By Mitchell Landsberg / from the LA Times
HUAINAN, CHINA — Heavy rains have inundated the central part of the nation, affecting 100 million people. More than 1million have been evacuated.
For days, the rain had come in warm, drenching sheets. It swelled the Huai River and turned the heavy clay soil along its watershed into a sticky muck that sucked the shoes off people's feet.
Zheng Zhaojun had lived here long enough, all of his 32 years, to know the danger the river posed. So when the Communist Party secretary for his village came calling, Zheng moved quickly.
"They told us the water is rising fast — go," Zheng recalled as he stood in the doorway of the blue canvas tent that has been his family's temporary home for nearly two weeks. The tent, and dozens around it, stood about 10 feet from a small, hastily built earthen levee. Behind it, water stretched nearly to the horizon, covering Zheng's house and farm and the properties of thousands of others.
Zheng's story is a common one this summer. Heavy rains have inundated central China, causing the worst flooding in half a century. More than 100 million people have been affected, and some of them have witnessed rainfall of mind-boggling ferocity, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Nearly as mind-boggling have been the size and scope of the evacuation....
The flooding along the Huai was caused by various factors, including levees that broke, were opened intentionally or were too low for the rising waters. The New China News Agency said today that more than 500 embankments were in danger of being breached in Anhui province.
People walked, rode motorbikes or got rides in cars, trucks and tractors to reach higher ground, where they either moved in with friends and relatives or sought shelter in government centers...
"All our belongings are in the water now," he said. The most valuable are the crops, including corn, beans and sweet potato, which account for much of the family's economic output.
"If the water goes down now, they might be saved," he said.
That, weather officials say, is unlikely. Forecasts call for continued rain, and the flooding is expected to continue for days.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Hungarian heatwave kills 500 in a week
THE heatwave in central and southern Europe killed an estimated 500 people in Hungary last week, the country's chief medical officer announced today.
Ferenc Falus said that during the week from July 15 to July 22 the heat in central Hungary “contributed to the early death of 230 people, which nationally means about 500 deaths”.
The announcement of hundreds of deaths comas as heavy rain and extreme temperatures continue to batter Europe.
Britain was experiencing its worst flooding in living memory, while across the continent in the Balkans people were warned to stay indoors to avoid searing temperatures with deaths reported in Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, and Romania.
Temperatures in the region were recorded at 40C and above, with Greece expecting a high of 45C today and Italy just behind at 44C, hours after Rome recorded one of its warmest nights ever on Monday at 27.1C.
Bulgaria has also experienced its hottest temperatures since records began with the mercury shooting above 45C in parts of the country, and more than 860 people reportedly fainting in the streets in Romania.
Ferenc Falus said that during the week from July 15 to July 22 the heat in central Hungary “contributed to the early death of 230 people, which nationally means about 500 deaths”.
The announcement of hundreds of deaths comas as heavy rain and extreme temperatures continue to batter Europe.
Britain was experiencing its worst flooding in living memory, while across the continent in the Balkans people were warned to stay indoors to avoid searing temperatures with deaths reported in Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, and Romania.
Temperatures in the region were recorded at 40C and above, with Greece expecting a high of 45C today and Italy just behind at 44C, hours after Rome recorded one of its warmest nights ever on Monday at 27.1C.
Bulgaria has also experienced its hottest temperatures since records began with the mercury shooting above 45C in parts of the country, and more than 860 people reportedly fainting in the streets in Romania.
"Floody hell! Why is the weather so bad?" (UK)
The floods that have wreaked havoc on the UK for much of the summer can be blamed on an errant jet stream, according to climate experts.
The jet stream is a band of fast-moving air which is created when southern warm air collides with northern cold air at about 30,000 feet.
Its position has a large bearing on UK weather and this year it has not moved as far north as it usually does.
Meteorologist Marco Petagna said: "This year it has been much further south for much of the summer and we have seen areas of low pressure right across the UK."
Low pressure, which tends to accompany the jet stream, has caused the heavy rainfall.
Another theory for the relentless bad weather is that the Azores high - a band of high pressure over the mid-Atlantic that normally pushes north into the UK during the summer - has been prevented from doing so by the jet stream.
Mr Petagna said there were many possible explanations about why the jet stream is behaving this way but one is that the La Nina phenomenon in the Equatorial Pacific may be to blame...
He said both phenomena were linked to climate change - another possible explanation for the inclement UK weather.
See also:
Human activity linked to heavier rainfall
Greenhouse gas emissions from human activity are causing global shifts in rainfall patterns and contributing to wetter weather over the UK, climate scientists say today.
Their study is the first to find a "human fingerprint" in the rainfall changes which have been detected in a belt of the northern hemisphere stretching from the Mediterranean to the UK to Norway.
The results, based on a global comparison of weather records going back to 1925, suggest that levels of rainfall across the UK have increased steadily by an average of 6.2 millimetres every decade. At least half of the extra rainfall and possibly up to 85% is caused by the impact of greenhouse gas emissions, the scientists conclude...
__________
350,000 without clean water as flood threat moves to Thames Valley
One third of a million people in the west of England will remain without clean running water for at least a week as a result of the worst floods to have struck the UK in the last 60 years.
Severn Trent Water said this morning that 350,000 customers would remain dependent on 3 million litres of bottled water delivered by the Army each day, and on a fleet of 900 mini-tankers parked in flood-stricken locations to dispense drinking water.
Gloucestershire County Council said several bowsers were being vandalised amid frustrations over the water supply.
With supermarket stocks running low as far as Bristol, hundreds of people gathered outside a Tesco supermarket at Quedgeley in Gloucester, awaiting the arrival of thousands of bottles of water. The water was set to arrive with an Army escort to ward off looters.
