CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Scotty will be blasted into space — not beamed up — and Gordo is returning for his third flight.
The planned launch sometime in March of a rocket carrying the ashes of actor James Doohan, who played chief engineer Montgomery Scott on “Star Trek,” and Mercury program astronaut Gordon Cooper will give a fitting send-off to two men who helped popularize human space exploration.
The craft also will hold the ashes of 185 others, including a telephone technician, a nurse and a college student.
Their families paid $995 to $5,300 for the flight, being conducted by one of a handful of growing businesses hoping to give a space experience to the common folk.
Mostly environmental and health today; maybe there will be more space-type news tomorrow. Be sure to check out the story in the box…
Amazonian agricultural technique could sequester up to 12% of human carbon emissions while increasing soil fertility. Slash-and-burn, which is commonly used in many parts of the world to prepare fields for crops, releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Slash-and-char, the Amazonian technique, on the other hand, actually reduces greenhouse gases by sequestering huge amounts of carbon for thousands of years and substantially reducing methane and nitrous oxide emissions from soils.
Scientists have found evidence that tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures may have once reached 42°C – some 14°C higher than ocean temperatures today and warmer than a hot tub. This occurred millions of year ago when carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere were also high, but researchers say they may be an indication that greenhouse gases could heat the oceans in the future much more than currently anticipated. The study suggests that climate models underestimate future warming.
One-third of New Zealand’s offshore waters is going to be declared off-limits to bottom-trawlers. The decision would result in the world’s largest total closure to bottom-trawl fishing within an Exclusive Economic Zone, EEC. Conservation groups say bottom-trawling is the most destructive type of fishing undertaken in the world’s oceans today. Ships trail heavy nets across the sea bed, catching fish but destroying coral and other organisms.
The entire carbon dioxide emissions created in Europe could be stored underneath the North Sea if the infrastructure were put in place, a Norwegian company has claimed. Gas and oil firm Statoil said the undersea aquifer beneath its Sleipner platforms in the North Sea, 200 miles off the Norwegian coast, is capable of permanently holding carbon dioxide (CO2) – a gas linked to climate change. The Sleipner platform provides methane to countries throughout western mainland Europe and is capable of exporting 20 million cubic metres of gas every day. But it is also the first of a handful of geological sites where CO2 is stored. “There are calculations which say it could handle all of Europe’s CO2 emissions for several hundreds of years,” Statoil’s Senior Vice President for the Environment Tor Fraeren told the BBC.
Most coral reefs escaped “serious damage” from the December 2004 tsunami and should recover in less than 10 years, though much will depend on local government’s protecting marine ecosystems, according to a report released Monday by Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. They found that reefs in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand were hardest hit, with damage reaching up to 30 percent in some places. But much like earlier studies, it found that human activities like illegal fishing and climate change pose the greatest risk to the future of these reefs.
Scientists fear that leaping Asian carp will reach the Great Lakes, devour the base of the food chain and spoil drinking water for 40 million people. In less than a decade since escaping southern U.S. fish farms, the hardy and voracious carp have come to dominate sections of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. The leaping fish are silver carp that jump haphazardly when alarmed by passing boats and have injured boaters, some of whom have taken up garbage can lids as shields. The only barriers between dense populations of silver and bighead carp — two closely related Asian carp species — and the world’s largest collective body of fresh water are a few miles of waterway and a little-tested underwater electrical field spanning a canal near Chicago.
Make friends with Kool-Aid; make Kool-Aid with friends!
Make friends with Kool-Aid, for fun that never ends, that never ends…
– 1970’s TV commercial
In his new book about Mr. Bush, “Rebel in Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush,” Fred Barnes recalls a visit to the White House last year by Michael Crichton, whose 2004 best-selling novel, “State of Fear,” suggests that global warming is an unproven theory and an overstated threat.
Mr. Barnes, who describes Mr. Bush as “a dissenter on the theory of global warming,” writes that the president “avidly read” the novel and met the author after Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, arranged it. He says Mr. Bush and his guest “talked for an hour and were in near-total agreement.”
“The visit was not made public for fear of outraging environmentalists all the more,” he adds. Full story here.
Britain could lose its ability to impose environmental taxes, restrictions and safeguards on airlines under a draft treaty between the EU and US that curtails the power of national governments. The draft treaty, meant to liberalize aviation, includes a little noticed clause requiring EU states to reach agreement with each other and with the US before taking measures to tackle noise or pollution from airlines. The text of the draft “open skies” treaty, obtained by the Guardian, is likely to alarm environmental activists who argue that the seemingly unstoppable growth in air travel is among the main contributory factors to global warming. Aviation emissions rose by 12% last year and now account for about 11% of Britain’s total greenhouse gas emissions – the fastest growing sector.
In a rare display of unanimity that cuts across partisan and geographic lines, lawmakers in virtually every statehouse across the country are advancing bills and constitutional amendments to limit use of the government’s power of eminent domain to seize private property for economic development purposes.
The measures are in direct response to the United States Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 decision last June in a landmark property rights case from Connecticut, upholding the authority of the City of New London to condemn homes in an aging neighborhood to make way for a private development of offices, condominiums and a hotel. It was a decision that one justice, who had written for the majority, later all but apologized for.
