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  • The Fall of the Reef Shark
    Sharks have a reputation of being apex predators of the sea. But even they have their weak points. Many shark populations have plummeted in the past three decades as a result of excessive harvesting — for their fins, as an incidental catch of fisheries targeting other species, and in recreational fisheries. This is particularly true for oceanic species. However, until now, a lack of data prevented scientists from properly quantifying the status of Pacific reef sharks at a large geographic scale. Curious gray reef sharks at Kure Atoll in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, Hawaii were studied as part of a study published April 25 in the journal Conservation Biology. An international team of marine scientists provided the first estimates of reef shark losses in the Pacific Ocean using underwater surveys conducted over the past decade across 46 US Pacific islands and atolls, as part of NOAA's extensive Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program. The team compared reef shark numbers at reefs.

  • Why the best world-changing ideas begin in your neighbourhood
    Your ideas for changing the world may be desperately important. But if you can't find a way to engage the interests of the people around you they may never take off, argues John-Paul Flintoff. The environmental movement has often been guilty of making people despondent, either by talking about 'problems' in a way that makes listeners feel powerless, or by presenting solutions as miserable duties. It needn't be that way. Instead, we could try to make doing the right thing appealing, rather than merely necessary - and one way to do that is to offer people a chance to say hello to their neighbours.

  • High Concentrations of Toxic Mercury in the Arctic from Circumpolar Rivers
    Environmental scientists have known that high levels of the toxic element, mercury, have been accumulating in the Arctic Ocean for some time. It was believed to be mostly caused by atmospheric sources stemming from the combustion of coal. However, a new study from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Harvard School of Public Health has found that the great majority of Arctic mercury arrives via circumpolar rivers. Some of the largest rivers in the world flow north into the Arctic in Eurasia and North America.

  • Help at the nest sets chicks up for life
    A chick's chances throughout life will depend on a good environment and good parenting in its earliest months. One of the ways that chicks can get ahead is to have an extra relative looking after them. New research shows that the benefits of having a 'helper at the nest' extend even into adulthood.

  • Climate Study: Extreme Rain Storms in Midwest Have Doubled in Last 50 Years, Often Leading to Worsened Flooding
    The kind of deluges that in recent years washed out Cedar Rapids, IA, forced the Army Corps of Engineers to intentionally blow up levees to save Cairo, IL, and sent the Missouri River over its banks for hundreds of miles are part of a growing trend, according to a new report released today by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization (RMCO) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Big storms, leading to big floods, are occurring with increasing frequency in the Midwest, with incidences of the most severe downpours doubling over the last half century, the report finds.

  • Watersheds
    Where will the water be? That is the critical question for the future as climate changes occur forcing water to change its habits. Climate change projections indicate a steady increase in temperature progressing through the 21st century, generally resulting in snow pack reductions, changes to the timing of snow melt, altered stream flows, and reductions in soil moisture, all of which could affect water management, agriculture, recreation, hazard mitigation, and ecosystems across the nation. Despite some widespread similarities in climate change trends, climate change will affect specific water basins in the U.S. differently, based on the particular hydrologic and geologic conditions in that area.

  • The Complete Electric Car with Charging Station
    One of the problems with an all electric car is charging them. As opposed to gasoline stations, there are far fewer opportunities to charge electric vehicles. Shai Agassi hopes Israel is ready to embrace the efficiency and economics of electric cars. His company Better Place rolled out four electric car charging stations in northern Israel. It is planned to quickly grow this network so that every place in Israel be within range of one of their network stations. This is intended to eliminate, the range anxiety which frightens some consumers out of considering electric cars. Better Place contracted with French automaker Renault to produce a customized version of their Fluence electric car.

  • Chemical weapon and radiation fear at Scottish RAF base
    The Ministry of Defence (MOD) may have sold off land contaminated with chemical weapons and radioactive material buried at an RAF base in North-East Scotland, according to reports. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) is already investigating radioactive contamination at RAF Kinloss, believed to be from Second World War aircraft coated in radium and buried at the site.