Army Brigadier Jolyon Jackson urged the public to stay calm and added: “There is enough water for everyone.”
Meanwhile, residents along the Thames Valley were warned to remain on high alert for the next two days to protect their homes from the river, which it is feared has yet to reach its high water mark...
Forecasters predict better weather today but more showers this week and heavy rain on Thursday, and the Environment Agency has warned that if these are substantial it would not take much for river levels to start to rise again.
_____________________
We've been having an odd jet stream this summer as well. It seems to have been going high out west - like Montana - and low in the Midwest. For us, it has meant cooler weather and lower humidity than usual.
The jet stream is a band of fast-moving air which is created when southern warm air collides with northern cold air at about 30,000 feet.
Its position has a large bearing on UK weather and this year it has not moved as far north as it usually does.
Meteorologist Marco Petagna said: "This year it has been much further south for much of the summer and we have seen areas of low pressure right across the UK."
Low pressure, which tends to accompany the jet stream, has caused the heavy rainfall.
Another theory for the relentless bad weather is that the Azores high - a band of high pressure over the mid-Atlantic that normally pushes north into the UK during the summer - has been prevented from doing so by the jet stream.
Mr Petagna said there were many possible explanations about why the jet stream is behaving this way but one is that the La Nina phenomenon in the Equatorial Pacific may be to blame...
He said both phenomena were linked to climate change - another possible explanation for the inclement UK weather.
See also:
Human activity linked to heavier rainfall
Greenhouse gas emissions from human activity are causing global shifts in rainfall patterns and contributing to wetter weather over the UK, climate scientists say today.
Their study is the first to find a "human fingerprint" in the rainfall changes which have been detected in a belt of the northern hemisphere stretching from the Mediterranean to the UK to Norway.
The results, based on a global comparison of weather records going back to 1925, suggest that levels of rainfall across the UK have increased steadily by an average of 6.2 millimetres every decade. At least half of the extra rainfall and possibly up to 85% is caused by the impact of greenhouse gas emissions, the scientists conclude...
__________
350,000 without clean water as flood threat moves to Thames Valley
One third of a million people in the west of England will remain without clean running water for at least a week as a result of the worst floods to have struck the UK in the last 60 years.
Severn Trent Water said this morning that 350,000 customers would remain dependent on 3 million litres of bottled water delivered by the Army each day, and on a fleet of 900 mini-tankers parked in flood-stricken locations to dispense drinking water.
Gloucestershire County Council said several bowsers were being vandalised amid frustrations over the water supply.
With supermarket stocks running low as far as Bristol, hundreds of people gathered outside a Tesco supermarket at Quedgeley in Gloucester, awaiting the arrival of thousands of bottles of water. The water was set to arrive with an Army escort to ward off looters.
Army Brigadier Jolyon Jackson urged the public to stay calm and added: “There is enough water for everyone.”
Meanwhile, residents along the Thames Valley were warned to remain on high alert for the next two days to protect their homes from the river, which it is feared has yet to reach its high water mark...
Forecasters predict better weather today but more showers this week and heavy rain on Thursday, and the Environment Agency has warned that if these are substantial it would not take much for river levels to start to rise again.
_____________________
We've been having an odd jet stream this summer as well. It seems to have been going high out west - like Montana - and low in the Midwest. For us, it has meant cooler weather and lower humidity than usual.
..the Race Is on for the ‘God Particle’
By DENNIS OVERBYE / from the New York Times
...As the analyses proceed and the Tevatron hums its trillion-electron-volt tune, this is a summer of rumors, hope and hype. Whatever the outcome for this particular Higgs rumor, the buzz about it illuminates the galloping expectations, tensions and rivalries roiling physicists as they await the inauguration next summer of the Large Hadron Collider, a giant accelerator at CERN, the nuclear laboratory outside Geneva expressly designed to find the Higgs particle and explore new realms of nature.
The excitement has been ratcheted up by the speed and ubiquity of information on the Internet...
Confirming the rumored bump would confirm a profound conjecture about how nature works, cementing into place the last missing piece of the so-called Standard Model and perhaps pointing the way to a deeper theory that could answer questions the current model leaves open — such as why the universe is full of matter but not antimatter — a New World of physics...
Unfortunately, the model does not say how heavy the Higgs boson itself — the quantum personification of this field — should be. And so physicists have to search for it the old-fashioned train-wreck way, by smashing subatomic particles together to create primordial fireballs and then seeing what materializes out.
The Higgs, if formed, would decay into smaller jets of quarks or other particles, depending on its mass. The heavier it is, the more kinds of particles it can decay into. These would be recorded and counted by the detectors.
Unfortunately, as Dr. Weinberg pointed out, ordinary collisions also produce showers of the same particles coming out, and so the game has changed.
Once upon a time, physicists would look for what they called “a gold-plated event.”
“You looked at a bubble chamber and saw tracks and decays,” Dr. Weinberg recalled. “You knew what you were seeing: ‘Aha! This is the omega minus,’ ” referring to a famous particle whose discovery clinched the case for quarks in 1964.
Now, he explained, high-energy physics is all statistical. Out of 100,000 events, are a few more at various energies statistically significant? The job, he said, is to build up statistics to the point where a definite statement can be made...
The first and most famous bump in the Higgs race happened at CERN’s Large Electron-Positron Collider, or L.E.P., just before it was shut down in 2000 to make way for the new collider. It suggested that the Higgs might be waiting to be discovered just above 114 billion electron volts, in the energy-mass units physicists prefer to use...
Rather than undercutting the rationale for CERN’s collider, finding the Higgs at Fermilab would only whet the world’s appetite for the bigger machine, physicists on both sides of the Atlantic said. The best Fermilab can hope for is a glimpse of the Higgs, and probably a hint of new mysteries and discoveries to be made...