The reaction from the states was swift and heated. Within weeks of the court’s decision, Texas, Alabama and Delaware passed bills by overwhelming bipartisan margins limiting the right of local governments to seize property and turn it over to private developers. Since then, lawmakers in three dozen other states have proposed similar restrictions and more are on the way, according to experts who track the issue.
If he wrote the majority opinion, why did he apologize later? He changed his mind? WTF?
At least 20 people have been killed and 20 injured in an explosion at a market in southern Baghdad, Iraqi police say.
It was unclear whether the explosion in the busy market in the Dorah area was caused by a suicide bomber or a car bomb, they said.
Hospital sources said the number of casualties could be much higher.
The blast comes a day after a suicide bombing on a bus in Baghdad killed 12 Iraqis and injured at least eight.
(the story is just breaking)
The wildlife in East Africa is dying of thirst and starvation, the people are suffering – and now the lack of rain threatens even the Serengeti migrations
In cracked riverbeds once flowing with water,dozens of hippos lie decomposing in the stifling heat. Elsewhere, the thin delicate frames of rare Grevy’s zebras lie on parched grass, felled by anthrax.
East Africa should now be preparing for the migration of the wildebeest – the biggest movement of wildlife in the world – but instead, the animals are slowly starving. The people are suffering too. The UN estimates that 11 million people in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Burundi will need food airlifts to survive this drought.
Soon, more than one million wildebeest are due to thunder their way through the Mara River, on their Spring migration through the plains of the Serengeti in Tanzania and onto the golden expanse of the Masai Mara in Kenya.
Hidden in the dust kicked up by their hooves 200,000 zebras and 300,000 Thomson’s gazelles will run alongside. On the fringes there should be an army of predators, waiting to pick off the weakest as they stumble in the vast crowds. But this year, there is nowhere for the animals to go.
The Masai Mara, dry at the best of times, is a dustbowl – parched from a season of pitiful rains that has driven many animals out of their natural homes in search of water. The few wild animals that remain are spooked by Masai herdsmen who have driven their cattle into the nature reserves searching for a few patches of grass where their livestock can feed.
(more)
Most folks around these parts have probably read this piece already, but everyone should read it.
I could see my baby’s amazing and perfect spine, a precise, pebbled curl of vertebrae. His little round skull. The curve of his nose. I could even see his small leg floating slowly through my uterus.
My doctor came in a moment later, slid the ultrasound sensor around my growing, round belly and put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s not alive,” she said.
She turned her back to me and started taking notes. I looked at the wall, breathing deeply, trying not to cry.
I can make it through this, I thought. I can handle this.
I had a really bad miscarriage at 19 wks once. I just can’t imagine going through that with people fighting around me and nobody knowing how to help me or pissed off! It was my first pregnancy too so thank God that the doctor knew exactly what he was doing and I lived to be well and healthy to have other children!
Very powerful story. The good folks who think only in absolutes should have an opportunity to read this. It just might give them reason to pause and rethink their views. Then again..probably not.
And just to prove that there’s NO religious influence being brought to bear, that the concept of separation of Church and State is alive and well…The Rude Pundit gives us the latest from the Super Duper Prayer Team of the Family Research Council.
KABUL, Feb 21 (IPS) – Afghan men, women and children returning home after years of living in the squalor of refugee camps in neighbouring Pakistan and Iran may be coming back with more than just their belongings.
All three HIV positive cases reported this year are of refugee returnees, according to officials.
While two people detected with the virus, early January in northern Sar-i-Pul province, were recent returnees from Iran, the chief of the health department of northern Takhar province, Dr Abdul Hakim Aziz stopped did not reveal which country the province’s first HIV-positive case had returned from.
On Feb. 13, Sar-i-Pul’s public health department director, Mohammad Amin Altan, said the two men who were under treatment would be shifted to Kabul for ‘proper treatment’. Meanwhile, the infected man in Takhar province has been referred for treatment to the civil hospital in Taloqan, the provincial capital.
According to the spokesman for the public health ministry, Dr Abdullah Fahim, 51 HIV positive cases have been ”officially registered with them across the ountry.”
UNAIDS, which tracks HIV/AIDS round the world, says there is no reliable data on prevalence in Afghanistan. The main mode of transmission is believed to be blood transfusion and sharing contaminated needles during drug use.
(more)
Ya know Larry, your stint as Secretary of Treasury proved that in maths you have a certain, shall we say deficit for adding numbers. Couldn’t help myself.
Scattered in Space: AP/Yahoo
Mostly environmental and health today; maybe there will be more space-type news tomorrow. Be sure to check out the story in the box…
Amazonian agricultural technique could sequester up to 12% of human carbon emissions while increasing soil fertility. Slash-and-burn, which is commonly used in many parts of the world to prepare fields for crops, releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Slash-and-char, the Amazonian technique, on the other hand, actually reduces greenhouse gases by sequestering huge amounts of carbon for thousands of years and substantially reducing methane and nitrous oxide emissions from soils.
