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Archive for March, 2010

Study suggests toads can detect coming earthquakes

Mar 31

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By JILL LAWLESS
The Associated Press

LONDON — When it comes to predicting earthquakes, toads – warts and all – may be an asset.

British researchers said Wednesday that they observed a mass exodus of toads from a breeding site in Italy five days before a major tremor struck, suggesting the amphibians may be able to sense environmental changes, imperceptible to humans, that foretell a coming quake.

Since ancient times, anecdotes and folklore have linked unusual animal behavior to cataclysmic events like earthquakes, but hard evidence has been scarce. A new study by researchers from the Open University is one of the first to document animal behavior before, during and after an earthquake.
washingtonpost.com

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UN to airlift nine orphan gorillas to DR Congo nature reserve

Mar 31

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Nine orphan gorillas will start new lives in a nature reserve in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), thanks to assistance from peacekeepers serving with the United Nations mission in the country, known as MONUC.

Following a request from the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN) and the Diane Fossey Gorilla Fund, blue helmets will airlift three young primates from Goma, in North Kivu province, and six adolescents from neighbouring Rwanda, to Kasugho, near the Tayna Nature Reserve.

Scientists believe that ground transportation would be too difficult and traumatic for the gorillas, and the decision was made to move them by air. They will be accompanied on their trip by veterinarians and other helpers.

“Caring for the Earth we all share is not just the job of governments,” said Alan Doss, head of MONUC, who announced the decision to help relocate the gorillas at a conservation awards ceremony yesterday in the capital, Kinshasa.
un.org

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Portland’s sewers right as rain

Mar 31

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By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY

The most surprising tourist attraction in Portland, Ore., is its storm sewer system.
Eco-friendly tourists flock to the city to understand how Portland’s innovative system of curbs, gutters, roofs and rain gardens sharply cuts water pollution.

So popular is the “Green Streets” program that the city publishes a map on its website directing tourists to the most exciting storm sewer sites.

“When we started this 10 or 12 years ago, there was a lot of skepticism,” says Dean Marriott, director of Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services. “Today, many cities are moving in this direction. People want to see how it’s done.”

New federal regulations and environmental concerns are pushing the issue to the front burner for local governments.

Storm-water runoff is the No. 1 cause of water pollution in suburban and rural areas. The best-known result is a zone devoid of marine life in the Gulf of Mexico created by the accumulation of polluted runoff from 31 states that drains into the Mississippi River.
usatoday.com

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Ex-con millionaire vows to sell businesses to move to mud-hut, help impoverished Ugandan orphans

Mar 30

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BY MARIA FUGATE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

A self-made millionaire with a criminal record, alcoholism and affairs to his name is embracing a true reversal of fortune, all in the name of charity.

Telecommunications tycoon Jon Pedley is selling his businesses, a $1.5 million Essex farmhouse with a 1-acre garden and his furniture — to move to a mud hut in Uganda and launch a children’s charity, according to the Daily Mail.

The life transfomation for the 41-year-old businessman with the checkered past follows a serious drunken-driving crash that nearly killed him — he had to be revived seven times, the Daily Mirror reported — and caused him to find God, he said.

Now he dreams that his charity, Uganda Vision, helps build the self-esteem of troubled British children by sending them to work in the East African country, where they will help kids orphaned by poverty and AIDS, according to the Daily Mail.
nydailynews.com

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Deforestation Slows But ‘Long Way to Go’

Mar 30

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(PINKSHEETS: ECOF) Founder Martin Tindall was today encouraged by news from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) that the global deforestation has slowed, though he stressed much work is still to be done.

“We are excited and genuinely happy having learnt today, through the FAO, that deforestation has decreased over the last decade compared to the 1900s, though with 13 million hectares (32 million acres)* converted or lost each year we still have a long way to go,” ECO2 Forests Founder, Martin Tindall said today.
cnn.com

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Girl Scout troop donates 100 toys to young hospital patients

Mar 29

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By Erik Potter, Enterprise Staff Writer

BROCKTON —More smiles are in store for the children in the pediatric unit at Signature Healthcare Brockton Hospital.