If it is a Higgs, theorists say, it is probably not the one prescribed by the Standard Model, which would not be produced plentifully enough to be seen yet.
The leading alternative is that it would be one of five Higgs bosons predicted by a theory called supersymmetry, which theorists have been yearning for as the next step toward a more all-embracing, unified theory of nature. One bonus of supersymmetry is that it predicts the existence of more, yet undiscovered elementary particles, one of which might be the mysterious dark matter that binds galaxies together in the universe. All this would fall into the lap of the Large Hadron Collider scientists, if it exists, which is one reason the CERN physicists will be happy no matter what the outcome....
“I don’t know if we pinned down nature, or if nature has pinned us down, but there are many corners you can’t get into anymore,” Dr. Lykken said.
...As the analyses proceed and the Tevatron hums its trillion-electron-volt tune, this is a summer of rumors, hope and hype. Whatever the outcome for this particular Higgs rumor, the buzz about it illuminates the galloping expectations, tensions and rivalries roiling physicists as they await the inauguration next summer of the Large Hadron Collider, a giant accelerator at CERN, the nuclear laboratory outside Geneva expressly designed to find the Higgs particle and explore new realms of nature.
The excitement has been ratcheted up by the speed and ubiquity of information on the Internet...
Confirming the rumored bump would confirm a profound conjecture about how nature works, cementing into place the last missing piece of the so-called Standard Model and perhaps pointing the way to a deeper theory that could answer questions the current model leaves open — such as why the universe is full of matter but not antimatter — a New World of physics...
Unfortunately, the model does not say how heavy the Higgs boson itself — the quantum personification of this field — should be. And so physicists have to search for it the old-fashioned train-wreck way, by smashing subatomic particles together to create primordial fireballs and then seeing what materializes out.
The Higgs, if formed, would decay into smaller jets of quarks or other particles, depending on its mass. The heavier it is, the more kinds of particles it can decay into. These would be recorded and counted by the detectors.
Unfortunately, as Dr. Weinberg pointed out, ordinary collisions also produce showers of the same particles coming out, and so the game has changed.
Once upon a time, physicists would look for what they called “a gold-plated event.”
“You looked at a bubble chamber and saw tracks and decays,” Dr. Weinberg recalled. “You knew what you were seeing: ‘Aha! This is the omega minus,’ ” referring to a famous particle whose discovery clinched the case for quarks in 1964.
Now, he explained, high-energy physics is all statistical. Out of 100,000 events, are a few more at various energies statistically significant? The job, he said, is to build up statistics to the point where a definite statement can be made...
The first and most famous bump in the Higgs race happened at CERN’s Large Electron-Positron Collider, or L.E.P., just before it was shut down in 2000 to make way for the new collider. It suggested that the Higgs might be waiting to be discovered just above 114 billion electron volts, in the energy-mass units physicists prefer to use...
Rather than undercutting the rationale for CERN’s collider, finding the Higgs at Fermilab would only whet the world’s appetite for the bigger machine, physicists on both sides of the Atlantic said. The best Fermilab can hope for is a glimpse of the Higgs, and probably a hint of new mysteries and discoveries to be made...
If it is a Higgs, theorists say, it is probably not the one prescribed by the Standard Model, which would not be produced plentifully enough to be seen yet.
The leading alternative is that it would be one of five Higgs bosons predicted by a theory called supersymmetry, which theorists have been yearning for as the next step toward a more all-embracing, unified theory of nature. One bonus of supersymmetry is that it predicts the existence of more, yet undiscovered elementary particles, one of which might be the mysterious dark matter that binds galaxies together in the universe. All this would fall into the lap of the Large Hadron Collider scientists, if it exists, which is one reason the CERN physicists will be happy no matter what the outcome....
“I don’t know if we pinned down nature, or if nature has pinned us down, but there are many corners you can’t get into anymore,” Dr. Lykken said.
Friday, July 20, 2007
"Paris Buys Citizens Bikes" (Rental Program)
Paris, France has adopted an innovative, yet wonderfully simple, approach to reducing congestion and greenhouse-gas emissions in city limits. It's buying its citizens bikes.
22,000 of them.
The program, paid for by an outdoor advertiser in exchange for the exclusive use of 1,628 urban billboards, allows people to rent the large gray bicycles at a rate 1 euro ($1.38) a day; a week pass costs 5 euros ($6.90) and a yearly subscription, 29 euros ($40). The fee gets you a maximum of 30 minutes' bike use at a time; ride for longer in one trip, and there's a small incremental fee. The time limit is intended to keep the bikes in circulation; however, you can use the program as many times as you like within the period for which you've bought a pass.
The program is part of an effort by Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë, who is aiming to reduce car traffic in the city by 40 percent by 2020. The number of bikes in Paris has increased by 50 percent in the last six years; thanks to the principle of critical mass (the more bikers there are, the safer they are), the number of accidents has stayed roughly the same.
Yellow-bike and similar programs have met with mixed success in the US. Perhaps what the Paris experiment demonstrates is that it takes a massive show of will (and prioritization of dollars) to create the critical mass we need to revolutionize our transportation system.
22,000 of them.
The program, paid for by an outdoor advertiser in exchange for the exclusive use of 1,628 urban billboards, allows people to rent the large gray bicycles at a rate 1 euro ($1.38) a day; a week pass costs 5 euros ($6.90) and a yearly subscription, 29 euros ($40). The fee gets you a maximum of 30 minutes' bike use at a time; ride for longer in one trip, and there's a small incremental fee. The time limit is intended to keep the bikes in circulation; however, you can use the program as many times as you like within the period for which you've bought a pass.
