A new USGS study shows that the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone is caused mainly from corn and soy fertilizers and animal wastes running off of the seven states abutting the Mississippi, and also Indiana and Ohio along the Ohio River, which drains into the Mississippi. Ocean dead zones are caused by extremely low oxygen levels in the water – a condition known as hypoxia. Hypoxic conditions develop where there is an excess of agricultural run-off, because of the high levels of nitrogen and phosphorous in fertilizer and manure.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Earth's Inconstant Magnetic Field
There have been multiple books written about the pole shift phenomenon. I first heard about it as a young lad gobbling up science books. Geological researchers had found when sampling sea-floor deposits across the ocean that the magnetic alignment of atoms showed a pattern of geomagnetic field reversals. That the ocean floor had bands of material showing varying earth magnetic field alignments.
There is some alarmist thinking out there concerning the pole shift phenomenon. The greatly weakening magnetic fields is feeding a concern that the poles are due to shift in 2012. Why 2012? Ask the ancient Mayans and other cultures who drew up calendars that all end in 2012.
Anyway this article is a description, published through NASA, of current research and the current status. They say the magnetic field is indeed weakening, and that the earth is indeed long overdue for a magnetic field reversal. However while the field is weakening, it is far stronger than is typical. This means that if a pole reversal is induced by a weak magnetic field, the earth's magnetic field has a long way to go before it will happen. The article doesn't clearly say what scientists think causes field reversals, however.
Article Reference:
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Cooling The Globe - the Team against Global Warming
Description:
Educates people in simpler way , the consequences of Global Warming and means to control it. Forming a team to fight against Global Warming. Plan and execute the action plans to attack it. Forums & blogs to discuss various aspects of technology developments for controlling the same. Post and share articles and resources on this topic to enhance the visitors knowledge on this topic. Learning and sharing the technical aspects of electrical vehicles and promoting their usage to control Global Warming. Understanding and collection of resources regarding Electrical Motors & Power electronics as the building blocks of Electrical Vehicles.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Living on Earth
Description:
Living on Earth with Steve Curwood is the weekly environmental news and information program distributed by Public Radio International. Every week approximately 300 Public Radio stations broadcast Living on Earth's news, features, interviews and commentary on a broad range of ecological issues. The show airs in 9 of the 10 top radio markets and reaches 80% of the US.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
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.
Article Reference:
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.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Ecovillage Training Center
Description:
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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