.
Climate-change belief has become increasingly polarized in the last decade. According to long-running surveys by Yale University researchers, in 2003 only 7 percent of Americans called climate change a 'hoax' or a 'scam.' By 2010, 23 percent were using those terms to describe climate change, indicating an increasing perception of intentional wrongdoing by scientists.
Some of the politicization dates back to the polarizing Clinton era, said Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. After Al Gore took on the role of environmental advocate with his 2006 documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth,' Leiserowitz said, those on the other end of the political spectrum began to link Gore and Democrats not only to climate-change policy, but also to climate-change belief.
'They loathe Al Gore,' Leiserowitz told LiveScience in August. 'Sometimes I joke that Al Gore could hold a press conference tomorrow to say that science has determined that the Earth is round and people out there would say, 'Well, no it isn't.''
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
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Mann's lawsuit concerns two blog posts. The first appeared July 13 on openmarket.org, the blog of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a nonprofit that promotes free enterprise and limited government. In the post, author Rand Simberg wrote that Mann manipulated data in creating his famous 'hockey-stick graph,' which shows global temperatures rising sharply with increased carbon-dioxide output by humans.
'Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science,' Simberg wrote, referring to the Penn State football coach now imprisoned for child sex abuse, 'except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data.'
Nine investigations of Mann's work, including one by the Environmental Protection Agency and another by the National Science Foundation, have found no evidence of academic fraud.
The CEI removed the references to Sandusky in the original blog post several days after publication, but not before the 'The Corner,' the blog of the National Review Online, picked up the quote in full and repeated the accusations. Mann and his lawyers filed suit against both organizations on Monday (Oct. 22) in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
To win the suit, Mann's lawyers will have to show that the statements made by the CEI and National Review were harmful, false and made with the malicious intent to injure Mann. They'll also have to show that the organizations should have known the statements were false but published them anyway. [How Climate Science Became Politicized]
'We do not believe he will succeed,' said Sam Kazman, the general council attorney for CEI. 'Mr. Mann is a very prominent person in a highly controversial issue involving both science and politics, and I would have thought by now he'd be accustomed to rhetoric that can be quite heated.' (Mann is typically referred to as a 'Dr.' since he has a doctoral degree.)
On his website, Mark Steyn, the author of the National Review blog post, wrote, 'I'll have more to say about this when I stop laughing.'
Mann said he was motivated to file the suit by years of similar accusations.
'There is a larger context for this latest development, namely the onslaught of dishonest and libelous attacks that climate scientists have endured for years by dishonest front groups seeking to discredit the case for concern over climate change,' Mann wrote in an email to LiveScience.
Climate-change belief has become increasingly polarized in the last decade. According to long-running surveys by Yale University researchers, in 2003 only 7 percent of Americans called climate change a 'hoax' or a 'scam.' By 2010, 23 percent were using those terms to describe climate change, indicating an increasing perception of intentional wrongdoing by scientists.
Some of the politicization dates back to the polarizing Clinton era, said Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. After Al Gore took on the role of environmental advocate with his 2006 documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth,' Leiserowitz said, those on the other end of the political spectrum began to link Gore and Democrats not only to climate-change policy, but also to climate-change belief.
'They loathe Al Gore,' Leiserowitz told LiveScience in August. 'Sometimes I joke that Al Gore could hold a press conference tomorrow to say that science has determined that the Earth is round and people out there would say, 'Well, no it isn't.''
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
- Top Ten Conspiracy Theories
- The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted
- 6 Politicians Who Got the Science Wrong
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Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Tribe Appeals EPA Ruling Over Coal-Fired Power Plant
The Moapa Paiutes, represented by Earthjustice, have filed a suit in federal court, appealing a decision that allows a coal-fired power plant in Nevada to continue emitting nitrogen oxide. According to a press release from Earthjustice, the tribe -- along with the Sierra Club and the National Parks Conservation Association -- is calling for retirement of the plant and a "transition to cleaner sources." Here are the details.
* The Reid Gardner Generating Station is a 557-megawatt coal-fueled, steam-electric generating plant. The plant, located near Moapa, Nev., has four operating units and features high efficiency scrubbing systems that allow it to rank among the top 10 plants nationwide for its low sulfur emission rate.
* Reid Gardner is jointly owned by NV Energy and California Department of Water Resources.
* The plant employs approximately 150 people and can produce electricity to serve approximately 335,000 households.
* The suit was filed in 9th Circuit Court, appealing the EPA's decision to allow rates of nitrogen oxide pollution to continue instead of requiring upgrades that would reduce the pollution by 90 percent.
* Nitrogen oxides harm the respiratory system, Earthjustice stated, and form ground-level ozone and fine particulate pollution that can cause heart attacks, strokes, asthma attacks and lung cancer.
* The groups stated that if the Reid Gardner power plant cannot be retired right now, then the plant needs to be updated with air pollution equipment.
* According to William Anderson, Chairman of the Moapa Band of Paiutes, the plant -- located "just a couple hundred yards from the homes of Moapa Paiute families" -- has created coal plant soot, chemicals and ash waste that has sickened members of the tribe.
* "We've seen coal at Reid Gardner become too costly to make economic sence," Anderson stated, noting that the plant's owner, NV Energy, won't retire the nearly 50-year-old plant.
* In addition to the Moapa Piutes and the environmental organizations, Reid Gardner has also been opposed by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who in August stated that the plant has sent 2.8 million tons of carbon dioxide and thousands of pounds of arsenic, mercury and lead up its "four giant smokestacks."
* Stated that the soot is "literally killing the Paiutes, Reid said at the National Clean Energy Summit 5.0, "it is time to close the dirty relic, Reid Gardner."
* "Somewhere there has to be some justice," Anderson said. "Somewhere there has to be some rational leadership from NV Energy and state utility regulators."
* The Reid Gardner Generating Station is a 557-megawatt coal-fueled, steam-electric generating plant. The plant, located near Moapa, Nev., has four operating units and features high efficiency scrubbing systems that allow it to rank among the top 10 plants nationwide for its low sulfur emission rate.
* Reid Gardner is jointly owned by NV Energy and California Department of Water Resources.
* The plant employs approximately 150 people and can produce electricity to serve approximately 335,000 households.
* The suit was filed in 9th Circuit Court, appealing the EPA's decision to allow rates of nitrogen oxide pollution to continue instead of requiring upgrades that would reduce the pollution by 90 percent.
* Nitrogen oxides harm the respiratory system, Earthjustice stated, and form ground-level ozone and fine particulate pollution that can cause heart attacks, strokes, asthma attacks and lung cancer.
* The groups stated that if the Reid Gardner power plant cannot be retired right now, then the plant needs to be updated with air pollution equipment.
* According to William Anderson, Chairman of the Moapa Band of Paiutes, the plant -- located "just a couple hundred yards from the homes of Moapa Paiute families" -- has created coal plant soot, chemicals and ash waste that has sickened members of the tribe.
* "We've seen coal at Reid Gardner become too costly to make economic sence," Anderson stated, noting that the plant's owner, NV Energy, won't retire the nearly 50-year-old plant.
* In addition to the Moapa Piutes and the environmental organizations, Reid Gardner has also been opposed by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who in August stated that the plant has sent 2.8 million tons of carbon dioxide and thousands of pounds of arsenic, mercury and lead up its "four giant smokestacks."
* Stated that the soot is "literally killing the Paiutes, Reid said at the National Clean Energy Summit 5.0, "it is time to close the dirty relic, Reid Gardner."
* "Somewhere there has to be some justice," Anderson said. "Somewhere there has to be some rational leadership from NV Energy and state utility regulators."
Americans favor water recycling, but there's an "ick factor"
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most Americans have scant understanding about their water supply, but they are concerned about it, and believe recycling water gives the United States an advantage over other countries, a survey said on Tuesday.
However, Americans are less accepting of drinking recycled wastewater in a practice known as toilet-to-tap, the survey found.
With clean water growing scarce in much of the world, and with shortages possible in 36 U.S. states in the next year, according to the General Accountability Office, the survey conducted for General Electric Co found 66 percent of Americans feel positive about water re-use.
Eighty-three percent of Americans surveyed said they were concerned about the availability of clean water in the future.
GE makes water treatment equipment and technology. It commissioned the survey to figure out whether there was opposition to re-using water as a solution to water scarcity.
'We see water re-use as one of the key methods of addressing water scarcity that we have and the increasing gap between water demand and supply,' said Heiner Markhoff, president and CEO for water and process technologies for GE Power & Water. 'For us, it's an interesting and important driver in the markets around the world that we serve.'
The online survey of 3,000 people in the United States, Singapore and China showed Americans' understanding of water issues lags behind those surveyed in the other two countries.
It also found what it termed an 'ick factor' when Americans were asked about having wastewater recycled into drinking water - only 30 percent supported this - though 51 percent were in favor of swimming in recycled water and 51 percent agreed that it was drinkable.
However, eight out of 10 Americans favor using recycled water for other uses, including power generation, landscaping, industrial processing and manufacturing, toilet-flushing, car washing and agricultural irrigation.
While Americans generally feel water is the single most important service they receive, beating out electricity and heat, 31 percent don't know where their water comes from, compared with about one in 10 in China and Singapore.
The survey found that those who know more about water use and scarcity are much more likely to support water re-use, and Markhoff said public education and possible policy changes could raise that knowledge among Americans.
Emily Wurth of the Washington-based Food and Water Watch interest group said it makes sense to investigate re-use of some water, but stressed the need for water efficiency.