The program is part of an effort by Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë, who is aiming to reduce car traffic in the city by 40 percent by 2020. The number of bikes in Paris has increased by 50 percent in the last six years; thanks to the principle of critical mass (the more bikers there are, the safer they are), the number of accidents has stayed roughly the same.
Yellow-bike and similar programs have met with mixed success in the US. Perhaps what the Paris experiment demonstrates is that it takes a massive show of will (and prioritization of dollars) to create the critical mass we need to revolutionize our transportation system.
Glaciers and Ice Caps Quickly Melting Into the Seas
BOULDER, Colorado - Sea level rise this century may be greater than previously thought, posing risks to hundreds of millions of people who live close to the world's oceans, concludes a new study of ice loss from glaciers and ice caps. The researchers say that in the near future, the giant Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets will contribute less to sea level rise than glaciers and ice caps.
Scientists with the University of Colorado-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, INSTAAR, and the Russian Academy of Sciences conclude that glaciers and ice caps now contribute about 60 percent of the ice melting into the oceans and the rate has been accelerating over the past decade.
"One reason for this study is the widely held view that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets will be the principal causes of sea-level rise," says lead author Emeritus Professor Mark Meier, former INSTAAR director and CU-Boulder professor in geological sciences.
"But we show that it is the glaciers and ice caps, not the two large ice sheets, that will be the big players in sea rise for at least the next few generations, he says.
Alaska's Columbia Glacier, now discharging about two cubic miles of ice into Prince William Sound every year, is a good example says study co-author Robert Anderson, a CU-Boulder geology professor and INSTAAR researcher.
The Columbia Glacier has thinned up to 1,300 feet in places. It has shrunk by about nine miles since 1980 and is expected to shrink by another nine miles in the next two decades.
The team estimates the accelerating melt of glaciers and ice caps could add from four inches to 9.5 inches of additional sea level rise globally by 2100.
This does not include the expansion of warming ocean water, which could potentially double those numbers.
A one foot rise in sea level rise typically causes a shoreline retreat of 100 feet or more, and about 100 million people now live within about three feet of the world's shorelines.
Anderson says that although the volume of ice locked up in Greenland is equal to roughly 23 feet in sea level rise, only a small fraction of that amount is likely to be "pulled out" during the next century, most of it through outlet glaciers.
The glaciers and ice caps are presently contributing about 100 cubic miles of ice annually to sea level rise - a volume nearly equal to the water in Lake Erie. This volume is rising by about three cubic miles per year, the study shows.
By contrast, the CU-Boulder team estimated Greenland is now contributing about 28 percent of the total global sea rise from ice loss and Antarctica is contributing about 12 percent....
Scientists with the University of Colorado-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, INSTAAR, and the Russian Academy of Sciences conclude that glaciers and ice caps now contribute about 60 percent of the ice melting into the oceans and the rate has been accelerating over the past decade.
"One reason for this study is the widely held view that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets will be the principal causes of sea-level rise," says lead author Emeritus Professor Mark Meier, former INSTAAR director and CU-Boulder professor in geological sciences.
"But we show that it is the glaciers and ice caps, not the two large ice sheets, that will be the big players in sea rise for at least the next few generations, he says.
Alaska's Columbia Glacier, now discharging about two cubic miles of ice into Prince William Sound every year, is a good example says study co-author Robert Anderson, a CU-Boulder geology professor and INSTAAR researcher.
The Columbia Glacier has thinned up to 1,300 feet in places. It has shrunk by about nine miles since 1980 and is expected to shrink by another nine miles in the next two decades.
The team estimates the accelerating melt of glaciers and ice caps could add from four inches to 9.5 inches of additional sea level rise globally by 2100.
This does not include the expansion of warming ocean water, which could potentially double those numbers.
A one foot rise in sea level rise typically causes a shoreline retreat of 100 feet or more, and about 100 million people now live within about three feet of the world's shorelines.
Anderson says that although the volume of ice locked up in Greenland is equal to roughly 23 feet in sea level rise, only a small fraction of that amount is likely to be "pulled out" during the next century, most of it through outlet glaciers.
The glaciers and ice caps are presently contributing about 100 cubic miles of ice annually to sea level rise - a volume nearly equal to the water in Lake Erie. This volume is rising by about three cubic miles per year, the study shows.
By contrast, the CU-Boulder team estimated Greenland is now contributing about 28 percent of the total global sea rise from ice loss and Antarctica is contributing about 12 percent....
Thursday, July 19, 2007
"FEMA Suppressed Health Warnings for Workers, Katrina Victims"
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has suppressed warnings from its own Gulf coast field workers since the middle of 2006 about suspected health problems that may be linked to elevated levels of formaldehyde gas released in FEMA-provided trailers, lawmakers said today.
At a hearing this morning of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, investigators released internal e-mails indicating that FEMA lawyers rejected environmental testing out of fear that the agency would then become legally liable if health problems emerged among as many as 120,000 families displaced by Hurricane Katrina who lived in trailers.
FEMA's Office of General Counsel "has advised that we do not do testing," because this "would imply FEMA's ownership of this issue," wrote a FEMA logistics specialist on June 16, 2006, three months after news reports surfaced about the possible effects of the invisible cancer-causing compound and one month after the agency was sued.
Another FEMA attorney on June 15 advised, "[d]o not initiate any testing until we give the OK. . . . Once you get results and should they indicate some problem, the clock is running on our duty to respond to them."
Committee Chairman Henry L. Waxman (D-Calif.) called FEMA's bureaucratic neglect of storm victims "sickening."
Nearly 5,000 pages of documents turned over to the committee "expose an official policy of premeditated ignorance," Waxman charged. "Senior officials in Washington didn't want to know what they already knew, because they didn't want the legal and moral responsibility to do what they knew had to be done."
