Fracking without Water May 20, 2013
Posted by tkcollier in Enviroment, Science & Technology.Tags: Energy, Environment, Fracking, Natural Gas
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It’s possible to fracture gas-rich rock formations without using any water at all. Indeed, gas and oil companies have been using carbon dioxide this way for decades, albeit on a limited basis. Right now carbon dioxide fracking is used in places, like Wyoming, that already have carbon dioxide pipelines. But if this approach is going to be used on a large scale, it will require a major investment in infrastructure for getting carbon dioxide to fracking sites. And in some cases a price on carbon emissions may be the only way to make the economics work.
A price on carbon, for example, could create a big supply of cheap carbon dioxide by giving utilities incentive to capture it from power plants’ smokestacks. This might make sense in China, where the best shale gas deposits are in arid areas (see “China Has Plenty of Shale Gas, but It Will Be Hard to Mine”).
via Fracking with Carbon Dioxide Could Help Shale Gas Production in Arid Areas | MIT Technology Review.
Vampires Have Increased Risk Of Heart Attack May 10, 2013
Posted by tkcollier in Enviroment, health.Tags: Cancer, health
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Edinburgh University research suggests sunlight helps reduce blood pressure, cutting heart attack and stroke risks and even prolonging life.
Heart disease and stroke linked to high blood pressure are estimated to lead to about 80 times more deaths than those from skin cancer in the UK.
Dietary vitamin D supplements alone will not be able to compensate for lack of sunlight” Dr Richard Weller Edinburgh University
Production of the pressure-reducing compound, nitric oxide, is separate from the body’s manufacture of vitamin D, which rises after exposure to sunshine.
via BBC News – Sun’s blood pressure benefits ‘may outdo cancer risks’.
Extreme Weather – The New Norm May 4, 2013
Posted by tkcollier in Enviroment, In The News, Video.Tags: amount of rainfall, climate, climate models, Environment, Global Warming, nasa study, Nature, Science, weather
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The climate will swing to extremes as it tries to find a new equilibrium, in response to the warming climate. Siberian winters will be colder, heat waves extended, etc. This report says that if you are in a rainy location, expect more deluges, and if you live in a dry area, expect more droughts. Specifically, the new study found that although the 14 climate models differ when it comes to the amount of rainfall in individual locations such as cities, over larger areas, they all point to the same average picture. That is, for every single degree Fahrenheit the global average temperature climbs, heavy rainfall will increase in wet areas by 3.9 percent, while dry areas will experience a 2.6 percent increase in time periods without any rainfall.
Rain will get more extreme thanks to global warming, says NASA study | The Verge.
World’s Tallest Palm Trees April 9, 2013
Posted by tkcollier in Cool photos, Enviroment.Tags: Columbia, Environment, Nature, Palm Trees
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Colombia’s lush Cocora Valley, part of Los Nevados National Park, is the principal home for the country’s national tree, the palma de cera, or wax palm. The lanky tree is the world’s tallest palm tree, reaching up to 200 feet tall. Photograph by Alex Treadway
via Cocora Valley, Colombia — Travel 365 — National Geographic.
How Vaccines Have Changed Our World April 1, 2013
Posted by tkcollier in Enviroment, health, Science & Technology.Tags: common infectious diseases, Disease, health, Medicine, morbidity, Vaccination, vaccines
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The data in this graphic come from the web site of the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, but a graphic designer in Purchase, N.Y., named Leon Farrant has created a graphic that drives home what the data mean.
Below is a look at the past morbidity (how many people became sick) of what were once very common infectious diseases, and the current morbidity in the U.S.
via How Vaccines Have Changed Our World In One Graphic – Forbes.
Solar Panel Breakthrough April 1, 2013
Posted by tkcollier in Enviroment, In The News, Science & Technology.Tags: Alternative Energy, Science & Technology, Solar
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A novel fabrication technique developed by a University of Connecticut engineering professor could provide the breakthrough technology scientists have been looking for to vastly improve the efficiency of today’s solar energy systems.
Silicon solar panels have a single band gap which, loosely speaking, allows the panel to convert electromagnetic radiation efficiently at only one small portion of the solar spectrum. The rectenna devices don’t rely on a band gap and may be tuned to harvest light over the whole solar spectrum, creating maximum efficiency.
The nano-antennas – known as “rectennas” because of their ability to both absorb and rectify solar energy from alternating current to direct current – must be capable of operating at the speed of visible light and be built in such a way that their core pair of electrodes is a mere 1 or 2 nanometers apart, a distance of approximately one millionth of a millimeter, or 30,000 times smaller than the diameter of human hair.