'Where we get concerned is about programs like toilet-to-tap, where they're presented as a panacea, as opposed to making some of the tougher policy decisions about how we should manage our existing fresh water resources,' Wurth said in a telephone interview about the survey.
'If we take public water, allow industries to pollute it and then allow other industries to clean it up, we don't believe that is a wise policy,' she said.
(Reporting by Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent; Editing by Stacey Joyce)
This news article is brought to you by INTERNET NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
However, Americans are less accepting of drinking recycled wastewater in a practice known as toilet-to-tap, the survey found.
With clean water growing scarce in much of the world, and with shortages possible in 36 U.S. states in the next year, according to the General Accountability Office, the survey conducted for General Electric Co found 66 percent of Americans feel positive about water re-use.
Eighty-three percent of Americans surveyed said they were concerned about the availability of clean water in the future.
GE makes water treatment equipment and technology. It commissioned the survey to figure out whether there was opposition to re-using water as a solution to water scarcity.
'We see water re-use as one of the key methods of addressing water scarcity that we have and the increasing gap between water demand and supply,' said Heiner Markhoff, president and CEO for water and process technologies for GE Power & Water. 'For us, it's an interesting and important driver in the markets around the world that we serve.'
The online survey of 3,000 people in the United States, Singapore and China showed Americans' understanding of water issues lags behind those surveyed in the other two countries.
It also found what it termed an 'ick factor' when Americans were asked about having wastewater recycled into drinking water - only 30 percent supported this - though 51 percent were in favor of swimming in recycled water and 51 percent agreed that it was drinkable.
However, eight out of 10 Americans favor using recycled water for other uses, including power generation, landscaping, industrial processing and manufacturing, toilet-flushing, car washing and agricultural irrigation.
While Americans generally feel water is the single most important service they receive, beating out electricity and heat, 31 percent don't know where their water comes from, compared with about one in 10 in China and Singapore.
The survey found that those who know more about water use and scarcity are much more likely to support water re-use, and Markhoff said public education and possible policy changes could raise that knowledge among Americans.
Emily Wurth of the Washington-based Food and Water Watch interest group said it makes sense to investigate re-use of some water, but stressed the need for water efficiency.
'Where we get concerned is about programs like toilet-to-tap, where they're presented as a panacea, as opposed to making some of the tougher policy decisions about how we should manage our existing fresh water resources,' Wurth said in a telephone interview about the survey.
'If we take public water, allow industries to pollute it and then allow other industries to clean it up, we don't believe that is a wise policy,' she said.
(Reporting by Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent; Editing by Stacey Joyce)
This news article is brought to you by INTERNET NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Green buildings on the rise in Persian Gulf states
DOHA, Qatar (AP) - With massive steel Sidra trees sprouting from the base of the building and a 9-meter (yard) high sculpture of a spider in the lobby protecting a sack of grey and white eggs, Qatar National Convention Center is hard to ignore.
But it's what most visitors don't see that may become the building's lasting legacy in a region far better known for over-the-top excesses than conservation.
From the sustainably logged wood used in its construction to the 3,500-square-meters of solar panels on the roof, the building designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki is considered one of the most environmentally sound convention centers in the world.
'We want to change people's mindsets,' said Ali al-Khalifa, as he led a visitor through an exhibition hall where dozens of ceiling windows helped cut down on electricity. It will take center stage in November when it hosts the U.N. Climate Change Conference, the first to be held by a top oil producer.
'We have to make something stay friendly to the environment. We are part of this earth,' said al-Khalifa, the chief executive officer of Astad Project Management which oversaw the construction. 'All the oil and gas countries are moving to a green concept to insure the new generation understands they have to preserve this energy and have something efficient.'
Green buildings would seem an oddity in this tiny Gulf nation which has plenty of oil and gas and, according to the International Energy Agency, the highest per capita emissions in the world, closely followed by Gulf neighbors Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
But attitudes about energy use are changing across the Gulf. There is a growing recognition that the once seemingly limitless fossil fuels will someday run out and that these countries need to chart a more sustainable path.
Buildings are a logical place to start. They consume up to 70 percent of energy in parts of the Gulf - compared to 40 percent worldwide - due to the preponderance of glass skyscrapers and brutally hot conditions from Dubai to the Saudi city of Jeddah, according to Thom Bohlen, chief technical officer for the Middle East Centre for Sustainable Development.
The Middle East has come late to the green building movement, lagging far behind the United States, Europe and Asia in building structures that emit fewer emissions and consume less water, according to the United States Green Building Council. The USGBC's voluntary program, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, is used internationally to certify green buildings.
But when it comes to buildings in the works that are trying to earn LEED status, the Middle East is among the leaders. It has 1,348 LEED-registered buildings which surpasses all but Asia and the United States.
'Over the past couple of years, there has been a focus on trying to drive sustainable construction practices,' said Peter Templeton, senior vice president of global market development for the USGBC. 'It is mostly focused on new construction rather than retrofits of existing building.'
Dubai in the UAE is home to one of the region's first green shopping malls and is building an eco-friendly mosque in 2013. On the outskirts of the country's capital, Abu Dhabi, the government-run Masdar Institute has built the first phase of a pre-planned city that aims to be powered by renewable sources including solar.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia, though, appear to have even bigger ambitions.
In Doha, work started in 2010 on Msheireb Downtown Doha, which promises to be the world's largest sustainable community with 100 buildings using an average of a third less energy.
Lusail City, a planned development for nearly 200,000 people on the edge of Doha, has promised to adhere to the country's voluntary green building guidelines - similar to those in the UAE and other Gulf countries - which set standards for everything from water consumption to traffic congestion.
In Saudi Arabia, authorities have applied for LEED certification for the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh, which will be home to the country's stock exchange. The nation's first LEED-certified project, the 26-building campus of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, opened in 2009 and recycles all its wastewater, uses 27 percent less energy than a typical campus and was built with 20 percent recycled content.
Most of these green buildings rely on 21st century solutions to reduce their footprint - high tech operating systems that ration electricity and power, additional insulation and thicker glass to reduce heat coming into the building and designs that orient the structure to limit the sun exposure.
But as the university campus shows, the region is also tapping technologies that are centuries old to solve its energy problems.
Along with its water savings and solar power, the project features wind towers, lattice-like shading on windows known as mashrabiya and a tent-inspired roof system that blocks the sun and extends throughout the campus.
'When we start a project, we will do some research on what people built in this location before they had electricity. How did they keep buildings warm or cool?' said Bill Odell, a senior vice president for HOK Architects who designed the KAUST campus. 'We did that on this project and there were serious techniques that clearly worked. ... All these ideas we took out of traditional Islamic architecture.'
The challenge now, experts say, is going beyond a handful of high profile projects and applying green building practices to the bulk of Gulf construction - such as low-rise office towers or residential housing projects.
To do that, governments in the region will have to make green building codes compulsory - most are now voluntary - and provide greater incentives for developers to build or retrofit more sustainably.
The other hurdle is sourcing building materials locally, which would cut down on emissions from transporting such things as steel, cement and wood to the region. Due to the lack of resources in the Gulf, most everything is imported and companies producing things like recycled steel are still too few to meet demand.
'If you want to build a green building, you need environmentally-sourced concrete, glass, aluminum,' said Steven Platt, a UAE-based expert on LEED. 'Although there are local suppliers, they aren't the greenest materials available.'
Those were among the challenges Qatar faced when it set out to design an exposition center that met LEED's Gold certification. With few green construction materials at home, it went as far as Belgium and South Korea to get the environmentally-certified wood, steel and glass. It increased the initial cost - and contributed additional carbon emissions from shipping - but in the end helped ensure the building produces 32 percent less energy than a comparable convention center.
'There are limitations for how much you can do,' al-Khalifa said.
'We don't want to fool ourselves. We were trying to be part of the system,' he said. 'We went to the greenest whenever we could find it. When we selected manufacturers, we didn't go for a cheaper supplier who didn't use recycled materials.'
This article is brought to you by DATING SERVICE.
But it's what most visitors don't see that may become the building's lasting legacy in a region far better known for over-the-top excesses than conservation.
From the sustainably logged wood used in its construction to the 3,500-square-meters of solar panels on the roof, the building designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki is considered one of the most environmentally sound convention centers in the world.
'We want to change people's mindsets,' said Ali al-Khalifa, as he led a visitor through an exhibition hall where dozens of ceiling windows helped cut down on electricity. It will take center stage in November when it hosts the U.N. Climate Change Conference, the first to be held by a top oil producer.
'We have to make something stay friendly to the environment. We are part of this earth,' said al-Khalifa, the chief executive officer of Astad Project Management which oversaw the construction. 'All the oil and gas countries are moving to a green concept to insure the new generation understands they have to preserve this energy and have something efficient.'
Green buildings would seem an oddity in this tiny Gulf nation which has plenty of oil and gas and, according to the International Energy Agency, the highest per capita emissions in the world, closely followed by Gulf neighbors Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
But attitudes about energy use are changing across the Gulf. There is a growing recognition that the once seemingly limitless fossil fuels will someday run out and that these countries need to chart a more sustainable path.
Buildings are a logical place to start. They consume up to 70 percent of energy in parts of the Gulf - compared to 40 percent worldwide - due to the preponderance of glass skyscrapers and brutally hot conditions from Dubai to the Saudi city of Jeddah, according to Thom Bohlen, chief technical officer for the Middle East Centre for Sustainable Development.
The Middle East has come late to the green building movement, lagging far behind the United States, Europe and Asia in building structures that emit fewer emissions and consume less water, according to the United States Green Building Council. The USGBC's voluntary program, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, is used internationally to certify green buildings.