Girl Scout Troop 80368 in Brockton donated more than 100 gifts for the hospital’s pediatric patients Saturday, part of their efforts to earn their “good deed” merit badges.

The 15 girls in the troop each raised $25 by doing chores and saving their allowances. They pooled that money to buy arts and crafts, teddy bears, board games, puzzles and more.
enterprisenews.com

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Abu Dhabi’s ‘green’ city Masdar

Mar 28

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By Tom Heap

The world’s first zero-carbon city is being built in Abu Dhabi and is designed to be not only free of cars and skyscrapers but also powered by the sun.

The oil-rich United Arab Emirates is the last place you would expect to learn lessons on low-carbon living, but the emerging eco-city of Masdar could teach the world.

At first glance, the parched landscape of Abu Dhabi looks like the craziest place to build any city, let alone a sustainable one.

The inhospitable terrain suggests that the only way to survive here is with the maximum of technological support, a bit like living on the moon.

The genius of Masdar – if it works – will be combining 21st Century engineering with traditional desert architecture to deliver zero-carbon comfort. And it is being built now.

Masdar will be home to about 50,000 people, at least 1,000 businesses and a university.

It is being designed by British architects Foster and Partners, but it is the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is paying for it. And it will cost between £10bn ($15bn) and £20bn ($30bn).
bbc.co.uk

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Nanny runs through flames to save child

Mar 27

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By SEAN ROSE – The Courier-Journal

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Alyson Myatt said her own safety never crossed her mind.

After waking to a loud boom and realizing smoke detectors were going off in the Shelbyville home where she worked as a nanny early Tuesday morning, all she knew was she had to get to the 5-year-old boy she cared for.

And she did, after walking barefoot through a flaming hallway and carrying the boy to safety from the house on Goldenrod Court. “I didn’t even think about me getting burned,” Myatt said. “I care for the kid a lot. I really do.”

peaking from a bed in University Hospital’s burn unit Wednesday evening, Myatt, 22, said she had been working as a live-in nanny for the family only two months.

Both her feet and her right hand were heavily bandaged after suffering severe burns, and she said it was too early to guess how long her hospital stay might be or what her recovery might entail.
kentucky.com

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Tuvalu to Taiwan; nations switch off for Earth Hour

Mar 27

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The symbolic one-hour switch-off, first held in Sydney in 2007, has become an annual global event and organizers World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said they expect this year’s to be the biggest so far.

The remote Chatham Islands was the first of more than 100 nations and territories to turn off the power at 8.30 p.m. local time, in a rolling event around the globe that ends just across the International Dateline in Samoa 24 hours later.

Tiny Tuvalu, which fears being wiped off the map from rising sea levels, tried to go carbon-neutral for the event, pledging to cut power to its nine low-lying Pacific atolls and asking car and motorcycle owners to stay off the roads, WWF said.

Far to the south in Antarctica, Australia’s Davis research station pledged to dim the lights.

Event co-founder Andy Ridley told Reuters that 126 countries and territories had so far signed up, with thousands of special events scheduled, including a lights-out party on Sydney’s northern beaches and an Earth Hour ‘speed dating’ contest.

The number of participants is significantly up on 2009, when 88 countries and territories and more than 4,000 towns and cities took part. Organizers have estimated between 500 million and 700 million people were involved last year.
reuters.com

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NASA Study Finds Atlantic ‘Conveyor Belt’ Not Slowing

Mar 26

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PASADENA, Calif. – New NASA measurements of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, part of the global ocean conveyor belt that helps regulate climate around the North Atlantic, show no significant slowing over the past 15 years. The data suggest the circulation may have even sped up slightly in the recent past.

The findings are the result of a new monitoring technique, developed by oceanographer Josh Willis of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., using measurements from ocean-observing satellites and profiling floats. The findings are reported in the March 25 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

The Atlantic overturning circulation is a system of currents, including the Gulf Stream, that bring warm surface waters from the tropics northward into the North Atlantic. There, in the seas surrounding Greenland, the water cools, sinks to great depths and changes direction. What was once warm surface water heading north turns into cold deep water going south. This overturning is one part of the vast conveyor belt of ocean currents that move heat around the globe.
nasa.gov

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