The potential breakthrough lies in a novel fabrication process called selective area atomic layer deposition (ALD) that was developed by Brian Willis, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Connecticut and the former director of UConn’s Chemical Engineering Program.
The atomic layer deposition process is favored by science and industry because it is simple, easily reproducible, and scalable for mass production. Willis says the chemical process is particularly applicable for precise, homogenous coatings for nanostructures, nanowires, nanotubes, and for use in the next generation of high-performing semi-conductors and transistors.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-02-patented-fabrication-technique-key-solar.html#jCp
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-02-patented-fabrication-technique-key-solar.html#jCp
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-02-patented-fabrication-technique-key-solar.html#jCp
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-02-patented-fabrication-technique-key-solar.html#jCp
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-02-patented-fabrication-technique-key-solar.html#jCp
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-02-patented-fabrication-technique-key-solar.html#jCp
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-02-patented-fabrication-technique-key-solar.html#jCp
via New patented fabrication technique key to new solar power technology.
Earth As Art February 20, 2013
Posted by tkcollier in Art, Cool photos, Enviroment, Photography.add a comment
Click on the link to earth_art-ebook to download a pdf file of an amazing collection of earth views from 16 NASA satellites
Some of the instruments aboard the satellites collect data in different ranges of wavelengths of light. These “spectral bands” break up all the visible and invisible light into chunks: the reds, the blues, the greens and even infrared, a wavelength of light that humans can’t see.
When researchers piece the image data back together, they can be selective about which “bands” of light are displayed in the final image. “The selection depends on the intent of the analysis,” Friedl wrote in an email. “An analysis of vegetation would probably select the red, green and infrared bands — vegetation is ‘bright’ in those bands and the analyst could differentiate between the types or health of vegetation.”
Phytoplankton Bloom, Baltic Sea, 2005 Massive congregations of greenish phytoplankton swirl in the dark water around Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea. Phytoplankton are microscopic marine plants that form the first link in nearly all ocean food chains. Blooms of phytoplankton, occur when deep currents bring nutrients up to sunlit surface waters.
Friedl says analysts generally don’t go out of their way to make images look surreal, but this kind of spectral analysis can be used to great effect. “There are whole books written on what band combinations to use to bring out certain features,” he told me. Like rocks: When studying the retreat of the glaciers of the Himalayas, Friedl says, you can train software to recognize the light signature of exposed rock. And instead of directly measuring the glaciers themselves, you can see where new rock is getting exposed year over year.
via Earth As Art: ‘How Did Nature Do That?’ : The Picture Show : NPR.
Video -Humongous Greenland Glacier Collapse February 2, 2013
Posted by tkcollier in Enviroment, Video.Tags: Environment, Glacier, Global Warming, Science, Video
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On May 28, 2008, Adam LeWinter and Director Jeff Orlowski filmed a historic breakup at the Ilulissat Glacier in Western Greenland. The calving event lasted for 75 minutes and the glacier retreated a full mile across a calving face three miles wide. The height of the ice is about 3,000 feet, 300-400 feet above water and the rest below water.
Chasing Ice won the award for Excellence in Cinematography at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, and has won 24 awards so far this year. Playing in theaters now. Thanks to Valerie Sanders. Click on the YouTube logo, choose the HD option and go Full Screen for the full effect.
Cute Kitty the Killer January 30, 2013
Posted by tkcollier in Enviroment, Lifestyle.Tags: cats, Environment, Nature, Wildlife, wildlife slaughter
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A new study by the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that domestic cats in the United States kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles rather than introduced pests like the Norway rat.
The estimated kill rates are two to four times higher than mortality figures previously bandied about, and position the domestic cat as one of the single greatest human-linked threats to wildlife in the nation. More birds and mammals die at the mouths of cats, the report said, than from automobile strikes, pesticides and poisons, collisions with skyscrapers and windmills and other so-called anthropogenic causes.
Yet the new study estimates that free-roaming pets account for only about 29 percent of the birds and 11 percent of the mammals killed by domestic cats each year, and the real problem arises over how to manage the 80 million or so stray or feral cats that commit the bulk of the wildlife slaughter.
via That Cuddly Kitty Is Deadlier Than You Think – NYTimes.com.
Nasty, Short and Brutish January 28, 2013
Posted by tkcollier in Enviroment, Geopolitics.Tags: Anthropology, Darwin, Rousseau, war
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Conventional cultural anthropology’s thinking was that tribal people were peaceful, that Darwinism had nothing to say about human behavior and culture, and that material resources were the cause of conflict.