  • 1,000 Years of Climate Data Confirms Australia's Warming
    In the first study of its kind in Australasia, scientists have used 27 natural climate records to create the first large-scale temperature reconstruction for the region over the last 1000 years. The study was led by researchers at the University of Melbourne and used a range of natural indicators including tree rings, corals and ice cores to study Australasian temperatures over the past millennium and compared them to climate model simulations

  • Lasers and Trains
    A laser is a device that emits light (electromagnetic radiation) through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term laser originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. The emitted laser light is notable for its high degree of spatial and temporal coherence, unattainable using other technologies. Laser systems can be used to implement highly precise and ultra-fast measuring processes. Railway measuring technology has a huge worldwide need here. One prerequisite for its use is that nobody is damaged or suffers irritations by the laser. Dr. Heinrich Höfler and Dipl.-Ing. Harald Wölfelschneider from the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM in Freiburg have worked with their team to develop a 3D laser scanner. It can be used outdoors without hesitation. Extremely fast and precise, it is able to spatially measure and monitor the position of the contact wire or the track from a train traveling at up to 100 kilometers (62 mph) per hour. If the scanner is stationary, it can capture passing trains and check for loads that might have slipped.

  • Charcoal for African Cookstoves, What's the Story?
    You may have seen pictures of women in Africa cooking their daily meals on a small cookstove. These cooking implements look remarkably similar to the portable charcoal grills an American family might bring to the beach for an afternoon of grilling hot dogs and hamburgers. Imagine using one of these at your kitchen table to prepare nearly every meal of your life. In Mozambique (a coastal nation in Southwest Africa, just north of South Africa), the average lifespan is 47 years, the average income is $1 per day — minimum wage is a little more than double that, but high unemployment cuts the average in half. Charcoal is the cooking element of choice. Among market shoppers and sellers we met, charcoal was deemed to be the best cooking option because it is easily available and "not dangerous."

  • Earthquake Hits Northern Italy
    A powerful earthquake shook Italy's industrial and densely populated northeast early Sunday, killing six people and felling homes and church steeples around the historic city of Ferrara. Emergency services said at least 50 people were injured in the 6.0-magnitude quake, which struck just after 4 a.m. (10 p.m. ET Saturday), sending thousands of people running into the streets in town and cities from the Emilia-Romagna region to Venice. Authorities said the quake's epicenter was the commune of Finale Emilia, 36 kilometers (22 miles) north of Bologna. A 29-year-old Moroccan man was killed by a falling girder when a factory building collapsed in the small town of Ponte Rodoni di Bondeno.

  • Lose Weight While You Sleep!
    Want to lose weight but find it hard to hit the gym three times a week or eating 1,500 calories per day? You might not have to do either. New research suggest sleeping more could be enough to keep the flab away. Research into the circadian clock that regulates our sleep-wake cycle shows disruptions to the clock may be linked to metabolic disorders such as obesity and type-2 diabetes. And researchers say sleeping for eight hours a night and eating during daylight hours could be as important in controlling weight gain as diet and exercise. Gad Asher, clinician and medical researcher from the Department of Biological Chemistry at Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, presented research to a Garvan Institute seminar on obesity in Melbourne last night that found every cell in the body has a circadian clock.

  • Happy, Happy Parents!
    Raising a family can be a difficult matter. But does it make one happy or miserable? Of course part of the answer is that it depends... Contrary to some scholarship and popular belief, parents experience greater levels of happiness and meaning in life than people without children, according to researchers from the University of California, Riverside, the University of British Columbia and Stanford University. Parents also are happier during the day when they are caring for their children than during their other daily activities, the researchers found in a series of studies conducted in the United States and Canada.

  • EPA: Protect Yourself from the Sun this Summer!
    The warming temperatures will bring many people out into the sun to get a little color on their skins. The sun, while being the source of all life on Earth, is also quite lethal if exposed for too long. As summer approaches, it is good to remember a few things about protecting your skin from the great ball of fire in the sky. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has teamed up with the National Council on Skin Cancer Prevention, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and National Park Service (NPS) in a joint effort to spread the word. They have designated the Friday before Memorial Day as "Don't Fry Day" to highlight the important message.


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Green Facts

  • Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.

  • Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.

  • Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.

  • Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.

  • Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months

  • Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.

  • American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.

  • Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

  • Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

  • The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.

  • 77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.

  • An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!

  • Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.

  • Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

  • A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.

  • A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  • Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.

  • Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.

  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.

  • It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

  • You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.

  • 82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.

  • Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.

  • Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

  • States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.

  • Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.

  • A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.

  • You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.

  • Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.

  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.

  • In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.

  • Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.

  • One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.

  • You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.

  • If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.

  • Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.

  • For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.

  • In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.

  • Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.