But when it comes to buildings in the works that are trying to earn LEED status, the Middle East is among the leaders. It has 1,348 LEED-registered buildings which surpasses all but Asia and the United States.
'Over the past couple of years, there has been a focus on trying to drive sustainable construction practices,' said Peter Templeton, senior vice president of global market development for the USGBC. 'It is mostly focused on new construction rather than retrofits of existing building.'
Dubai in the UAE is home to one of the region's first green shopping malls and is building an eco-friendly mosque in 2013. On the outskirts of the country's capital, Abu Dhabi, the government-run Masdar Institute has built the first phase of a pre-planned city that aims to be powered by renewable sources including solar.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia, though, appear to have even bigger ambitions.
In Doha, work started in 2010 on Msheireb Downtown Doha, which promises to be the world's largest sustainable community with 100 buildings using an average of a third less energy.
Lusail City, a planned development for nearly 200,000 people on the edge of Doha, has promised to adhere to the country's voluntary green building guidelines - similar to those in the UAE and other Gulf countries - which set standards for everything from water consumption to traffic congestion.
In Saudi Arabia, authorities have applied for LEED certification for the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh, which will be home to the country's stock exchange. The nation's first LEED-certified project, the 26-building campus of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, opened in 2009 and recycles all its wastewater, uses 27 percent less energy than a typical campus and was built with 20 percent recycled content.
Most of these green buildings rely on 21st century solutions to reduce their footprint - high tech operating systems that ration electricity and power, additional insulation and thicker glass to reduce heat coming into the building and designs that orient the structure to limit the sun exposure.
But as the university campus shows, the region is also tapping technologies that are centuries old to solve its energy problems.
Along with its water savings and solar power, the project features wind towers, lattice-like shading on windows known as mashrabiya and a tent-inspired roof system that blocks the sun and extends throughout the campus.
'When we start a project, we will do some research on what people built in this location before they had electricity. How did they keep buildings warm or cool?' said Bill Odell, a senior vice president for HOK Architects who designed the KAUST campus. 'We did that on this project and there were serious techniques that clearly worked. ... All these ideas we took out of traditional Islamic architecture.'
The challenge now, experts say, is going beyond a handful of high profile projects and applying green building practices to the bulk of Gulf construction - such as low-rise office towers or residential housing projects.
To do that, governments in the region will have to make green building codes compulsory - most are now voluntary - and provide greater incentives for developers to build or retrofit more sustainably.
The other hurdle is sourcing building materials locally, which would cut down on emissions from transporting such things as steel, cement and wood to the region. Due to the lack of resources in the Gulf, most everything is imported and companies producing things like recycled steel are still too few to meet demand.
'If you want to build a green building, you need environmentally-sourced concrete, glass, aluminum,' said Steven Platt, a UAE-based expert on LEED. 'Although there are local suppliers, they aren't the greenest materials available.'
Those were among the challenges Qatar faced when it set out to design an exposition center that met LEED's Gold certification. With few green construction materials at home, it went as far as Belgium and South Korea to get the environmentally-certified wood, steel and glass. It increased the initial cost - and contributed additional carbon emissions from shipping - but in the end helped ensure the building produces 32 percent less energy than a comparable convention center.
'There are limitations for how much you can do,' al-Khalifa said.
'We don't want to fool ourselves. We were trying to be part of the system,' he said. 'We went to the greenest whenever we could find it. When we selected manufacturers, we didn't go for a cheaper supplier who didn't use recycled materials.'
This article is brought to you by DATING SERVICE.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Exxon Mobil Receives Green Cross Safety Award
The National Safety Council has announced that Exxon Mobil Corporation is the recipient of its 2013 Green Cross for Safety medal. The company was awarded the prize "for its comprehensive commitment to safety excellence," the council stated. Here are the details.
* The Green Cross for Safety medal, established in 2000, is awarded annually to organizations who demonstrate a commitment to "improving safety and health in the workplace and beyond," the National Safety Council explained.
* According to the council, Exxon Mobil -- the largest publicly traded international oil and gas company -- has accomplished safety, security, health and environmental performance through clearly defined policies and practices.
* In spite of the award, Exxon Mobil acknowledged in its 2011 Corporate Citizen Report, released in June, that there were some undesirable outcomes for the year found in its performance data.
* Once of the undesirable performance trends indicated in the report was 484 spills involving oil, chemical and drilling fluid not from marine vessels. These incidences were a dramatic increase from the 210 spills Exxon Mobil reported in 2010.
* The company also reported that it had nine fatalities of contractors in 2011, while there were only three in 2010. The fatal accident and lost-time incident rate for the total workforce increased last year over 2010 levels.
* "This year, some of the trends in our safety and environmental performance did not meet our expectations and we are taking action to address them," stated Rex W. Tillerson, Exxon Mobil Chairman and CEO in the 2011 Corporate Citizenship Report. "We will not stop working to achieve our goal of driving accidents and incidents with a real impact to zero."
* Exxon Mobil currently has operations on six continents, the company reported, stating that it strives to become part of local communities and economies in addition to supplying energy.
* The National Safety Council plans to honor Exxon Mobil for its achievement at an April 2013 event in Houston, Texas.
This article is brought to you by SINGLES.
* The Green Cross for Safety medal, established in 2000, is awarded annually to organizations who demonstrate a commitment to "improving safety and health in the workplace and beyond," the National Safety Council explained.
* According to the council, Exxon Mobil -- the largest publicly traded international oil and gas company -- has accomplished safety, security, health and environmental performance through clearly defined policies and practices.
* In spite of the award, Exxon Mobil acknowledged in its 2011 Corporate Citizen Report, released in June, that there were some undesirable outcomes for the year found in its performance data.
* Once of the undesirable performance trends indicated in the report was 484 spills involving oil, chemical and drilling fluid not from marine vessels. These incidences were a dramatic increase from the 210 spills Exxon Mobil reported in 2010.
* The company also reported that it had nine fatalities of contractors in 2011, while there were only three in 2010. The fatal accident and lost-time incident rate for the total workforce increased last year over 2010 levels.
* "This year, some of the trends in our safety and environmental performance did not meet our expectations and we are taking action to address them," stated Rex W. Tillerson, Exxon Mobil Chairman and CEO in the 2011 Corporate Citizenship Report. "We will not stop working to achieve our goal of driving accidents and incidents with a real impact to zero."
* Exxon Mobil currently has operations on six continents, the company reported, stating that it strives to become part of local communities and economies in addition to supplying energy.
* The National Safety Council plans to honor Exxon Mobil for its achievement at an April 2013 event in Houston, Texas.
This article is brought to you by SINGLES.
Insight: In vulnerable Greece, mosquitoes bite back
ATHENS (Reuters) - Just when it seems things couldn't get any worse for Greece, the exhausted and indebted country has a new threat to deal with: mosquito-borne diseases.
Species of the blood-sucking insects that can carry exotic-sounding tropical infections like malaria, West Nile Virus, chikungunya and dengue fever are enjoying the extra bit of warmth climate change is bringing to parts of southern Europe.
And with austerity budgets, a collapsing health system, political infighting and rising xenophobia all conspiring to allow pest and disease control measures here to slip through the net, the mosquitoes are biting back.
Already malaria, a disease eliminated from Greece in 1974, is not just returning with visitors and migrants - as it does from time to time in the rest Europe - but is being transmitted from person to person within Greek borders.
This year's death toll from West Nile Virus, a disease spread by Culex modestus mosquitoes, stood at 16 on October 11.
It's a sign of the times that Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF), a global medical charity more usually associated with the fight to save lives of babies in sub-Saharan Africa, is now working full time in parts of southern Greece.
In a country visited by 16 million tourists a year and where austerity measures mean up to 30 percent of the population is already struggling to access the healthcare they need, keeping infectious bites to a minimum is an economic necessity.
Yet far from coordinated, timely action, the rising threat from mosquitoes has instead brought a blame game pitching Greeks against foreigners, local mayors against national politicians and patients and doctors against ministers and officials.
'For a European country, letting this kind of situation develop and not controlling it is a big concern,' says Apostolos Veizis, MSF's director of medical-operational support in Greece.
'You can't run after malaria. In a country in the European Union, we should not be running after a disease like this in emergency mode. Even in poorly-resourced countries in Africa, they have a national plan in place. What I expect from a country that is a member of the EU is at least that.'
But this EU country is in deep trouble.
'BLEEDING'
Outside one of Athens' oldest and most respected hospitals, the effects of the debt crisis that has brought this country to its knees can't be ignored. The homeless sleep on streets and park benches, and a banner hanging from the Evangelismos hospital's main gate says 'the health system is bleeding'.
On a white bed sheet daubed in red and black paint and hung up by doctors who often work 36-hour on-call shifts and haven't been paid for them for months, it declares 'no to more layoffs, no to a lack of supplies, no to making us work without pay.'
Greece is in its fifth year of recession, with unemployment at 25 percent. Savage austerity steps have not proved enough so far and Greece now needs to make at least 11.5 billion euros of new cuts to secure the next tranche of a European Union bailout.
Infectious disease experts here and at a European level agree that for now, at least in terms of patient numbers, the country's malaria problem pales beside its many other worries.
Some 59 cases of the parasitic infection have been recorded in Greece so far this year, 48 of which were imported either by migrants or returning Greek travelers. West Nile Virus cases are around three times that, at 159 so far this year.
Still, says Johan Giesecke, of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) cases of these diseases 'should not be coming back'.
