This weekend the first tropical storm of the year formed in the Atlantic Ocean. Tropical Storm Alberto has lost strength and is now only a Tropical Depression, with winds only around 35 mph.
The most important fact about Alberto is how early the storm formed. Meteorologists are concerned that we might have a very severe hurricane season. For extra credit, let me know before 7AM on Wednesday, May 23: When is the official start of hurricane season?
For the first time in 42 years, Japan is going without atomic power. Japan’s last operating reactor was taken offline at the start of May.
Fukushima nuclear power plants - after.
As Japan’s 50 functional commercial reactors have been shut down one by one for maintenance, none have been restarted because of safety concerns since last year’s Fukushima disaster.
Desperate to avert possible power shortages this summer, the government has tried to convince the public to allow some of the reactors to be restarted. It has conducted simulated stress tests to show whether reactors can withstand the sort of disaster that knocked out the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
However, the public has not accepted the tests, which were conducted largely behind closed doors. A number of critics have demanded more sweeping changes, like the creation of a more independent nuclear regulatory agency.
As you will see when we study nuclear power as a way to generate electricity, it can be very scary. For extra credit, what happened to cause the Fukushima nuclear plants to fail? Respond before 7AM on Thursday, May 17.
Some Items in the news this week:
70 Percent of Beaches Eroding On Hawaiian Islands Kauai, Oahu, and Maui
ScienceDaily (May 7, 2012) — An assessment of coastal change over the past century has found 70 percent of beaches on the islands of Kaua’i, O’ahu, and Maui are undergoing long-term erosion, according to a U.S. Geological Survey and University of Hawai’i report. More than 13 miles of beaches in the study were completely lost to erosion — nearly all previously in front of seawalls.
“Over a century of building along the Hawaiian shoreline, without … detailed knowledge about shoreline change, has led to some development that is located too close to the ocean,” said Dr. Charles Fletcher, UH Geology and Geophysics Professor and lead author.
Death Risks Higher for Heart Attack Survivors Living Near Major Roadways
ScienceDaily (May 7, 2012) — Heart attack survivors who live about 100 meters (328 feet) or less from a major U.S. roadway face increased risk of death from all causes, according to new research in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation.
Researchers found:
“We think there is exposure to a combination of air pollution near these roadways and other exposure, such as excessive noise or stress from living close to the roadway, that may contribute to the study findings,” said Murray A. Mittleman, M.D., Dr.PH.
Biodiversity Loss May Cause Increase in Allergies and Asthma
ScienceDaily (May 7, 2012) — Declining biodiversity may be contributing to the rise of asthma, allergies, and other chronic inflammatory diseases among people living in cities worldwide, a Finnish study suggests. Emerging evidence indicates that microbes inhabiting the skin, airway, and gut protect against inflammatory disorders.
The authors found that subjects living on farms or near forests had more diverse bacteria on their skin and lower allergen sensitivity than individuals living in areas with less environmental biodiversity, such as urban areas or near bodies of water.
More Than 40% of U.S. May Be Obese by 2030, Study Says
The obesity rate may rise to 42 percent from about a third of the U.S. population by 2030, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control.
Preventing that increase may save about $550 billion in medical costs over the next 20 years, Eric Finkelstein, the study author and an associate research professor at Duke University, said during a press briefing.
Paleontologists have long known about 5 great extinctions, when most living species on Earth became extinct. There were asteroids (the dinosaurs), 10 degree global warming caused in part by volcanoes and in part by methane (95% of all species), and others.
Now we are entering the 6th great extinction, caused by climate change, habitat destruction and pollution. In other words, by us. The New York Times has an article about it here. They point out that nearly 20,000 species of animals and plants around the globe are considered high risks for extinction in the wild. At that rate we would be on track to lose three-quarters or more of all species within a few centuries.
So what?
This cone snail might save your life
To look at the larger picture, we live in a complex web of interdependent ecosystems. It is so complex that we can not fully understand it. Try to change it and there is trouble. The Australians brought rabbits into their country for food and sport. Now millions of rabbits are destroying the countryside. The Chinese tried to eliminate the sparrows that were eating their crops. They succeeded well enough for the crops to be destroyed by the insects that the sparrows used to eat.
Would you want to sit on a chair with only one leg? Two? Even three can tip you over. Most office swivel chairs have five. The more legs a chair has, the safer we are. The more components an ecosystem has, the more stable it is. And we do not understand the world enough to know which tiny screw or nail is holding the whole thing together.
To look at the smaller picture, here is a list of species that might someday save your life.
Burmese python – chemicals in its blood can cause a diseased heart to regrow.
Gila monster, a venomous lizard in the American southwest – the venom contains chemicals that can help treat diabetes.
Tarantulas – not just a giant spider, but their saliva has components that can treat muscular dystrophy.
Vampire bats – providing a treatment for stroke.