Current Science is refuting all 3 assumptions. Mortality from violence is very common in small-scale societies today and in the past. Almost one-third of such people die in raids and fights, and the death rate is twice as high among men as among women. This is a far higher death rate than experienced even in countries worst hit by World War II. Thomas Hobbes’s “war of each against all” looks more accurate for humanity in a state of nature than Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “noble savage,” though anthropologists today prefer to see a continuum between these extremes.
A Darwinian explanation of warfare would imply that similar kinds of violence might have evolved in other group-living animals. In recent years, Richard Wrangham of Harvard University has described chronic intergroup violence among chimpanzees.
But what is the motive for such killing? Robert Walker of the University of Missouri, Columbia, and Drew Bailey of Carnegie Mellon University last year published a survey of “Body Counts in Lowland South American Violence” and concluded that motives include revenge for previous killings, jealousy over women, capture of women and children and, less often, theft of material goods. Come to think of it, sounds just like the Trojan War
via Mind & Matter: Noble Savages Points to Resolution in Study of War – WSJ.com.
Is Great White Following Kayak Picture Real? January 20, 2013
Posted by tkcollier in Cool photos, Enviroment.Tags: Cool photos, Environment, Great White, Nature
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I’ve always wondered if the well-circulated image was rea. The Photographer’s notes sound quite convincing.
©Thomas P. Peschak
When this photograph was first published in Africa Geographic, BBC Wildlife and later in Paris Match and the Daily Mail (London) it resulted in a flurry of e-mails, phone calls and letters from around the world asking if the image was a fake. The image became the most talked about of shark photograph ever.
The photograph is real, no photoshop, no digital manipulation, no nothing, in fact it was shot on slide film Fuji Provia 100 using a Nikon F5 Camera and 17-35 mm lens. For those conspiracy fans who still doubt its authenticity please read how I took the photograph.
To capture this image I tied myself to the tower of the research boat Lamnidae and leaned into the void, precariously hanging over the ocean while waiting patiently for a white shark to come along. I wanted to shot a photograph that would tell the story of our research efforts to track white sharks using kayaks. When the first shark of the day came across our sea kayak it dove to the seabed and inspected it from below. I quickly trained my camera on the dark shadow which slowly transformed from diffuse shape into the sleek outline of a large great white. When the shark’s dorsal fin broke the surface I thought I had the shot, but hesitated a fraction of a second and was rewarded with marine biologist Trey Snow in the kayak turning around to look behind him. I pressed the shutter and the rest was history. Throughout the day I shot many more images, most showing the kayak following the shark, but all lacked the power of that first image of the great white tracking the kayak.
55′ Snake January 15, 2013
Posted by tkcollier in Cool photos, Enviroment.Tags: Environment, Nature, Snake, Wildlife
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This picture is claimed to be from Malaysia, where workers cutting a road through the jungle inadvertently killed this estimated to be 120 year-old snake with the pictured excavator. The driver supposedly felt so bad that he cried at what he had done.
17′ Florida Python – The hunt is on for a new record January 13, 2013
Posted by tkcollier in Cool photos, Enviroment.Tags: burmese pythons, Environment, everglades national park, florida everglades, Nature, Python
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Some estimate that nearly 150,000 pythons are living in the Florida Everglades. Officials say the Burmese pythons are eating wildlife and with no natural predator, the population is overwhelming. The Everglades have become crowded with the snakes and the pythons have started to move into nearby neighborhoods. Last year, a Burmese python was caught and registered more than 17 feet long and 160 pounds. The catch set a new Everglades National Park record.
via Florida Python Hunt Launched to Curb Slithering Population – ABC News.
Vanishing Act: Camouflage in Nature January 10, 2013
Posted by tkcollier in Books, Cool photos, Enviroment.Tags: Cool photos, Environment, Nature
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In this astonishing new book, legendary wildlife photographer Art Wolfe turns to one of nature’s most fundamental survival techniques: the vanishing act. His portraits show animals and insects disappearing into their surroundings, using deceptions, disguises, lures, and decoys to confuse the eye of both predator and prey. Click on this link and hit the “Slideshow” option and see how many you can find.
Vanishing Act: Camouflage in Nature | Art Wolfe Stock Photography 888-973-0011.