'It's a serious problem,' the ECDC's chief scientist says.
Giesecke and others believe climate change is part of the problem, as is the arrival of several new species of mosquito in Europe - including the Asian tiger mosquito known to carry dengue, West Nile Virus and chikungunya.
It's only a snapshot, but in this mid October, when many northern Europeans are putting on coats and boots, Athens still has shorts and flip-flops weather at up to 30 degrees and humid.
While Greece has had no cases of chikungunya in the past three years, the disease is popping up elsewhere in Europe - as is dengue, which is causing a large outbreak on the Portuguese island of Madeira [ID:nL5E8LCJBW].
IMMIGRANTS
At the University of Thessaly, Christos Hadjichristodoulou, a consultant for the Hellenic Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (HCDCP) says the return of mosquito-borne diseases is primarily an issue not of health, but of immigration.
A country of 11 million people, Greece is a major gateway for Asian and African migrants trying to get to the EU. It is home to more than a million immigrants, both legal and illegal.
'We get a lot of immigrants from malaria-endemic countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan who spread throughout the country, including to areas where the risk is high because we have the vectors (mosquitoes),' said Hadjichristodoulou.
This includes places like the rural municipality of Evrotas, where many of Greece's malaria cases have been found. Here some 4,000 poor and mainly Asian migrants work in fields producing oranges and olive oil, irrigated by 130 kilometers of canals.
Hadjichristodoulou cites a survey of 6,000 immigrants in southern Greece which found that 60 percent of them had antibodies to malaria in their blood - meaning they had previously been infected with it.
With the form of malaria endemic to Pakistan and Afghanistan, known as vivax malaria, patients can relapse, often several times, allowing the disease to be picked up again by a hungry mosquito and spread to a new victim.
Ioannis Grevenitis, a 41-year-old restaurant owner in the southern town of Agios Georgios Skalas, is sure this is what happened when he fell prey to malaria last year. The illness put him in hospital for three days then, he says, and he suffered a relapse a few weeks ago.
While he insists he's not racist -'no way' - he also says he no longer serves Pakistanis in his restaurant. The other customers, local Greeks, are afraid of them, he says.
'The problem is...down to the immigrants,' he told Reuters.
Eleni Kakalou, a doctor at Evangelismos hospital, grimaces with frustration when she hears such talk, which she says is part of a 'rising wave of racism and xenophobia' in Greece.
Such prejudice, she worries, could drive Greek politicians, already moving to the right to capture populist votes, to introduce policies banning migrants from free healthcare - keeping them away from exactly those health services they need, and Greece needs, to help get on top such diseases.
CONTROL
Kakalou, like MSF's Veizis, is most concerned about what Greece is doing - or not doing - to control its mosquitoes.
In countries where the disease is endemic, so-called 'vector control' measures such as spraying insecticides to limit mosquito populations, and environmental measures like making sure areas of standing water are drained or at least kept to a minimum, are the basics of national malaria control plans.
In Greece, however, where MSF says malaria is a 'forgotten' disease, spraying is not getting the attention it deserves.
According to Veizis, of the 56 municipalities that make up the Attica region of which Athens is the centre, 'only eight undertook anti-mosquito spraying at the time that is recommended for effective vector control' - which in 2012 was early Spring.
And as with the immigration row and battles over health services, dysfunctional politics creep in here too.
Part of the problem is that while the health ministry is responsible for health services, responsibility for mosquito control falls to Greece's hundreds of municipalities, the lowest level of government run by local councils and led by mayors.
'They don't have specialized scientific staff and have been suffering budget cuts from central government,' said Kakalou.
'And public health in Greece is not developed enough, co-ordinated, funded or staffed at a central or local level.'
Health Minister Andreas Lykourentzos has said he would secure the funds needed and be better prepared next year.
'We must act in a timely manner to prevent a repeat of this summer's incidents,' he said in a statement last month.
Drawing on the know-how of MSF the authorities have drawn up a 'Strategic Plan of Action for Malaria Control'.
Kakalou welcomes the plan as a positive step but has little faith in what it will mean in practice: 'Unless it is implemented entirely, funded appropriately and supported, it will remain on paper.'
(Additional reporting by Karolina Tagaris and Renee Maltezou; editing by Anna Willard)
This news article is brought to you by LINUXOS.PRO - where latest news are our top priority.
Species of the blood-sucking insects that can carry exotic-sounding tropical infections like malaria, West Nile Virus, chikungunya and dengue fever are enjoying the extra bit of warmth climate change is bringing to parts of southern Europe.
And with austerity budgets, a collapsing health system, political infighting and rising xenophobia all conspiring to allow pest and disease control measures here to slip through the net, the mosquitoes are biting back.
Already malaria, a disease eliminated from Greece in 1974, is not just returning with visitors and migrants - as it does from time to time in the rest Europe - but is being transmitted from person to person within Greek borders.
This year's death toll from West Nile Virus, a disease spread by Culex modestus mosquitoes, stood at 16 on October 11.
It's a sign of the times that Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF), a global medical charity more usually associated with the fight to save lives of babies in sub-Saharan Africa, is now working full time in parts of southern Greece.
In a country visited by 16 million tourists a year and where austerity measures mean up to 30 percent of the population is already struggling to access the healthcare they need, keeping infectious bites to a minimum is an economic necessity.
Yet far from coordinated, timely action, the rising threat from mosquitoes has instead brought a blame game pitching Greeks against foreigners, local mayors against national politicians and patients and doctors against ministers and officials.
'For a European country, letting this kind of situation develop and not controlling it is a big concern,' says Apostolos Veizis, MSF's director of medical-operational support in Greece.
'You can't run after malaria. In a country in the European Union, we should not be running after a disease like this in emergency mode. Even in poorly-resourced countries in Africa, they have a national plan in place. What I expect from a country that is a member of the EU is at least that.'
But this EU country is in deep trouble.
'BLEEDING'
Outside one of Athens' oldest and most respected hospitals, the effects of the debt crisis that has brought this country to its knees can't be ignored. The homeless sleep on streets and park benches, and a banner hanging from the Evangelismos hospital's main gate says 'the health system is bleeding'.
On a white bed sheet daubed in red and black paint and hung up by doctors who often work 36-hour on-call shifts and haven't been paid for them for months, it declares 'no to more layoffs, no to a lack of supplies, no to making us work without pay.'
Greece is in its fifth year of recession, with unemployment at 25 percent. Savage austerity steps have not proved enough so far and Greece now needs to make at least 11.5 billion euros of new cuts to secure the next tranche of a European Union bailout.
Infectious disease experts here and at a European level agree that for now, at least in terms of patient numbers, the country's malaria problem pales beside its many other worries.
Some 59 cases of the parasitic infection have been recorded in Greece so far this year, 48 of which were imported either by migrants or returning Greek travelers. West Nile Virus cases are around three times that, at 159 so far this year.
Still, says Johan Giesecke, of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) cases of these diseases 'should not be coming back'.
'It's a serious problem,' the ECDC's chief scientist says.
Giesecke and others believe climate change is part of the problem, as is the arrival of several new species of mosquito in Europe - including the Asian tiger mosquito known to carry dengue, West Nile Virus and chikungunya.
It's only a snapshot, but in this mid October, when many northern Europeans are putting on coats and boots, Athens still has shorts and flip-flops weather at up to 30 degrees and humid.
While Greece has had no cases of chikungunya in the past three years, the disease is popping up elsewhere in Europe - as is dengue, which is causing a large outbreak on the Portuguese island of Madeira [ID:nL5E8LCJBW].
IMMIGRANTS
At the University of Thessaly, Christos Hadjichristodoulou, a consultant for the Hellenic Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (HCDCP) says the return of mosquito-borne diseases is primarily an issue not of health, but of immigration.
A country of 11 million people, Greece is a major gateway for Asian and African migrants trying to get to the EU. It is home to more than a million immigrants, both legal and illegal.
'We get a lot of immigrants from malaria-endemic countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan who spread throughout the country, including to areas where the risk is high because we have the vectors (mosquitoes),' said Hadjichristodoulou.
This includes places like the rural municipality of Evrotas, where many of Greece's malaria cases have been found. Here some 4,000 poor and mainly Asian migrants work in fields producing oranges and olive oil, irrigated by 130 kilometers of canals.
Hadjichristodoulou cites a survey of 6,000 immigrants in southern Greece which found that 60 percent of them had antibodies to malaria in their blood - meaning they had previously been infected with it.
With the form of malaria endemic to Pakistan and Afghanistan, known as vivax malaria, patients can relapse, often several times, allowing the disease to be picked up again by a hungry mosquito and spread to a new victim.
Ioannis Grevenitis, a 41-year-old restaurant owner in the southern town of Agios Georgios Skalas, is sure this is what happened when he fell prey to malaria last year. The illness put him in hospital for three days then, he says, and he suffered a relapse a few weeks ago.
While he insists he's not racist -'no way' - he also says he no longer serves Pakistanis in his restaurant. The other customers, local Greeks, are afraid of them, he says.
'The problem is...down to the immigrants,' he told Reuters.
Eleni Kakalou, a doctor at Evangelismos hospital, grimaces with frustration when she hears such talk, which she says is part of a 'rising wave of racism and xenophobia' in Greece.
Such prejudice, she worries, could drive Greek politicians, already moving to the right to capture populist votes, to introduce policies banning migrants from free healthcare - keeping them away from exactly those health services they need, and Greece needs, to help get on top such diseases.