Scientists have found evidence that tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures may have once reached 42°C – some 14°C higher than ocean temperatures today and warmer than a hot tub. This occurred millions of year ago when carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere were also high, but researchers say they may be an indication that greenhouse gases could heat the oceans in the future much more than currently anticipated. The study suggests that climate models underestimate future warming.
One-third of New Zealand’s offshore waters is going to be declared off-limits to bottom-trawlers. The decision would result in the world’s largest total closure to bottom-trawl fishing within an Exclusive Economic Zone, EEC. Conservation groups say bottom-trawling is the most destructive type of fishing undertaken in the world’s oceans today. Ships trail heavy nets across the sea bed, catching fish but destroying coral and other organisms.
The entire carbon dioxide emissions created in Europe could be stored underneath the North Sea if the infrastructure were put in place, a Norwegian company has claimed. Gas and oil firm Statoil said the undersea aquifer beneath its Sleipner platforms in the North Sea, 200 miles off the Norwegian coast, is capable of permanently holding carbon dioxide (CO2) – a gas linked to climate change. The Sleipner platform provides methane to countries throughout western mainland Europe and is capable of exporting 20 million cubic metres of gas every day. But it is also the first of a handful of geological sites where CO2 is stored. “There are calculations which say it could handle all of Europe’s CO2 emissions for several hundreds of years,” Statoil’s Senior Vice President for the Environment Tor Fraeren told the BBC.
Most coral reefs escaped “serious damage” from the December 2004 tsunami and should recover in less than 10 years, though much will depend on local government’s protecting marine ecosystems, according to a report released Monday by Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. They found that reefs in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand were hardest hit, with damage reaching up to 30 percent in some places. But much like earlier studies, it found that human activities like illegal fishing and climate change pose the greatest risk to the future of these reefs.
Scientists fear that leaping Asian carp will reach the Great Lakes, devour the base of the food chain and spoil drinking water for 40 million people. In less than a decade since escaping southern U.S. fish farms, the hardy and voracious carp have come to dominate sections of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. The leaping fish are silver carp that jump haphazardly when alarmed by passing boats and have injured boaters, some of whom have taken up garbage can lids as shields. The only barriers between dense populations of silver and bighead carp — two closely related Asian carp species — and the world’s largest collective body of fresh water are a few miles of waterway and a little-tested underwater electrical field spanning a canal near Chicago.
Behind the news: An excellent review article on avian influenza has been posted here. Meanwhile, bird flu is spreading in India, the virus is mutating, and Germany calls out their army to help fight avian flu.
Britain could lose its ability to impose environmental taxes, restrictions and safeguards on airlines under a draft treaty between the EU and US that curtails the power of national governments. The draft treaty, meant to liberalize aviation, includes a little noticed clause requiring EU states to reach agreement with each other and with the US before taking measures to tackle noise or pollution from airlines. The text of the draft “open skies” treaty, obtained by the Guardian, is likely to alarm environmental activists who argue that the seemingly unstoppable growth in air travel is among the main contributory factors to global warming. Aviation emissions rose by 12% last year and now account for about 11% of Britain’s total greenhouse gas emissions – the fastest growing sector.
Is it better to transport coal to power plants, generate electricity at the mine and transmit that, or something else? An engineering analysis finds the safest, cheapest, and most energy efficient answer in many cases is something else: Convert the coal to synthetic natural gas at the mine and pipe that to cities and power plants.
States unhappy with SCOTUS decision? NYT
If he wrote the majority opinion, why did he apologize later? He changed his mind? WTF?
Baghdad market bomb kills dozens
Killer drought threatens East Africa
as Justices Tackle Late Term Abortion Issue
They didn’t waste any time, did they?
Most folks around these parts have probably read this piece already, but everyone should read it.
My doctor came in a moment later, slid the ultrasound sensor around my growing, round belly and put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s not alive,” she said.
She turned her back to me and started taking notes. I looked at the wall, breathing deeply, trying not to cry.
I can make it through this, I thought. I can handle this.
I didn’t know I was about to become a pariah.
Read the whole article.
What is this place coming to?
I had never read that before. How terrifying.
I had a really bad miscarriage at 19 wks once. I just can’t imagine going through that with people fighting around me and nobody knowing how to help me or pissed off! It was my first pregnancy too so thank God that the doctor knew exactly what he was doing and I lived to be well and healthy to have other children!
Very powerful story. The good folks who think only in absolutes should have an opportunity to read this. It just might give them reason to pause and rethink their views. Then again..probably not.
And just to prove that there’s NO religious influence being brought to bear, that the concept of separation of Church and State is alive and well…The Rude Pundit gives us the latest from the Super Duper Prayer Team of the Family Research Council.
Enjoy
Peace
AFGHANISTAN:
Ignorance Feared Speeding HIV Spread
A short stint as president, but for some it was much too long.
Lawrence Summers has tendered his resignation as president of Harvard University.
Was it his management style or the gender issues? Ya know, the furor when he stated in a public talk that gender differences might explain the scarcity of women in science and math careers.
Ya know Larry, your stint as Secretary of Treasury proved that in maths you have a certain, shall we say deficit for adding numbers. Couldn’t help myself.
via truthout.org