At a hearing this morning of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, investigators released internal e-mails indicating that FEMA lawyers rejected environmental testing out of fear that the agency would then become legally liable if health problems emerged among as many as 120,000 families displaced by Hurricane Katrina who lived in trailers.
FEMA's Office of General Counsel "has advised that we do not do testing," because this "would imply FEMA's ownership of this issue," wrote a FEMA logistics specialist on June 16, 2006, three months after news reports surfaced about the possible effects of the invisible cancer-causing compound and one month after the agency was sued.
Another FEMA attorney on June 15 advised, "[d]o not initiate any testing until we give the OK. . . . Once you get results and should they indicate some problem, the clock is running on our duty to respond to them."
Committee Chairman Henry L. Waxman (D-Calif.) called FEMA's bureaucratic neglect of storm victims "sickening."
Nearly 5,000 pages of documents turned over to the committee "expose an official policy of premeditated ignorance," Waxman charged. "Senior officials in Washington didn't want to know what they already knew, because they didn't want the legal and moral responsibility to do what they knew had to be done."
"Eat A Steak, Warm The Planet"
A kilogram (2.2 pounds) of beef causes more greenhouse-gas and other pollution than driving for three hours while leaving all the lights on back home, according to a Japanese study. A team led by Akifumi Ogino of the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, calculated the environmental cost of raising cattle through conventional farming, slaughtering the animal and distributing the meat, New Scientist reports in next Saturday's issue.
Producing a kilo (2.2 pounds) of beef causes the equivalent of 36.4 kilos (80.08 pounds) in carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas, Ogino found.
Most of these greenhouse-gas emissions take the form of methane, released from the cow's digestive system.
That one kilo (2.2 pounds) of beef also requires energy equivalent to lighting a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days. The energy is needed to produce and transport the animals' feed.
A Swedish study in 2003 suggested that organic beef emits 40 percent less greenhouse gases and consumes 85 percent less energy because the animal is raised on grass rather than concentrated feed.
The study appears in full in a specialist publication, Animal Science Journal.
Producing a kilo (2.2 pounds) of beef causes the equivalent of 36.4 kilos (80.08 pounds) in carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas, Ogino found.
Most of these greenhouse-gas emissions take the form of methane, released from the cow's digestive system.
That one kilo (2.2 pounds) of beef also requires energy equivalent to lighting a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days. The energy is needed to produce and transport the animals' feed.
A Swedish study in 2003 suggested that organic beef emits 40 percent less greenhouse gases and consumes 85 percent less energy because the animal is raised on grass rather than concentrated feed.
The study appears in full in a specialist publication, Animal Science Journal.
"Violent Thunderstorms Kill Dozens In China"
At least 32 people died as thunderstorms of unprecedented intensity rocked southwestern China, smashing rainfall records and paralysing transportation, state media reported Wednesday. Lightning struck more than 40,000 times in the Chinese metropolis of Chongqing during a frightening 16-hour downpour on Tuesday, the Beijing News reported. Heavy rains continued on Wednesday and were expect to rage on for at least another day, the Xinhua news agency said.
It said 32 deaths had been reported so far and 12 people were missing in the storms that have affected more than five million locals and forced more than 250,000 to flee their homes.
The storms dropped 226.6 millimetres (10 inches) of rain on the city centre, the largest 24-hour total since records were first kept in 1892, smashing the old record of 206.1 millimetres.
So far more than 19,600 homes have been destroyed, at a cost of more than 2.1 billion yuan (282 million dollars) said Xinhua.
"A storm of this intensity is unprecedented for Chongqing," the Beijing News quoted local meteorologists as saying, a year after the region was plagued by a rare drought.
The storms stranded 5,000 passengers at the city's airport, a major hub for the region.
At least 240 flights were affected, some delayed more than seven hours, while several more were diverted to other cities, Xinhua said.
More than 400 people have died and at least another 105 are missing so far in rainy-season flooding across the country that began several weeks ago.
Another 3.17 million people have been left homeless.
It said 32 deaths had been reported so far and 12 people were missing in the storms that have affected more than five million locals and forced more than 250,000 to flee their homes.
The storms dropped 226.6 millimetres (10 inches) of rain on the city centre, the largest 24-hour total since records were first kept in 1892, smashing the old record of 206.1 millimetres.
So far more than 19,600 homes have been destroyed, at a cost of more than 2.1 billion yuan (282 million dollars) said Xinhua.
"A storm of this intensity is unprecedented for Chongqing," the Beijing News quoted local meteorologists as saying, a year after the region was plagued by a rare drought.
The storms stranded 5,000 passengers at the city's airport, a major hub for the region.
At least 240 flights were affected, some delayed more than seven hours, while several more were diverted to other cities, Xinhua said.
More than 400 people have died and at least another 105 are missing so far in rainy-season flooding across the country that began several weeks ago.
Another 3.17 million people have been left homeless.
"Invasive crab crawls slowly toward Maine"
By JOHN RICHARDSON / from pressherald.mainetoday.com
Mainers are being asked to keep an eye out for a strange crab that has furry claws and can live in both fresh and salt water.
The Chinese mitten crab appears to be spreading up the East Coast, and so is its reputation for displacing native animals, fouling fishing nets and destabilizing riverbanks.
Scientists think the crabs may be breeding in Chesapeake and Delaware bays. In May, Chinese mitten crabs were found in the waters near New York's Tappan Zee Bridge.
"They're as close as the Hudson River in New York, and vigilance is really the first line of defense," said Paul Gregory, an invasive- species expert for the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
The crab is named for the fur on its pincer claws. It spends much of its life in freshwater rivers, returning to coastal estuaries to spawn. It's regarded as an aggressive invasive species because it can take over habitats in estuaries and rivers, clog commercial fishing nets and water intake pipes and accelerate erosion by burrowing into shorelines and embankments.