CONTROL
Kakalou, like MSF's Veizis, is most concerned about what Greece is doing - or not doing - to control its mosquitoes.
In countries where the disease is endemic, so-called 'vector control' measures such as spraying insecticides to limit mosquito populations, and environmental measures like making sure areas of standing water are drained or at least kept to a minimum, are the basics of national malaria control plans.
In Greece, however, where MSF says malaria is a 'forgotten' disease, spraying is not getting the attention it deserves.
According to Veizis, of the 56 municipalities that make up the Attica region of which Athens is the centre, 'only eight undertook anti-mosquito spraying at the time that is recommended for effective vector control' - which in 2012 was early Spring.
And as with the immigration row and battles over health services, dysfunctional politics creep in here too.
Part of the problem is that while the health ministry is responsible for health services, responsibility for mosquito control falls to Greece's hundreds of municipalities, the lowest level of government run by local councils and led by mayors.
'They don't have specialized scientific staff and have been suffering budget cuts from central government,' said Kakalou.
'And public health in Greece is not developed enough, co-ordinated, funded or staffed at a central or local level.'
Health Minister Andreas Lykourentzos has said he would secure the funds needed and be better prepared next year.
'We must act in a timely manner to prevent a repeat of this summer's incidents,' he said in a statement last month.
Drawing on the know-how of MSF the authorities have drawn up a 'Strategic Plan of Action for Malaria Control'.
Kakalou welcomes the plan as a positive step but has little faith in what it will mean in practice: 'Unless it is implemented entirely, funded appropriately and supported, it will remain on paper.'
(Additional reporting by Karolina Tagaris and Renee Maltezou; editing by Anna Willard)
This news article is brought to you by LINUXOS.PRO - where latest news are our top priority.
Penn Museum unwraps mystery of mummy conservation
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The Penn Museum is unwrapping the mystery of mummy conservation, giving the public an unusual close-up of researchers' efforts to preserve relics from ancient Egypt.
Human and animal mummies, as well as an intricately inscribed coffin, are among the items undergoing treatment and repair at the Philadelphia institution's newly installed Artifact Lab.
Housed in a special gallery, the glass-enclosed workspace lets visitors share in 'the thrill of discovery,' museum director Julian Siggers said.
'It demonstrates to you the work that's actually being done behind the walls of these galleries,' Siggers said.
Visitors can watch staff members use microscopes, brushes and other tools of the trade to inspect, study and preserve items including the mummy of a 5-year-old girl, several human heads, a colorful but damaged sarcophagus, and a painting from a tomb wall.
Flat-screen monitors display magnified views of the relics as they are being examined. Conservators will also set aside time twice a day to answer questions from the public.
The archaeology and anthropology museum has identified 30 objects from its 42,000-piece Egyptian collection to be conserved during the evolving project. Many of the lab items have not been exhibited before because of their poor condition, said conservator Molly Gleeson.
Among Gleeson's first projects are preserving the mummies of a cat, falcon and ibis. She described the falcon's linen wrappings as frayed and powdery, and noted its precariously attached head would need to be stabilized before the mummy could be displayed.
Also undergoing study are hieroglyphic-inscribed slabs of wood that comprised the coffin of an Egyptian named Ahanakht, circa 2000 B.C. Conservation efforts led researchers to discover hidden inscriptions on the seams, said David Silverman, curator-in-charge of the Egyptian section.
Head conservator Lynn Grant said staff members continuously experience a sense of wonder as they work with historical artifacts.
'It is a delight, with this new space, to be able to share that with our visitors and give people an idea of what's going on behind the scenes,' Grant said.
___
Online:
Artifact Lab: www.penn.museum/sites/artifactlab
___
Follow Kathy Matheson at www.twitter.com/kmatheson
This news article is brought to you by FREE ROMANTIC DATING SITE BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Human and animal mummies, as well as an intricately inscribed coffin, are among the items undergoing treatment and repair at the Philadelphia institution's newly installed Artifact Lab.
Housed in a special gallery, the glass-enclosed workspace lets visitors share in 'the thrill of discovery,' museum director Julian Siggers said.
'It demonstrates to you the work that's actually being done behind the walls of these galleries,' Siggers said.
Visitors can watch staff members use microscopes, brushes and other tools of the trade to inspect, study and preserve items including the mummy of a 5-year-old girl, several human heads, a colorful but damaged sarcophagus, and a painting from a tomb wall.
Flat-screen monitors display magnified views of the relics as they are being examined. Conservators will also set aside time twice a day to answer questions from the public.
The archaeology and anthropology museum has identified 30 objects from its 42,000-piece Egyptian collection to be conserved during the evolving project. Many of the lab items have not been exhibited before because of their poor condition, said conservator Molly Gleeson.
Among Gleeson's first projects are preserving the mummies of a cat, falcon and ibis. She described the falcon's linen wrappings as frayed and powdery, and noted its precariously attached head would need to be stabilized before the mummy could be displayed.
Also undergoing study are hieroglyphic-inscribed slabs of wood that comprised the coffin of an Egyptian named Ahanakht, circa 2000 B.C. Conservation efforts led researchers to discover hidden inscriptions on the seams, said David Silverman, curator-in-charge of the Egyptian section.
Head conservator Lynn Grant said staff members continuously experience a sense of wonder as they work with historical artifacts.
'It is a delight, with this new space, to be able to share that with our visitors and give people an idea of what's going on behind the scenes,' Grant said.
___
Online:
Artifact Lab: www.penn.museum/sites/artifactlab
___
Follow Kathy Matheson at www.twitter.com/kmatheson
This news article is brought to you by FREE ROMANTIC DATING SITE BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Does Twitter Give Students an Educational Boost? [VIDEO]
This news article is brought to you by SPACE AND ASTRONOMY NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Brazil: Saving endangered monkey helps forest
SILVA JARDIM, Brazil (AP) - Three tiny flaming orange monkeys crouched on a tree branch, cocking their heads as if to better hear the high-pitched whistles and yaps that came from deep within the dense green foliage. Then they answered in kind, rending the morning with their sharp calls and cautiously greeting each other in the forest.
That the cries of Brazil's endangered golden lion tamarins should fill the air at all on a recent afternoon was cause for celebration, the result of one of the world's most inspired species restoration efforts. In fact, that campaign has transformed the lush forest where the monkeys live and has become a model widely cited for saving other animals.
'There is no question in my mind that the golden lion tamarin is one of the best examples of international collaboration anywhere in the world,' said Russell Mittermeier, president of environmental group Conservation International and chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's group on primates. 'I cite it every couple of weeks. This is how you do this kind of thing.'
Saving the squirrel-sized monkeys, which sport a lush coat and foot-long tail, became a passion for everyone from international animal aid groups to Brazilian conservationists. It also brought in people living in the area, from well-off landowners to farm workers, who learned how to make a living from growing the trees that the monkeys depend on to survive, researchers said. Its population has grown from just hundreds four decades ago to 1,700 in Rio de Janeiro state.
Now the tamarin is in the running for mascot in Brazil's 2016 Olympics, and the next step to ensuring its survival might be helped along by another Olympic project: the state's promise to plant 24 million trees, enough to absorb the greenhouse gases generated by the vehicle traffic, construction and other activities of the games. That would help further restore the swath of species-rich Atlantic forest that once covered much of Brazil's coast, and ensure the tamarin population has enough room to thrive.
'It's an ambitious goal, and it won't be easy,' said Marcia Hirota, of the environmental group the SOS Mata Atlantica Foundation, aimed at restoring the forest. 'It's a challenge, but Rio has already cut down on deforestation. With this kind of public policy, Rio can become an example for other states that are in a more critical situation.'
For centuries, the little golden monkeys had been exported as pets and as exhibits in zoos around the world, with even Louis XV's chief mistress buying one for the French court. Its popularity became key to its survival: Even as the species faced threats in Brazil, enough monkeys were living abroad in places like in the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo to usher in its rebound. Rio state is the only place in the world where the tamarins live in the wild.
The first push to save the tamarins began in the early 1970s, when a Brazilian researcher found their once-teeming numbers dwindling as cities and farms ate into the forest.
Once the alarm was sounded, researchers in Brazil and abroad began working together on a labor of love that would consume decades. Their first goal: learning how to encourage the monkeys to mate.
The rescuers then turned to their most challenging task - reviving the forest, which covers Brazil's most populated region, and gradually reintroducing the monkey into the wild, explained Mittermeier, who has been part of the effort since he was a student in the early 1970s.
Even in the first few years, the effort broke new ground: The Poco das Antas biological reserve in Rio state, set up to preserve the tamarin's habitat, was the first of its kind in the nation. It provides the most stringent form of protection possible, setting aside public land but closing it off to visitors, to be used only for research and education. When the reserve began in 1974, roughly 100 tamarins lived in the area. Now there are 250.
By 1983, researchers started introducing the golden monkeys into the wild only to watch with heartbreak as the naive zoo-bred animals met tragic deaths because they failed to recognize panthers and other predators or find shelter or food. Nearly three decades later, the population has multiplied in all of Rio state, with each tamarin an expert in identifying the 150 types of fruits, berries, shoots and insects it can survive on, said Andreia Martins, field coordinator for the Golden Lion Tamarin Association. The association is the main Brazilian group working to save the monkeys.
'If you're lost in the forest, follow the tamarin,' she said. 'They'll always find food.'
The next step should be within reach: raising the golden lion tamarin's population to around a sustainable level of 2,000 or more.
The main obstacle, the sheer lack of habitat, is where the Olympics come in.