How Leaded Gasoline Caused Our Violent Crime Wave. January 5, 2013
Posted by tkcollier in Enviroment, health, Science & Technology.Tags: Cars, Crime, Environment, Lead
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Starting in the 1960s, America saw a huge increase in levels of violent crime that peaked in the early 1990s, then steadily declined, and continues to decline today. All kinds of theories have been promulgated to explain this peak and decline in crime, and plenty of politicians in the 1990s took credit for it. Lead emissions from automobiles explain 90 percent of the variation in violent crime in America. Toddlers who ingested high levels of lead in the ’40s and ’50s really were more likely to become violent criminals in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.
And with that we have our molecule: tetraethyl lead, the gasoline additive invented by General Motors in the 1920s to prevent knocking and pinging in high-performance engines. As auto sales boomed after World War II, and drivers in powerful new cars increasingly asked service station attendants to “fill ‘er up with ethyl,” they were unwittingly creating a crime wave two decades later.
The use of lead pipes to carry water to wealthy neigh
borhoods is claimed to be one major factor that contributed to the weakening and eventual destruction of the Roman Empire. At least we had the Science to discover our lead folly and correct it, even though much is to still be remediated. But the huge penal/judicial/police industrial complex budget justifications are threatened by such a simple crime source. Turns out criminologists were blaming the wrong Lead, when some accused the music of Led Zeppelin, among others.
Extreme Firewood Stacking December 29, 2012
Posted by tkcollier in Enviroment, Lifestyle.Tags: Environment, Lifestyle, Nature, outdoors, winter
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Firewood keeps you warm, when you’re cutting, hauling, splitting and stacking it, in addition to when you actually burn it. Now that the Winter weather is really here, it is time to reflect on how some other folks have gone beyond just stacking up wood to keep warm. .
How To Properly Stack Firewood – Yellow Bullet Forums. Click for more examples of Extreme Firewood Stacking
More Deaths Caused by Obesity than Hunger December 29, 2012
Posted by tkcollier in Enviroment, health, In The News, Lifestyle.Tags: Environment, excess body weight, health, Hunger, Lifestyle, Obesity
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Obesity has become a bigger threat to global health than child hunger, according to a major study.
More than three million deaths in 2010 were attributable to excess body weight, three times the death toll due to malnutrition.
The largest investigation of disease ever undertaken, published yesterday, also found that high blood pressure, smoking and drinking alcohol have become the world’s biggest health risks.
So-called diseases of the western industrialised nations have become more prevalent as developing nations become more affluent. Fewer infants are dying of starvation in the poorest countries while a fast expanding middle-class in the emerging economies. 
Obesity kills more than hunger in march of ‘progress’ | The Times.
Apocalypse Later December 22, 2012
Posted by tkcollier in Enviroment, Humor, In The News.Tags: Humor
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via http://allthingsd.com/20121221/apocalypse-later-comic/
Mt. Everest – In Incredible Composite Detail December 18, 2012
Posted by tkcollier in Cool photos, Enviroment.Tags: Cool photos, Environment, Everest, Extreme Sports, Nature, outdoors
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This gigapixel image of the Khumbu glacier was captured by David Breashears during the spring of 2012, from the Pumori viewpoint near Mount Everest. The Khumbu Icefall is clearly visible here, and one can easily see the hustle and bustle of Everest Base Camp below.
Click the image to enter gigapixel navigation, then use the controls at the bottom of the screen to zoom and pan and find climbers on the glacier and around the base camp tents, which will give you perspective on the scale of what you are viewing.
via Khumbu Glacier – Mt. Everest – The Glaciers of the Himalayas.
Arctic Ocean Flowers December 15, 2012
Posted by tkcollier in Cool photos, Enviroment, Science & Technology.Tags: Arctic Ice, climate, Cool photos, Environment, Nature, Science
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These spiky little bunches of ice form on thin and new ice in the Arctic Ocean. But these badboys can only form under very special conditions:
1) Calm winds. We can’t have these beauties blown away can we?
2) Cold, cold air. It has to be about 20C less than the water and since seawater freezes around -2C, that means the air must be about -22C or -7.6F. BRRR.
