Mount Fuji Spring wallpaper, Rare Cambodian birds recovering

Mount Fuji Spring wallpaper 1800×1200

That there conservation stuff works once in a while, Rare water birds recovering in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – The populations of seven species of rare water birds have recovered significantly in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap lake due to a program that employs former hunters as park rangers, conservationists said Thursday.

A report by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society found the populations have increased by as much as 20 times for some of the species since 2001, when the program started.

Irish Pasture wallpaper, Windows for light and energy, Reishi mushrooms and sarcomas

Cows and Pasture – Ireland wallpaper

Future Of Solar-powered Houses Is Clear: New Windows Could Halve Carbon Emissions

Professor John Bell said QUT had worked with a Canberra-based company Dyesol, which is developing transparent solar cells that act as both windows and energy generators in houses or commercial buildings.

He said the solar cell glass would make a significant difference to home and building owners’ energy costs and could, in fact, generate excess energy that could be stored or sold.

Nothing makes a homeowners heart go pitter-patter like duel use/energy savings/might even make a profit green tech innovation that oh by the way helps cut green house emissions and makes us less dependent on foreign oil.

Increasing obesity in U.S. requires new ambulance equipment

“I think everybody is moving to a stretcher that has a higher weight capacity,” said Jerry Johnston of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, president of the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians. “We have to be able to deal with it and have the equipment to take care of those people appropriately. It’s part of our job.”

But the effort can be expensive.

A bariatric ambulance that can transport patients weighing up to 1,000 pounds costs $110,000 to build, compared with $70,000 for a standard ambulance, said Doug Moore, a spokesman for American Medical Response, which operates 4,200 ambulances nationwide.

A bariatric cot costs around $4,000, four times the price of a regular cot.

As much as I sympathize with folks that have weight problems there is, as this story illustrates, a point at which their personal behavior has become a public health issue. Thanks to Mr. Bush and his free spending Republican cronies that controlled Congress for ten years the nation is in a recession and we have the greatest deficit in our history. So now might be a great time to make some changes in lifestyle for their sake and ours.

Mushrooms on tree. Green Tea, Mushroom Extract Combo Slows Sarcomas

A combination of the active ingredients in reishi mushrooms and green tea inhibited the growth of tumors and extended survival time of mice with sarcomas, two Chinese studies show.

Sarcomas are cancers of the bone, cartilage, fat, muscle, blood vessels, or other connective or supportive tissue.

I generally have a wait for verification attitude toward scientific announcements from China as sometimes they’re tainted by politics, but since they plan on presenting this paper in San Diego to a peer group of biologist it sounds solid enough to at least keep an eye on. The usual caveat, always consult with your doctor before trying out any exotic self treatments.

Stubbach Waterfall wallpaper, News notes on climate, bosons and geothermal

Staubbach Waterfall wallpaper

WHO: Climate Change Threatens Millions

Millions of people could face poverty, disease and hunger as a result of rising temperatures and changing rainfall expected to hit poor countries the hardest, the World Health Organization warned Monday.

Malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition and floods cause an estimated 150,000 deaths annually, with Asia accounting for more than half, said regional WHO Director Shigeru Omi.

A lot of people jumped all over Ted Turner last week for saying basically the same thing except he included y that when you have millions of people scrambling around desperate for clean water and food there is the possibility of cannibalism. A possibility that may be shocking to hear, but never
the less a possibility.

‘God Particle’ Expected to Be Found Soon

The father of a theoretical subatomic particle dubbed “the God particle” says he’s almost sure it will be confirmed in the next year in a race between powerful research equipment in the United States and Europe.

[ ]…The Higgs theory is that the bosons create a field through which the other particles pass.

The particles that encounter difficulty going through the field as though they are passing through molasses pick up more inertia, and mass. Those that pass through more easily are lighter.

Nobel laureate Leon Lederman is the one to blame for dubbing the boson the “God” particle.

The Great Forgotten Clean-Energy Source: Geothermal – The U.S. uses less than 1 percent of our available geothermal energy.

If we could extract all the geothermal energy that exists underneath the United States to a depth of two miles, it would supply America’s power demands (at the current rate of usage) for the next 30,000 years. Getting at all that energy is not feasible—there are technological and economic impediments—but drawing on just 5 percent of the geothermal wealth would generate enough electricity to meet the needs of 260 million Americans.

The current U.S. population is about 310 million and while expected to level off to 350 to 380 million before dropping to zero population growth, tapping into geothermal’s potential combined with solar and wind would allow us to continue our beloved partying ways for quite a few centuries.

Spotted Bush Snake wallpaper, The public debate about biofuels versus bioproducts

Spotted Green Bush Snake. Philothamnus semivariegatus semivariegatus. Note that unlike boas they have a very slender body that ranges from olive to brighter green – the darker markings can range from black to a navy blue. The eyes seem to me at least less menacing then some other snakes like the rattlers, tending toward goldish yellow. They’re a native snake of Africa found from Zimbabwe to Tropical West Africa. It feeds mostly on small lizards and frogs.

In this NYT article they talk about using biosynthesized products to replace some of the products that are now made from petroleum based  compounds. Harnessing Biology, and Avoiding Oil, for Chemical Goods. Unfortunately from a kind of science public relations point of view they include things like making a polymer from vegetable oils that used as part of of new polyurethane foams with biofuels from switchgrass. To date anyway there hasn’t been any data that shows how the use of land, fertilizer and water to produce biofuels in quantities required to power transport for instance will be a net benefit for the environment on fossil fuels. Making bio-derived products like biodegradable plastic toys, plastic wrap and garbage bags might well have a net benefit since we use such products at a lower rate then fuels. By conflating biofuels and bioproducts its makes the debate about where we should invest resources a little more difficult.

“It could prove to be a very valuable commodity,” said Keith Simons, a chemist who consults for the Glycerol Challenge, a project started by a group of British companies and universities. The $3.6 million-a-year effort is aimed at developing catalysts and other technologies that will use glycerol as a feedstock “for making various downstream chemicals,” Mr. Simons said.

Calm Waters and Boat wallpaper, Plant’s salt tolerance secret discovered

Calm Waters and Boat 1680×1200

Calm Waters and Boat wide 1920×1080

Salt-tolerant gene found in simple plant nothing to sneeze at

Whether a plant withers unproductively or thrives in salty conditions may now be better understood by biologists. The cellular mechanism that controls salt tolerance has been found in the arabidopsis plant by a Texas AgriLife Research scientist collaborating with an international team.

This is an amazing discovery. One that may lead to hybridized food crops that can grow in salty soils. On the other hand it is a discovery that could lead to expanding farming into salt marshes and surrounding areas that now serve as both flood buffers and wildlife habitat.

Vitex flowers. I’m not sure of the species. There are around 250 species in the Vitex genus that grow in warm regions ranging from the coastal Mediterranean to New Zealand.