Legal Toxins in Toys May Disrupt Male Sexual Development

The United States remains one of the few developed countries to permit the import of plastic toys made with polyvinyl chloride additives called phthalates (pronounced tha-lates), which help make toys soft and pliable enough to be twisted or sucked yet durable enough to survive a 1-year-old's grip.

...Infants, according to the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety, an affiliate of the World Health Organization, have far less capacity for detoxifying chemicals than do adults, and with toys they face all three points of a "risk triangle": "increased vulnerability" to a chemical's "toxic effects" and plenty of possibilities for exposure through "intimate contact."

Chan's bill also proposed a toy ban on Bisphenol A, but most of the scientists' attention that day was focused on a phthalate called Di(2-ethylhexyl) Phthalate, or DEHP, which when ingested can impede the production of LH, a hormone responsible for triggering cells in the testes to produce testosterone.

...Dr. Earl Gray, who has been studying the effect of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on rodents for seventeen years at the EPA's research facility in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, told the panel that sexual malformations may follow from below-normal LH and testosterone levels.

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Legal Toxins in Toys May Disrupt Male Sexual Development

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Third of primates 'under threat'

The report says many apes, monkeys and other primates are being driven from the forests where they live or killed to make food and medicines.

...Of particular concern are the Hainan gibbon from China and Miss Waldron's red colobus monkey from Ivory Coast, both of which have only a few surviving creatures left in the wild.

The report says the threat to primates is worst in Asia where tropical forests are being destroyed and many monkeys are being hunted or traded as pets.

...Scientists have been warning for decades about the growing human threat to animal species around the world, but this study says we should be especially concerned about primates because they are the closest living relatives of humans.

Thanks to habitat destruction, poaching and being made into bushmeat, medicines and pets, primates are now facing their first possible extinctions in more than a century, according to a recent report by the US-based environmental group Conservation International.

..."You could fit all the surviving members of these 25 species in a single football stadium - that's how few of them remain on earth today," said Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservational International's Primate Specialist Group.

...Mittermeier remarked that the loss of tropical forests and other primate habitats is a major concern in their long-term survival; yet, if reforestation projects were to be included in U.N. programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it could prove to be a "magnificent opportunity" to save both primates and sequester carbon.

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Third of primates 'under threat'

25 Most Endangered Primate Species Could "Fit Into Single Football Stadium"

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Ecovillage Training Center

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Ecovillage Training Center

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A whole systems immersion experience of ecovillage living, together with classes of instruction, access to information, tools and resources, and on-site and off-site consulting and outreach experiences. An ecovillage is only different from a traditional village in its ability to be sustained indefinitely into the future. In all other respects, it may have all of the features people in the West have come to expect, like electric appliances, refrigeration, and Nintendo. The Ecovillage Training Center assists transition towards a sustainable society by instruction in meeting basic needs for food, shelter, energy, gainful employment, and community.

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Ecovillage Network of the Americas

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Ecovillage Network of the Americas

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Works to engage the peoples of the Americas in common effort to join the global transformation towards an ecologically, economically, and culturally sustainable future. ENA serves as the Western Hemisphere representative of the Global Ecovillage Network. ENA works to unite cultures from North, Central and South Americas and the Caribbean to become a unified force in the ecovillage and sustainability movements.

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Climate Solutions

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Climate Solutions

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Climate Solutions mission is to accelerate practical and profitable solutions to global warming by galvanizing leadership, growing investment and bridging divides.

Our regional organizing approach is transforming the global warming debate in the region and laying the groundwork for a successful, multi-stakeholder climate action agenda. We’re generating fresh political momentum for energy and transportation solutions that benefit the region’s economy and quality-of-life.

Global warming is our generation’s greatest challenge and solving it is our greatest opportunity to build a healthy, prosperous future.

Ghost Trackers

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Ghost Trackers

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Ghost Trackers is dedicated to the Research, Investigation and Documentation of ghostly activity in Northern California and its' surrounding states.
The Ghost Trackers Paranormal Research Group in affiliation with The Center For ParaPsychical Research based in Northern California and being the largest, most active paranormal research group in Northern California regularly hold seminars, lectures and a yearly conference to educate the public regarding paranormal activity and research.

Hundreds of Antarctic Peninsula Glaciers Accelerating as Climate Warms; UN Issues Global Ice and Snow Report

Using radar images acquired by European ERS-1 and -2 satellites, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) tracked the flow rate of more than 300 previously unstudied glaciers. They found a 12% increase in glacier speed from 1993 to 2003. These observations, echoing recent findings from coastal Greenland, indicate that the cause is the melting of the lower glaciers, which flow directly into the sea.

Glaciers tend to move at rather, er, glacial speeds, right? But glaciers around the world are disappearing at a "rapid" pace. This is but one article showing the increasing pace with which glaciers are moving into the ocean.

In An Inconvenient Truth Al Gore talked about this, and to me it sounded like he claimed that one day the glaciers covering Greenland would suddenly whoomph into the Atlantic Ocean and lickety split that global conveyor would stop just like that. But it seems instead it's just going to be an ever quickening pace.

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Hundreds of Antarctic Peninsula Glaciers Accelerating as Climate Warms; UN Issues Global Ice and Snow Report