Brazilian arrowhead viper – blood pressure medicine
Coho salmon – used to treat osteoporosis
Cone snail – chronic pain, epilepsy, local anesthesia, heart disease, stroke, neuromuscular back pain, multiple sclerosis, and spinal cord injury
Israeli yellow scorpion – venom destroys brain cancer cells
Frogs – their skin contains antibiotics
How many thousands of species might become extinct before we ever learn about them and what they can do for us.
Sometimes the best thing you can do on a Spring afternoon is just sit on the porch and watch it.
Quoting from Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook
Photo from Reclaim Simplicity
“Although tomatoes are farmed commercially in about twenty states, Florida alone accounts for one-third of the fresh tomatoes raised in the United States, and from October to June, virtually all the fresh-market, field-grown tomatoes in the country come from the Sunshine State…
It takes a tough tomato to stand up to the indignity of such industrial-scale farming, so most Florida tomatoes are bred for hardness, picked when still firm and green, … and artificially gassed with [Extra credit opportunity here: by 7AM on Monday, May 7 tell me what gas makes fruit ripen] in warehouses until they acquire the rosy-red skin tones of a ripe tomato.”
“To get a successful crop, [Florida farmers] pump the soil full of chemical fertilizers and can blast the plants with more than one hundred different herbicides and pesticides, including some of the most toxic in agribusiness’s arsenal. … Not all the chemicals stay behind in the fields once the tomatoes are harvested. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has found residues of thirty-five pesticides on tomatoes destined for supermarket produce sections.”
Buy fresh tomatoes from your local farmer, or better yet, compost your leaves and grass clippings and vegetable peels and then grow your own fresh food.
This ancient "flea-like" insect, Pseudopulex jurassicus, lived 165 million years ago. (Credit: Illustration by Wang Cheng, courtesy of Oregon State University)
It looks like the giant dinosaurs in the past had giant fleas to bite them.
These flea-like animals, similar but not identical to modern fleas, were probably 10 times the size of a flea you might find crawling on the family dog — with an extra-painful bite to match.
More information is at ScienceDaily.
Climate scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have discovered that particulate pollution in the late 20th century created a cold patch where the effects of global warming were temporarily obscured.
While greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane warm Earth’s surface, tiny particles in the air can have the reverse effect on regional scales.
“What we’ve shown is that particulate pollution over the eastern United States has delayed the warming that we would expect to see from increasing greenhouse gases,” says lead author Eric Leibensperger (Ph.D. ’11), who completed the work as a graduate student in applied physics at SEAS.
“For the sake of protecting human health and reducing acid rain, we’ve now cut the emissions that lead to particulate pollution,” he adds, “but these cuts have caused the greenhouse warming in this region to ramp up to match the global trend.”
Bonus Extra Credit – email me before 7:00 AM on Tuesday, May 1 with the words “wet scrubber”.
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Waste pickers from across India have opposed the Delhi government’s plan to install three waste to energy plants in the city.
“How can the proposed energy generation of 40 MW justify the loss of 350,000 jobs,” asks Dharmendra Yadav, general secretary of All India Kachra Sharamail Mahasang (AIKSM) which organised a state-level meet of waste pickers on December 22.
From the LA Times:
Over 350,000 people live in New Delhi’s 70-acre Ghazipur landfill, a post-apocalyptic world where hundreds of pickers climb a 100-foot-high trash pile daily, dodging and occasionally dying beneath belching bulldozers that reshape the putrid landscape.
On “trash mountain,” families earn $1 to $2 a day slogging through waist-deep muck. But the residents also marry, have children on their dirt floors, pray and celebrate life’s other milestones.
“I am very proud to be a rag picker; we keep you healthy,” said Jai Prakash Choudhary, who has spent years scouring Delhi’s dumps in search of cast-off bottles, metal, even human hair.
An outgrowth of India’s rapidly expanding middle class with its embrace of Western-style consumerism is ever more waste: New Delhi produces about 9,200 tons of trash daily, up 50% from 2007. The garbage is expected to double by 2024, leaving Ghazipur and two other landfills overflowing.
That’s afforded the country’s 1.7 million rag pickers — with 350,000 in New Delhi alone — more pickings, allowing some to dream of one day joining those middle-class ranks.
There is an extra special extra credit opportunity related to this article. Read the Announcements on your class web page.
In the words of the New York Times, today “an antique airplane is carrying an antique spacecraft to New York, where it will wind up on the deck of an antique warship.”
My son texted me this morning to say that the shuttle Enterprise, the first of the shuttles, had just flown past his office window. Here is what it looked like today:
The shuttle is being carried by a 747, an older model plane, to Kennedy International Airport. Then the shuttle will be placed on an antique barge and floated down the Hudson River to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.
The Intrepid itself is a World War II aircraft carrier docked on the west side of New York. It is definitely worth a visit. Get more information about the museum at http://www.intrepidmuseum.org/
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