Frost flowers form when newly formed ice sublimates, that is ice changes directly from a solid to a gas totally bypassing the liquid stage. Initially, the water vapor formed by sublimation is the same temperature as the sea ice, but gets quickly cooled by the cold air. The air is then becomes supersaturated with water vapor, which means the air has too water much in it. Air really doesn’t want to hold all that excess water vapor, so when the supersaturated air touches another ice crystal the water vapor quickly turns back into ice. (Click the image to enlarge)
Watch “NASA | Earth at Night” on YouTube December 5, 2012
Posted by tkcollier in Enviroment, Science & Technology, Video.Tags: Space
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Lenticular Clouds Over Mt. Rainier November 7, 2012
Posted by tkcollier in Cool photos, Enviroment.Tags: clouds, weather
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Moist air forced to flow upward around mountain tops can create lenticular clouds. Water droplets condense from moist air cooled below the dew point, and clouds are opaque groups of water droplets. Waves in the air that would normally be seen horizontally can then be seen vertically, by the different levels where clouds form. On some days the city of Seattle, Washington, USA, is treated to an unusual sky show when lenticular clouds form near Mt. Rainier, a large mountain that looms just under 100 kilometers southeast of the city. This image of a spectacular cluster of lenticular clouds was taken in 2008 December. Click picture to enlarge. Credit & Copyright: Tim Thompson
via APOD: 2012 November 4 – Lenticular Clouds Over Washington.
Trying To Prove We Live In A Virtual Reality October 30, 2012
Posted by tkcollier in Enviroment, Religion, Science & Technology.Tags: Astrophysics, Matrix, Science, Science Fiction
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One of modern physics’ most cherished ideas is quantum chromodynamics, the theory that describes the strong nuclear force, how it binds quarks and gluons into protons and neutrons, how these form nuclei that themselves interact. This is the universe at its most fundamental.
So an interesting pursuit is to simulate quantum chromodynamics on a computer to see what kind of complexity arises. The promise is that simulating physics on such a fundamental level is more or less equivalent to simulating the universe itself.
There are one or two challenges
of course. The physics is mind-bogglingly complex and operates on a vanishingly small scale. So even using the world’s most powerful supercomputers, physicists have only managed to simulate tiny corners of the cosmos just a few femtometers across. (A femtometer is 10^-15 metres.)
That may not sound like much but the significant point is that the simulation is essentially indistinguishable from the real thing (at least as far as we understand it).
It’s not hard to imagine that Moore’s Law-type progress will allow physicists to simulate significantly larger regions of space. A region just a few micrometres across could encapsulate the entire workings of a human cell.
Again, the behaviour of this human cell would be indistinguishable from the real thing.
It’s this kind of thinking that forces physicists to consider the possibility that our entire cosmos could be running on a vastly powerful computer. If so, is there any way we could ever know?
Today, we get an answer of sorts from Silas Beane, at the University of Bonn in Germany, and a few pals. They say there is a way to see evidence that we are being simulated, at least in certain scenarios.
via The Measurement That Would Reveal The Universe As A Computer Simulation | MIT Technology Review. (more…)
Most Powerful Storm Ever Recorded October 13, 2012
Posted by tkcollier in Enviroment.Tags: Hurricane, Typhoon, weather
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On Oct. 12, 1979, Super Typhoon Tip’s central pressure dropped to 870 mb (25.69 inches Hg), the lowest sea-level pressure ever observed on Earth, according to NOAA. Peak wind gusts reached 190 mph (306 kph) while the storm churned over the western Pacific.
Besides having unsurpassed intensity, Super Typhoon Tip is also remembered for its massive size. Tip’s diameter of circulation spanned approximately 1,380 miles (2,220 km), setting a record for the largest storm on Earth. The storm’s huge diameter was exactly the same as the distance from New York City to Dallas.
Accuweather’s Mark Mancuso has the details: Super Typhoon
Oldest Evidence of Regular Meat Consumption by Human Ancestors Found October 7, 2012
Posted by tkcollier in Enviroment, Lifestyle.Tags: Archeology, Meat, Science
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Meat-eating was an important factor affecting early hominin brain expansion, social organization and geographic movement. Stone tool butchery marks on ungulate fossils in several African archaeological assemblages demonstrate a significant level of carnivory by Pleistocene hominins, but the discovery at Olduvai Gorge of a child’s pathological cranial fragments indicates that some hominins probably experienced scarcity of animal foods during various stages of their life histories.
The child’s parietal fragments, excavated from 1.5-million-year-old sediments, show porotic hyperostosis, a pathology associated with anemia. Nutritional deficiencies, including anemia, are most common at weaning, when children lose passive immunity received through their mothers’ milk. Our results suggest, alternatively, that (1) the developmentally disruptive potential of weaning reached far beyond sedentary Holocene food-producing societies and into the early Pleistocene, or that (2) a hominin mother’s meat-deficient diet negatively altered the nutritional content of her breast milk to the extent that her nursing child ultimately died from malnourishment. Either way, this discovery highlights that by at least 1.5 million years ago early human physiology was already adapted to a diet that included the regular consumption of meat.
via PLOS ONE: Earliest Porotic Hyperostosis on a 1.5-Million-Year-Old Hominin, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania.