Brazil's coastal Atlantic forest is one of the world's biodiversity hotspots. About 2,200 different birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, including 60 percent of the country's threatened species, make their home in this jungle, one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet and also one of the most threatened.
The monkey is an umbrella species whose protection ensures that dozens of other species in the region have a chance of survival, including the endangered maned three-toed sloth and the wooly spider monkey.
People depend on it as well. The Mata Atlantica forest, as it is known in Brazil, encompasses the nation's biggest cities, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, and about 70 percent of the country's population. Seven of Brazil's 10 biggest cities depend on its rivers and springs for water and electricity generation.
That kind of development has reduced the luxuriant jungle to 8 percent of its original 3.2 million acres (1.3 million hectares). About 80 percent of the land is privately owned, and it's expensive, much of it taken up with ranches and farms.
Conservationists say the monkeys need about 61,800 acres (25,000 hectares) of protected, interconnected forest for the species to thrive on their own. So far, they only have 40 percent of that required land to live on.
Expanding the forest comes with own challenges, first off finding quality seeds from the diversity of plants in the region and then sprouting those seeds into healthy shoots.
The rescuers have recruited people living in the forest, many of them former field workers who used to harvest vegetables, and trained them to recognize native trees, select seeds and monitor their growth, creating seven small-scale nurseries set up by locals.
For Marlene de Oliveira and her sister, the nursery business was a godsend. After decades of back-breaking work harvesting manioc root, they're now the proud owners of a sturdy wood-frame, mesh-walled nursery near the reserve for which their shoots are destined. In their first year, they produced 14,000 shoots of dozens of species.
The county where the de Olveiras work has become the nation's leader in private reserves, with 22. The landowner voluntarily grants the legal protection, but once a plot gets the designation, it's binding: The forest can never be cut down, even if the ground under it is sold.
'I used to think this was a funny idea, planting trees,' said de Oliveira, through a wide, gummy grin from which most teeth were missing. 'I used to wonder, why not plant food? What good is this to anyone? Now I see it's good for the monkeys, and good for everyone.'
This article is brought to you by PERSONALS.
That the cries of Brazil's endangered golden lion tamarins should fill the air at all on a recent afternoon was cause for celebration, the result of one of the world's most inspired species restoration efforts. In fact, that campaign has transformed the lush forest where the monkeys live and has become a model widely cited for saving other animals.
'There is no question in my mind that the golden lion tamarin is one of the best examples of international collaboration anywhere in the world,' said Russell Mittermeier, president of environmental group Conservation International and chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's group on primates. 'I cite it every couple of weeks. This is how you do this kind of thing.'
Saving the squirrel-sized monkeys, which sport a lush coat and foot-long tail, became a passion for everyone from international animal aid groups to Brazilian conservationists. It also brought in people living in the area, from well-off landowners to farm workers, who learned how to make a living from growing the trees that the monkeys depend on to survive, researchers said. Its population has grown from just hundreds four decades ago to 1,700 in Rio de Janeiro state.
Now the tamarin is in the running for mascot in Brazil's 2016 Olympics, and the next step to ensuring its survival might be helped along by another Olympic project: the state's promise to plant 24 million trees, enough to absorb the greenhouse gases generated by the vehicle traffic, construction and other activities of the games. That would help further restore the swath of species-rich Atlantic forest that once covered much of Brazil's coast, and ensure the tamarin population has enough room to thrive.
'It's an ambitious goal, and it won't be easy,' said Marcia Hirota, of the environmental group the SOS Mata Atlantica Foundation, aimed at restoring the forest. 'It's a challenge, but Rio has already cut down on deforestation. With this kind of public policy, Rio can become an example for other states that are in a more critical situation.'
For centuries, the little golden monkeys had been exported as pets and as exhibits in zoos around the world, with even Louis XV's chief mistress buying one for the French court. Its popularity became key to its survival: Even as the species faced threats in Brazil, enough monkeys were living abroad in places like in the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo to usher in its rebound. Rio state is the only place in the world where the tamarins live in the wild.
The first push to save the tamarins began in the early 1970s, when a Brazilian researcher found their once-teeming numbers dwindling as cities and farms ate into the forest.
Once the alarm was sounded, researchers in Brazil and abroad began working together on a labor of love that would consume decades. Their first goal: learning how to encourage the monkeys to mate.
The rescuers then turned to their most challenging task - reviving the forest, which covers Brazil's most populated region, and gradually reintroducing the monkey into the wild, explained Mittermeier, who has been part of the effort since he was a student in the early 1970s.
Even in the first few years, the effort broke new ground: The Poco das Antas biological reserve in Rio state, set up to preserve the tamarin's habitat, was the first of its kind in the nation. It provides the most stringent form of protection possible, setting aside public land but closing it off to visitors, to be used only for research and education. When the reserve began in 1974, roughly 100 tamarins lived in the area. Now there are 250.
By 1983, researchers started introducing the golden monkeys into the wild only to watch with heartbreak as the naive zoo-bred animals met tragic deaths because they failed to recognize panthers and other predators or find shelter or food. Nearly three decades later, the population has multiplied in all of Rio state, with each tamarin an expert in identifying the 150 types of fruits, berries, shoots and insects it can survive on, said Andreia Martins, field coordinator for the Golden Lion Tamarin Association. The association is the main Brazilian group working to save the monkeys.
'If you're lost in the forest, follow the tamarin,' she said. 'They'll always find food.'
The next step should be within reach: raising the golden lion tamarin's population to around a sustainable level of 2,000 or more.
The main obstacle, the sheer lack of habitat, is where the Olympics come in.
Brazil's coastal Atlantic forest is one of the world's biodiversity hotspots. About 2,200 different birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, including 60 percent of the country's threatened species, make their home in this jungle, one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet and also one of the most threatened.
The monkey is an umbrella species whose protection ensures that dozens of other species in the region have a chance of survival, including the endangered maned three-toed sloth and the wooly spider monkey.
People depend on it as well. The Mata Atlantica forest, as it is known in Brazil, encompasses the nation's biggest cities, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, and about 70 percent of the country's population. Seven of Brazil's 10 biggest cities depend on its rivers and springs for water and electricity generation.
That kind of development has reduced the luxuriant jungle to 8 percent of its original 3.2 million acres (1.3 million hectares). About 80 percent of the land is privately owned, and it's expensive, much of it taken up with ranches and farms.
Conservationists say the monkeys need about 61,800 acres (25,000 hectares) of protected, interconnected forest for the species to thrive on their own. So far, they only have 40 percent of that required land to live on.
Expanding the forest comes with own challenges, first off finding quality seeds from the diversity of plants in the region and then sprouting those seeds into healthy shoots.
The rescuers have recruited people living in the forest, many of them former field workers who used to harvest vegetables, and trained them to recognize native trees, select seeds and monitor their growth, creating seven small-scale nurseries set up by locals.
For Marlene de Oliveira and her sister, the nursery business was a godsend. After decades of back-breaking work harvesting manioc root, they're now the proud owners of a sturdy wood-frame, mesh-walled nursery near the reserve for which their shoots are destined. In their first year, they produced 14,000 shoots of dozens of species.
The county where the de Olveiras work has become the nation's leader in private reserves, with 22. The landowner voluntarily grants the legal protection, but once a plot gets the designation, it's binding: The forest can never be cut down, even if the ground under it is sold.
'I used to think this was a funny idea, planting trees,' said de Oliveira, through a wide, gummy grin from which most teeth were missing. 'I used to wonder, why not plant food? What good is this to anyone? Now I see it's good for the monkeys, and good for everyone.'
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British engineers create petrol from air and water
LONDON (Reuters) - A small British company has developed a way to create petrol from air and water, technology it hopes may one day contribute to large-scale production of green fuels.
Engineers at Air Fuel Synthesis (AFS) in Teeside, northern England, say they have produced 5 litres of synthetic petrol over a period of three months.
The technique involves extracting carbon dioxide from air and hydrogen from water, and combining them in a reactor with a catalyst to make methanol. The methanol is then converted into petrol.
By using renewable energy to power the process, it is possible to create carbon-neutral fuel that can be used in an identical way to standard petrol, scientists behind the technology say.
'It's actually cleaner because it's synthetic,' Peter Harrison, chief executive officer of AFS, said in an interview.
'You just make what you need to make in terms of the contents of it, so it doesn't contain what might be seen as pollutants, like sulphur,' he said.
The work is part of a two-year project that has so far cost around 1 million pounds ($1.6 million).
The green petrol will not appear on forecourts any time soon, though.
'We can't make (the petrol) at pump prices, but we will do eventually,' Harrison said. 'All we need is renewable energy to make it, and so when oil becomes a problem we will be able to make a contribution to keep cars moving or to keep aeroplanes moving.'
AFS said it was confident the technology could be scaled up to refinery size in the future. Each of the processes that go into making the fuel already take place separately on an industrial scale.
For now, however, AFS plans to build a commercial plant in the next two years that will produce around 1,200 litres a day of specialist fuels for the motorsports sector, Harrison said.
(Reporting by Alice Baghdjian; Editing by Chris Wickham and Jane Baird)
This news article is brought to you by GAMING NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Engineers at Air Fuel Synthesis (AFS) in Teeside, northern England, say they have produced 5 litres of synthetic petrol over a period of three months.
The technique involves extracting carbon dioxide from air and hydrogen from water, and combining them in a reactor with a catalyst to make methanol. The methanol is then converted into petrol.
By using renewable energy to power the process, it is possible to create carbon-neutral fuel that can be used in an identical way to standard petrol, scientists behind the technology say.