The crab has slowly made its way from Asia to Europe to the United States, first causing problems on the West Coast and only recently appearing on the East Coast.
"The leading theory is that it's moved around by ship ballasts," Gregory said.
Large cargo ships fill ballast tanks with sea water in one port and then empty the water in another port. Critters that survive the move may find a new home with plentiful food and no natural predators.
The mitten crab made news this week in Maryland when scientists reported another troubling find: two females with eggs...
An adult has a shell that's 4 inches across. Legs included, it's roughly dinner-plate size. It's the only crab that you'll find in fresh water well upriver from the ocean. And, of course, there are the fur-covered claws.
Maine officials want anyone who finds one to hold onto it, alive or frozen, and call (207) 633-9539.
Increase In Creeping Vines Changes Southern US Forests
A new study of bottomland hardwood forests in the southeastern United States suggests that the increased growth of vines may change the landscape of these forests. Researchers charting the growth of vines in two forests in South Carolina found up to a 10-fold increase in the number of vines in just two decades. Vines commonly found in both forests include grapevines, trumpet vine, poison ivy and Virginia creeper. Most of the vines use adhesive roots or tendrils to climb trees.
The patterns observed in the south add to a growing number of studies that found similar patterns in temperate and tropical forests, said Bruce Allen, the study's lead author and a recent doctoral graduate of Ohio State University's School of Environment and Natural Resources.
"Collectively, we're talking about an increase of more than 500 vine stems in 27 acres of forest area that we studied," he said. "And all of the growth is within the last 10 to 20 years. Old photographs from the sites indicate there may have been fewer vines historically.
"There are now so many vines that they're starting to change the makeup of the forest," he continued. "It appears that as the number of vines increase, the density of small trees decreases at a fairly uniform rate."
Although the specific reasons for this shift aren't fully understood, Allen and his colleagues say possible mechanisms include increases in carbon dioxide concentrations, which have been shown to increase vine growth more than tree growth.
"Many vines thrive on elevated levels of carbon dioxide," he said. "Several studies suggest that vines like poison ivy benefit more than other plants from higher CO2 levels."...
(I've read that doctors are seeing an increase in poison ivy patients.)
The patterns observed in the south add to a growing number of studies that found similar patterns in temperate and tropical forests, said Bruce Allen, the study's lead author and a recent doctoral graduate of Ohio State University's School of Environment and Natural Resources.
"Collectively, we're talking about an increase of more than 500 vine stems in 27 acres of forest area that we studied," he said. "And all of the growth is within the last 10 to 20 years. Old photographs from the sites indicate there may have been fewer vines historically.
"There are now so many vines that they're starting to change the makeup of the forest," he continued. "It appears that as the number of vines increase, the density of small trees decreases at a fairly uniform rate."
Although the specific reasons for this shift aren't fully understood, Allen and his colleagues say possible mechanisms include increases in carbon dioxide concentrations, which have been shown to increase vine growth more than tree growth.
"Many vines thrive on elevated levels of carbon dioxide," he said. "Several studies suggest that vines like poison ivy benefit more than other plants from higher CO2 levels."...
(I've read that doctors are seeing an increase in poison ivy patients.)
"Meduzot" (translation "Jellyfish")
A movie written by Shira Geffen, directed by Shira Geffen & Etgar Keret - recently released in Israel.
Cannes prizewinner Jellyfish finds sales
Nancy Tartaglione-Vialatte in Paris
Pyramide International has completed a sale of its Cannes Camera d'Or winner Jellyfish to Nanni Moretti's Sacher in Italy. The film was also recently acquired in the US by Zeitgeist.
Moretti is known for buying very few films but had a soft spot for Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret's drama, according to Pyramide chief Eric Lagesse.
The film, which won the SACD prize in Critics' Week this year, has also been acquired by Shani in Israel where the film opens this month. Other territories to have picked it up include Korea, Germany and Switzerland.
Cannes prizewinner Jellyfish finds sales
Nancy Tartaglione-Vialatte in Paris
Pyramide International has completed a sale of its Cannes Camera d'Or winner Jellyfish to Nanni Moretti's Sacher in Italy. The film was also recently acquired in the US by Zeitgeist.
Moretti is known for buying very few films but had a soft spot for Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret's drama, according to Pyramide chief Eric Lagesse.
The film, which won the SACD prize in Critics' Week this year, has also been acquired by Shani in Israel where the film opens this month. Other territories to have picked it up include Korea, Germany and Switzerland.
"The Deep"
Book Showcases Previously Unseen Sea Creatures
French wildlife journalist Claire Nouvian has put together a book of newly discovered sea life called "The Deep." Her work demonstrates new techniques scientists are employing to discover and document these creatures.
SPENCER MICHELS: While the deep sea has long tantalized humans, it's only been in the last century that exploration has been technically possible. And only recently have scientists started realizing the immensity of what lies far below the surface.
French wildlife producer and journalist Claire Nouvian became obsessed with life in the deep ocean about five years ago, after a visit to California's Monterey Bay Aquarium. She started going on ocean expeditions, and she began to collect photographs taken by scientists of life that exists in darkness far below the surface.
She's put 200 of the most spectacular into a new book called "The Deep," photos of exotic and never-before-seen animals: a rare jellyfish; an almost cute octopus; heat-loving worms; and a variety of scary-looking fish. Many of these creatures have not even been named, they are so newly discovered.
CLAIRE NOUVIAN, Author, "The Deep": That's really where we come from. Life originated in the water.
SPENCER MICHELS: I talked with her in an underwater observation tunnel at San Francisco's Aquarium of the Bay.