'It's actually cleaner because it's synthetic,' Peter Harrison, chief executive officer of AFS, said in an interview.
'You just make what you need to make in terms of the contents of it, so it doesn't contain what might be seen as pollutants, like sulphur,' he said.
The work is part of a two-year project that has so far cost around 1 million pounds ($1.6 million).
The green petrol will not appear on forecourts any time soon, though.
'We can't make (the petrol) at pump prices, but we will do eventually,' Harrison said. 'All we need is renewable energy to make it, and so when oil becomes a problem we will be able to make a contribution to keep cars moving or to keep aeroplanes moving.'
AFS said it was confident the technology could be scaled up to refinery size in the future. Each of the processes that go into making the fuel already take place separately on an industrial scale.
For now, however, AFS plans to build a commercial plant in the next two years that will produce around 1,200 litres a day of specialist fuels for the motorsports sector, Harrison said.
(Reporting by Alice Baghdjian; Editing by Chris Wickham and Jane Baird)
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Green Tea's Anti-Cancer Secrets Revealed
Doctors have speculated for years on the possible benefits from drinking green tea. The ancient brew has been associated with just about everything healthy, from boosting the immune system to preventing and reversing chronic diseases.
Health studies on green tea, however, have been promising but not conclusive. But now doctors have better identified, at a cellular level, how green tea might prevent the spread of breast and prostate cancers.
Chemicals in green tea called polyphenols appear to inhibit two proteins that promote tumor cell growth and migration - namely, the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and the hepatocyte growth factor (HGF).
This finding, based on an ongoing study of 40 women with a type of breast cancer that doesn't respond to hormone therapy, was presented today (Oct. 18) at the 11th Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research in Anaheim, Calif. This same mechanism might be behind positive results seen among prostate cancer patients, also presented today by a separate team of researchers at the same conference. [Top 10 Cancer-Fighting Foods]
Testing tea's effects
The breast cancer study was led by Katherine D. Crew, an assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. Crew's team randomly administered either a placebo or varying concentrations of a green tea extract known commercially as Polyphenon E, which contains several green tea polyphenols.
Those women receiving green tea extract had significantly lower levels of the tumor growth factors at two months into the treatment. While differences between those receiving a placebo and those receiving the extract were not as significant after four and six months, this was perhaps due to patients not keeping up with the pills, Crew said.
One goal of this ongoing study is to establish an appropriate dose of the green tea extract - the study levels were equivalent to eight to 24 cups of pure green tea - and Crew remains hopeful her group can identify this optimal level for the best therapeutic effect, she told LiveScience.
'This study was too small to say for sure if green tea will prevent breast cancer, but it may move us forward in terms of understanding antitumor mechanisms,' Crew said.
Green tea and prostate cancer
Crew's work builds upon a smaller study of 26 men with prostate cancer, published in 2009 by a team led by James Cardelli of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, La. Cardelli found similar reductions in the same growth factors with Polyphenon E.
A newer study on prostate cancer, presented at today's meeting, had participants drink lots of brewed green tea, not the extract. This study, led by Susanne Henning, an adjunct professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles, involved 67 men about to undergo a prostatectomy, the removal of an enlarged or cancerous prostate.
In the weeks before the procedure, these men were randomly assigned to a regimen of drinking either six cups of brewed green tea or water daily. Those who drank the green tea had significantly lower levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA); elevated PSA is associated with prostate tumor growth.
Combined with Cardelli's 2009 study, the newer finding suggests green tea polyphenols, as consumed in copious amounts of green tea, might help control the two tumor growth factors - VEGF and HGF - to prevent full-blown prostate cancer.
Although Crew said it is still too early to recommend green tea to prevent cancer, she added that researchers are conducting several ongoing studies to explore the use of oral green tea extract in high-risk women for the primary prevention of breast cancer.
These studies used green tea in its extracted or pure form. Those hoping to reap healthful benefits of green tea should note that most tea products in the supermarket contain only small amounts of green tea and are often mixed with sugar or other flavors.
In Japan, where green tea consumption is high, prostate and breast cancer rates are about three times lower when compared with the United States, according to the World Health Organization, although differences could be attributed to other dietary factors.
The Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research conference is hosted annually by the American Association for Cancer Research.
Christopher Wanjek is the author of a new novel, 'Hey, Einstein!', a comical nature-versus-nurture tale about raising clones of Albert Einstein in less-than-ideal settings. His column, Bad Medicine, appears regularly on LiveScience.
This article is brought to you by DATING SERVICE.
Health studies on green tea, however, have been promising but not conclusive. But now doctors have better identified, at a cellular level, how green tea might prevent the spread of breast and prostate cancers.
Chemicals in green tea called polyphenols appear to inhibit two proteins that promote tumor cell growth and migration - namely, the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and the hepatocyte growth factor (HGF).
This finding, based on an ongoing study of 40 women with a type of breast cancer that doesn't respond to hormone therapy, was presented today (Oct. 18) at the 11th Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research in Anaheim, Calif. This same mechanism might be behind positive results seen among prostate cancer patients, also presented today by a separate team of researchers at the same conference. [Top 10 Cancer-Fighting Foods]
Testing tea's effects
The breast cancer study was led by Katherine D. Crew, an assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. Crew's team randomly administered either a placebo or varying concentrations of a green tea extract known commercially as Polyphenon E, which contains several green tea polyphenols.
Those women receiving green tea extract had significantly lower levels of the tumor growth factors at two months into the treatment. While differences between those receiving a placebo and those receiving the extract were not as significant after four and six months, this was perhaps due to patients not keeping up with the pills, Crew said.
One goal of this ongoing study is to establish an appropriate dose of the green tea extract - the study levels were equivalent to eight to 24 cups of pure green tea - and Crew remains hopeful her group can identify this optimal level for the best therapeutic effect, she told LiveScience.
'This study was too small to say for sure if green tea will prevent breast cancer, but it may move us forward in terms of understanding antitumor mechanisms,' Crew said.
Green tea and prostate cancer
Crew's work builds upon a smaller study of 26 men with prostate cancer, published in 2009 by a team led by James Cardelli of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, La. Cardelli found similar reductions in the same growth factors with Polyphenon E.
A newer study on prostate cancer, presented at today's meeting, had participants drink lots of brewed green tea, not the extract. This study, led by Susanne Henning, an adjunct professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles, involved 67 men about to undergo a prostatectomy, the removal of an enlarged or cancerous prostate.
In the weeks before the procedure, these men were randomly assigned to a regimen of drinking either six cups of brewed green tea or water daily. Those who drank the green tea had significantly lower levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA); elevated PSA is associated with prostate tumor growth.
Combined with Cardelli's 2009 study, the newer finding suggests green tea polyphenols, as consumed in copious amounts of green tea, might help control the two tumor growth factors - VEGF and HGF - to prevent full-blown prostate cancer.
Although Crew said it is still too early to recommend green tea to prevent cancer, she added that researchers are conducting several ongoing studies to explore the use of oral green tea extract in high-risk women for the primary prevention of breast cancer.
These studies used green tea in its extracted or pure form. Those hoping to reap healthful benefits of green tea should note that most tea products in the supermarket contain only small amounts of green tea and are often mixed with sugar or other flavors.
In Japan, where green tea consumption is high, prostate and breast cancer rates are about three times lower when compared with the United States, according to the World Health Organization, although differences could be attributed to other dietary factors.
The Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research conference is hosted annually by the American Association for Cancer Research.
Christopher Wanjek is the author of a new novel, 'Hey, Einstein!', a comical nature-versus-nurture tale about raising clones of Albert Einstein in less-than-ideal settings. His column, Bad Medicine, appears regularly on LiveScience.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Xilinx 2Q net falls, warns of 3Q revenue decline
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Xilinx Inc., a maker of programmable computer chips, said Wednesday that its fiscal second-quarter net income fell 2.3 percent and it warned that revenue could fall as much as 5 percent in the current quarter as it deals with a 'challenging macroeconomic environment.'
The company reported net income of $123.4 million, or 46 cents per share, for the quarter that ended Sept. 29. That was down from $126.3 million, or 47 cents per share, during the quarter that ended Oct. 1, 2011.
Revenue fell 2 percent to $543.9 million, from $555.2 million a year ago.
Analysts surveyed by FactSet had been expecting a profit of 41 cents per share on revenue of $547.7 million
It predicted that sales would fall 1 percent to 5 percent compared to the quarter it just finished. That would give it revenue of $516.7 million to $538.5 million, well below the $561 million expected by analysts.
The company also said it will pay a dividend of 22 cents per share on Nov. 28 to shareholders of record on Nov. 7.
Xilinx shares fell 19 cents to $33.77 in aftermarket trading following the release of the earnings report. They had ended the regular session up 22 cents at $33.96.
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The company reported net income of $123.4 million, or 46 cents per share, for the quarter that ended Sept. 29. That was down from $126.3 million, or 47 cents per share, during the quarter that ended Oct. 1, 2011.
Revenue fell 2 percent to $543.9 million, from $555.2 million a year ago.
Analysts surveyed by FactSet had been expecting a profit of 41 cents per share on revenue of $547.7 million
It predicted that sales would fall 1 percent to 5 percent compared to the quarter it just finished. That would give it revenue of $516.7 million to $538.5 million, well below the $561 million expected by analysts.
The company also said it will pay a dividend of 22 cents per share on Nov. 28 to shareholders of record on Nov. 7.
Xilinx shares fell 19 cents to $33.77 in aftermarket trading following the release of the earnings report. They had ended the regular session up 22 cents at $33.96.