CLAIRE NOUVIAN: I had been doing wildlife films, so I thought I knew what animals were pretty much like on this planet, and I was really amazed to see that there was this huge chunk of my wildlife culture that was missing. I just was really stunned. I mean, my mind was blown.
___
SPENCER MICHELS: Water makes up 70 percent of the Earth's surface, with ocean depth averaging more than two miles, a huge habitat that scientists say may contain from 10 million to 30 million new species.
Steve Haddock, a marine biologist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, took many of the photos in Nouvian's book. He and other MBARI scientists use unmanned, remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, tethered to a surface ship to explore and photograph deep canyons off Monterey on the California coast.
STEVE HADDOCK, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute: With a remotely operated vehicle, we may have 12 scientists there watching, experiencing the dive simultaneously. So we can have an expert on squid and an expert on jellyfish there, kind of weighing in on what they're seeing. And we have high-definition video now, and we have the ability to collect these really fragile animals in excellent shape.
SPENCER MICHELS: Haddock says ocean researchers have to be good, quick photographers.
STEVE HADDOCK: If you talk to people who work on jellyfish, you find out that a lot of them actually end up being photographers. And it's almost a requirement, because most of these animals, once you get them up on deck, you can't preserve them. They're so fragile that you can't just pick them and put them on a shelf and study them later.
SPENCER MICHELS: He snapped the picture of a two-inch-long creature called an arrow worm.
STEVE HADDOCK: Supposedly one of the second most abundant organisms out there in the ocean, but, you know, probably seems pretty foreign to most people...
French wildlife journalist Claire Nouvian has put together a book of newly discovered sea life called "The Deep." Her work demonstrates new techniques scientists are employing to discover and document these creatures.
SPENCER MICHELS: While the deep sea has long tantalized humans, it's only been in the last century that exploration has been technically possible. And only recently have scientists started realizing the immensity of what lies far below the surface.
French wildlife producer and journalist Claire Nouvian became obsessed with life in the deep ocean about five years ago, after a visit to California's Monterey Bay Aquarium. She started going on ocean expeditions, and she began to collect photographs taken by scientists of life that exists in darkness far below the surface.
She's put 200 of the most spectacular into a new book called "The Deep," photos of exotic and never-before-seen animals: a rare jellyfish; an almost cute octopus; heat-loving worms; and a variety of scary-looking fish. Many of these creatures have not even been named, they are so newly discovered.
CLAIRE NOUVIAN, Author, "The Deep": That's really where we come from. Life originated in the water.
SPENCER MICHELS: I talked with her in an underwater observation tunnel at San Francisco's Aquarium of the Bay.
CLAIRE NOUVIAN: I had been doing wildlife films, so I thought I knew what animals were pretty much like on this planet, and I was really amazed to see that there was this huge chunk of my wildlife culture that was missing. I just was really stunned. I mean, my mind was blown.
___
SPENCER MICHELS: Water makes up 70 percent of the Earth's surface, with ocean depth averaging more than two miles, a huge habitat that scientists say may contain from 10 million to 30 million new species.
Steve Haddock, a marine biologist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, took many of the photos in Nouvian's book. He and other MBARI scientists use unmanned, remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, tethered to a surface ship to explore and photograph deep canyons off Monterey on the California coast.
STEVE HADDOCK, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute: With a remotely operated vehicle, we may have 12 scientists there watching, experiencing the dive simultaneously. So we can have an expert on squid and an expert on jellyfish there, kind of weighing in on what they're seeing. And we have high-definition video now, and we have the ability to collect these really fragile animals in excellent shape.
SPENCER MICHELS: Haddock says ocean researchers have to be good, quick photographers.
STEVE HADDOCK: If you talk to people who work on jellyfish, you find out that a lot of them actually end up being photographers. And it's almost a requirement, because most of these animals, once you get them up on deck, you can't preserve them. They're so fragile that you can't just pick them and put them on a shelf and study them later.
SPENCER MICHELS: He snapped the picture of a two-inch-long creature called an arrow worm.
STEVE HADDOCK: Supposedly one of the second most abundant organisms out there in the ocean, but, you know, probably seems pretty foreign to most people...
Boat Pools (to avoid stinging jellyfish)
BY KIRK MOORE / from Asbury Park Press
When David Nolte got his family a 32-foot Catalina sailboat, he knew they'd need one more piece of equipment to enjoy Chesapeake Bay. A few years later, he bought the company that makes it.
Now an alarming northward advance of stinging sea nettle jellyfish is bringing the Nettle Net Boat Pool company new business from New Jersey. Boaters and waterfront homeowners along Barnegat Bay, the Navesink River and other Shore waterways are a growth market for the 30-year-old Severna Park, Md., business that makes jellyfish-proof swimming enclosures starting at $480.
"I was at the Annapolis boat show, and the first several people who bought pools were from New Jersey. I thought, what's up with this? And they told me there was a big issue emerging with jellyfish in the Barnegat Bay region," Nolte said.
Inventor David Dianich developed the Nettle Net in the 1970s, after he moved into a waterfront house on Chesapeake Bay and learned his two daughters couldn't swim off the dock because of stinging jellyfish.
Over the years, he built a small regional business, selling inflatable rings with fine-mesh netting that allow Chesapeake boaters to jump in without fear of getting stung. Nolte, 48, got to know Dianich after buying one of his nets, and about a year ago he bought the company.
After researching news stories and scientific material about jellyfish problems in Barnegat Bay and other estuaries, Nolte set up display booths at both the Philadelphia and Atlantic City boat shows. "The response has been wonderful," he said. "I got a call this morning from a woman on the Navesink River. She says the jellyfish have shown up there, and now she's interested.
"It's a good time to be a jellyfish," Nolte added. "Overfishing of predators, warming water, eutrophication, they all create favorable conditions for jellyfish." ...
"This is a lot cheaper than putting in a swimming pool," Nolte observed.
For dockside use, he advises buyers to cover their dock pilings with cushions of old fire hose or carpeting, to protect the net's inflatable ring from sharp barnacles or splinters.
The company builds its nets in three sizes of 8 feet, 12 feet and 20 feet in diameter. All are designed to be deployed off boat transoms, so swimmers can step off the stern and jump right in. In deep water, the nets extend down to 8 feet below the surface.
A circular flotation ring, built of heavy-duty coated fabric used in aircraft life vests, is inflated with a foot pump that comes with the package.
The netting material is 1/16-inch mesh, fine enough to keep out jellyfish but able to allow water to pass through without ballooning the net to one side. The smooth polyester mesh is finished so jellyfish tentacles won't cling to it. That's an important point, the company tells potential customers, for it lets boaters quickly retrieve and stow the net without shaking bits of jellyfish and their stinging nematocysts all over the deck.
The 8-foot diameter model sells for $480 and accommodates two or three people, while the 12-foot model at $660 fits a family or four to six adults, according to company literature. The biggest model, 20 feet, which sells for $1,360, creates a 314-square-foot area in which it's possible to swim.
"Scientist wins award for research on glass atom-jellyfish link"
Mr Himanshu Jain, who first compared the fluctuations of atoms and of jellyfish, has received the world's top prize for glass science research.
The scientist compared the movements of atoms in glass to the wiggling of jellyfish in water, according to a news release made available yesterday.
Mr Jain, director at the International Materials Institute for New Functionalities in Glass at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, in neighbouring Pennsylvania, received the Otto Schott Research Award on July 2, at the International Congress on Glass in Strasbourg, France...
Lehigh's International Materials Institute for New Functionalities in Glass is supported by a grant from the US National Science Foundation.
The Donors' Association for the Promotion of Science in Germany, which administers the Schott award, also noted Jain's research into unique light-induced phenomena in glass, his studies of the corrosion of glass in nuclear environments, and his work with sensors, infrared optics, waveguides, photolithography, nanolithography and other photonic applications of glass.
Mr Jain was taking a boat ride to the Isle of Skye off Scotland's west coast 20 years ago, when he first conceived of the connection between jellyfish and atoms in glass.
Watching the hundreds of jellyfish in the Sea of the Hebrides, Mr Jain couldn't help noticing what many before had observed - that the invertebrates were not swimming but wiggling as they drifted in the water.
The fluctuations of the jellyfish caused Mr Jain to wonder anew at the movements of atoms in glass. When the temperature of a glass is lowered to 4 degrees Kelvin, or near absolute zero, he says, these atomic movements slow from a lively hop to a virtual standstill.
When he returned from Scotland, Mr Jain thought more deeply about the nuclear-spin relaxation studies that he had conducted with colleagues in Germany and the dielectric measurements of supercold glass that his former adviser had recently reported. Observing the supercold glass in the lab, he detected a weak signal with novel characteristics, indicating that some atomic movement was still occurring.
''What we saw at this extremely low temperature was clearly something different,'' says Mr Jain. ''We proposed that a group of atoms was sitting in one place but wiggling like a jellyfish, which does not swim but instead has small fluctuations of movement.'' Mr Jain initially called the phenomenon the ''jellyfish'' fluctuations for the AC (alternating current) conductivity of ionic solids at low frequency and low temperature.
He later coined the term, ''jellyfish fluctuations of atoms in solids.'' His theory met with resistance but has since gained acceptance and is described today in some textbooks on materials and their behaviours...
The scientist compared the movements of atoms in glass to the wiggling of jellyfish in water, according to a news release made available yesterday.
Mr Jain, director at the International Materials Institute for New Functionalities in Glass at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, in neighbouring Pennsylvania, received the Otto Schott Research Award on July 2, at the International Congress on Glass in Strasbourg, France...
Lehigh's International Materials Institute for New Functionalities in Glass is supported by a grant from the US National Science Foundation.
The Donors' Association for the Promotion of Science in Germany, which administers the Schott award, also noted Jain's research into unique light-induced phenomena in glass, his studies of the corrosion of glass in nuclear environments, and his work with sensors, infrared optics, waveguides, photolithography, nanolithography and other photonic applications of glass.
Mr Jain was taking a boat ride to the Isle of Skye off Scotland's west coast 20 years ago, when he first conceived of the connection between jellyfish and atoms in glass.
Watching the hundreds of jellyfish in the Sea of the Hebrides, Mr Jain couldn't help noticing what many before had observed - that the invertebrates were not swimming but wiggling as they drifted in the water.
The fluctuations of the jellyfish caused Mr Jain to wonder anew at the movements of atoms in glass. When the temperature of a glass is lowered to 4 degrees Kelvin, or near absolute zero, he says, these atomic movements slow from a lively hop to a virtual standstill.
When he returned from Scotland, Mr Jain thought more deeply about the nuclear-spin relaxation studies that he had conducted with colleagues in Germany and the dielectric measurements of supercold glass that his former adviser had recently reported. Observing the supercold glass in the lab, he detected a weak signal with novel characteristics, indicating that some atomic movement was still occurring.
''What we saw at this extremely low temperature was clearly something different,'' says Mr Jain. ''We proposed that a group of atoms was sitting in one place but wiggling like a jellyfish, which does not swim but instead has small fluctuations of movement.'' Mr Jain initially called the phenomenon the ''jellyfish'' fluctuations for the AC (alternating current) conductivity of ionic solids at low frequency and low temperature.
He later coined the term, ''jellyfish fluctuations of atoms in solids.'' His theory met with resistance but has since gained acceptance and is described today in some textbooks on materials and their behaviours...
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