This news article is brought to you by TAXES BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Computer models of Earth's climate change confirmed on Mars
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Computer models have accurately forecast conditions on Mars and are valid predictors of climate change on Earth, U.S. and French astronomers said on Tuesday.
These computer programs predicted Martian glaciers and other features on Earth's planetary neighbor, scientists found.
'Some public figures imply that modeling of global climate change on Earth is 'junk science,' but if climate models can explain features observed on other planets, then the models must have at least some validity,' lead researcher William Hartmann of the Planetary Science Institute said in a statement.
The team's findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's planetary sciences division in Reno, Nevada.
Some climate change skeptics, notably U.S. Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, dismiss human-spurred global warming as a hoax. Others accept that Earth's climate is changing, but discount a human cause. Still others, including Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, accept the idea of climate change, but maintain the science is inconclusive.
The science of climate change prediction is dependent in part on complex computer models that take into account multiple factors that influence Earth's climate, including the level of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Many such models have forecast the globally averaged temperature will rise by 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) this century if greenhouse emissions continue at current levels.
Recent global temperature increases support these predictions. On Monday, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that September 2012 was tied for the warmest month on Earth in the modern record, and was the 331st consecutive month above the 20th century average.
MODELING MARTIAN SNOWS
Hartmann, a senior scientist at the nonprofit Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said he and his team confirmed the earthly computer models' effectiveness by using them to forecast conditions on Mars.
New satellite observations of glaciers, ice flows and other features on the red planet showed that the models' predictions corresponded with what was on the Martian surface, Hartmann said in a telephone interview.
One key difference between Earth and Mars is their tilt, he said. Earth's axis is fixed, with very small variations, at 23.5 degrees, held steady by the gravitational pull of our moon. This tilt is responsible for changing seasons as Earth moves through the year, alternately tipping its northern and southern hemispheres toward the sun.
Mars lacks a big moon to stabilize its tilt, and its rotational axis can vary as much as 70 degrees toward the sun. When that happens, polar ice evaporates and puts moisture into the Martian atmosphere, which dumps snow, ice and ultimately glaciers in Mars' mid-latitudes. The last time this happened, astronomers say, was between 5 million and 20 million years ago.
Factoring in the planet's varying tilt, topography, atmosphere and other information, the climate models forecast specific regions for massive snowfalls, and the remnants of those snowfalls are right there, Hartmann said. So are ice flows and other features, viewed by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
'We do have a lot of public figures, in our country particularly, saying that the global climate modeling studies have very little value,' Hartmann said. 'If the global climate modeling people can run these models on Mars and we actually see things that come out of the model on another planet, then the climate modeling people must be doing something right.'
(Reporting By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent; Editing by Stacey Joyce)
This news article is brought to you by MOVIE GOSSIP NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
These computer programs predicted Martian glaciers and other features on Earth's planetary neighbor, scientists found.
'Some public figures imply that modeling of global climate change on Earth is 'junk science,' but if climate models can explain features observed on other planets, then the models must have at least some validity,' lead researcher William Hartmann of the Planetary Science Institute said in a statement.
The team's findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's planetary sciences division in Reno, Nevada.
Some climate change skeptics, notably U.S. Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, dismiss human-spurred global warming as a hoax. Others accept that Earth's climate is changing, but discount a human cause. Still others, including Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, accept the idea of climate change, but maintain the science is inconclusive.
The science of climate change prediction is dependent in part on complex computer models that take into account multiple factors that influence Earth's climate, including the level of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Many such models have forecast the globally averaged temperature will rise by 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) this century if greenhouse emissions continue at current levels.
Recent global temperature increases support these predictions. On Monday, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that September 2012 was tied for the warmest month on Earth in the modern record, and was the 331st consecutive month above the 20th century average.
MODELING MARTIAN SNOWS
Hartmann, a senior scientist at the nonprofit Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said he and his team confirmed the earthly computer models' effectiveness by using them to forecast conditions on Mars.
New satellite observations of glaciers, ice flows and other features on the red planet showed that the models' predictions corresponded with what was on the Martian surface, Hartmann said in a telephone interview.
One key difference between Earth and Mars is their tilt, he said. Earth's axis is fixed, with very small variations, at 23.5 degrees, held steady by the gravitational pull of our moon. This tilt is responsible for changing seasons as Earth moves through the year, alternately tipping its northern and southern hemispheres toward the sun.
Mars lacks a big moon to stabilize its tilt, and its rotational axis can vary as much as 70 degrees toward the sun. When that happens, polar ice evaporates and puts moisture into the Martian atmosphere, which dumps snow, ice and ultimately glaciers in Mars' mid-latitudes. The last time this happened, astronomers say, was between 5 million and 20 million years ago.
Factoring in the planet's varying tilt, topography, atmosphere and other information, the climate models forecast specific regions for massive snowfalls, and the remnants of those snowfalls are right there, Hartmann said. So are ice flows and other features, viewed by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
'We do have a lot of public figures, in our country particularly, saying that the global climate modeling studies have very little value,' Hartmann said. 'If the global climate modeling people can run these models on Mars and we actually see things that come out of the model on another planet, then the climate modeling people must be doing something right.'
(Reporting By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent; Editing by Stacey Joyce)
This news article is brought to you by MOVIE GOSSIP NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Earth Climate Change Models Work for Mars, Too
Climate change models used to analyze changing conditions on Earth can be applied to at least one other planet in our solar system - Mars, a new study reveals.
Earth-based computer models can predict the age and location of glacial features on the Red Planet, scientists say. This extra-planetary generalization suggests that climate change models aren't so as inaccurate as they're sometimes portrayed, said study researcher William Hartmann, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson.
'Some public figures imply that modeling of global climate is 'junk science,' but if climate models can explain features observed on other planets, then the models must have at least some validity,' Hartmann said in a statement.
Hartmann and his colleagues presented the new Mars climate research today (Oct. 16) at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences in Reno, Nev.
Today's Martian landscape is not known for its glaciers, but previous research has shown that during some periods of Mars' history, the planet's rotational axis has tilted more than 45 degrees. When this happens, climate models suggest that the polar ice cap tilted toward the sun evaporates, lingering in the atmosphere as water vapor and increasing the chances of snowfall in the hemisphere tilted away from the sun.
This last happened on Mars 5 million to 20 million years ago. (Nowadays, it still snows on Mars, but the microscopic snowflakes are made of carbon dioxide, not water.)
Planetary researchers have since used global climate models built for Earth but tweaked for Martian conditions to study Mars' glacial history. They've found indications of glacial features in a 40-mile-wide (64 kilometers) crater called 'Greg' in the mid-latitude southern region of the planet. The surface layer of those features would have formed at the same time as the last extreme tilt, PSI scientists found. [Photos of Mars: The Amazing Red Planet]
Now, the researchers have combined four different measurements of Martian geology and climate, including climate predictions, the presence of glaciers, the ages of glacial surface layers and radar measurements of ice. The measurements and models are all consistent with one another, the researchers found.
'The bottom line is that the global climate models indicate that the last few intense deposits of ice occurred about 5 million to 15 million years ago, virtually centered on Greg crater, and that's just where the spacecraft data reveal glaciers whose surface layers date from that time,' Hartmann said. 'If global climate models indicate specific concentration of ice-rich features where and when we actually see them on a distant planet, then climate modeling should not be sarcastically dismissed. Our results provide an important, teachable refutation of the attacks on climate science on our home planet.'
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
This news article is brought to you by FREE ROMANTIC DATING SITE BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Earth-based computer models can predict the age and location of glacial features on the Red Planet, scientists say. This extra-planetary generalization suggests that climate change models aren't so as inaccurate as they're sometimes portrayed, said study researcher William Hartmann, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson.
'Some public figures imply that modeling of global climate is 'junk science,' but if climate models can explain features observed on other planets, then the models must have at least some validity,' Hartmann said in a statement.
Hartmann and his colleagues presented the new Mars climate research today (Oct. 16) at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences in Reno, Nev.
Today's Martian landscape is not known for its glaciers, but previous research has shown that during some periods of Mars' history, the planet's rotational axis has tilted more than 45 degrees. When this happens, climate models suggest that the polar ice cap tilted toward the sun evaporates, lingering in the atmosphere as water vapor and increasing the chances of snowfall in the hemisphere tilted away from the sun.
This last happened on Mars 5 million to 20 million years ago. (Nowadays, it still snows on Mars, but the microscopic snowflakes are made of carbon dioxide, not water.)
Planetary researchers have since used global climate models built for Earth but tweaked for Martian conditions to study Mars' glacial history. They've found indications of glacial features in a 40-mile-wide (64 kilometers) crater called 'Greg' in the mid-latitude southern region of the planet. The surface layer of those features would have formed at the same time as the last extreme tilt, PSI scientists found. [Photos of Mars: The Amazing Red Planet]
Now, the researchers have combined four different measurements of Martian geology and climate, including climate predictions, the presence of glaciers, the ages of glacial surface layers and radar measurements of ice. The measurements and models are all consistent with one another, the researchers found.
'The bottom line is that the global climate models indicate that the last few intense deposits of ice occurred about 5 million to 15 million years ago, virtually centered on Greg crater, and that's just where the spacecraft data reveal glaciers whose surface layers date from that time,' Hartmann said. 'If global climate models indicate specific concentration of ice-rich features where and when we actually see them on a distant planet, then climate modeling should not be sarcastically dismissed. Our results provide an important, teachable refutation of the attacks on climate science on our home planet.'
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
- The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted
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