What does the Earth look like from deep space? From Saturn? On July 19th NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will be taking the first-ever natural-color image of the Earth as seen from the Saturn system. This will also be the first time that Cassini’s highest-resolution camera was used to photograph the Earth and the Moon.

“This simulated view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows the expected positions of Saturn and Earth on July 19, 2013, around the time Cassini will take Earth’s picture. Cassini will be about 898 million miles (1.44 billion kilometers) away from Earth at the time. That distance is nearly 10 times the distance from the sun to Earth”
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

According to NASA researchers, in the image the Earth will very-likely look like a small, pale blue dot — visible just in between the rings of Saturn. The upcoming opportunity is the result of the rather uncommon situation that the Cassini probe will be in at the time. The probe’s position will “allow it to turn its cameras in the direction of the sun, where the Earth will be, without damaging the spacecraft’s sensitive detectors.”

“While (the) Earth will be only about a pixel in size from Cassini’s vantage point 898 million away, the team is looking forward to giving the world a chance to see what their home looks like from Saturn,” said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “We hope you’ll join us in waving at Saturn from Earth, so we can commemorate this special opportunity.”

The Cassini probe will start obtaining “the Earth part of the mosaic at 2:27 pm PDT and end about 15 minutes later, all while Saturn is eclipsing the sun from Cassini’s point of view. The spacecraft’s unique vantage point in Saturn’s shadow will provide a special scientific opportunity to look at the planet’s rings. At the time of the photo, North America and part of the Atlantic Ocean will be in sunlight.”

The July 19th date was chosen by the researchers after examining “Cassini’s planned flight path for the remainder of its Saturn mission in search of a time when Earth would not be obstructed by Saturn or its rings. Working with other Cassini team members, they found the July 19 opportunity would permit the spacecraft to spend time in Saturn’s shadow to duplicate the views from earlier in the mission to collect both visible and infrared imagery of the planet and its ring system.”

“Looking back towards the sun through the rings highlights the tiniest of ring particles, whose width is comparable to the thickness of hair and which are difficult to see from ground-based telescopes,” said Matt Hedman, a Cassini science team member based at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and a member of the rings working group. “We’re particularly interested in seeing the structures within Saturn’s dusty E ring, which is sculpted by the activity of the geysers on the moon Enceladus, Saturn’s magnetic field and even solar radiation pressure.”

With the upcoming photo of the Earth as seen from the Saturn system in mind, here are the two most famous images of the Earth as seen from space:

The Blue Marble Photograph — In it’s original orientation.
Image Credit: NASA

Earthrise
Image Credit: NASA

“The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 spacecraft from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) from Earth, as part of the solar system Family Portrait series of images. In the photograph, Earth is shown as a tiny dot (0.12 pixel in size) against the vastness of space.”
Image Credit: NASA

NASA’s Cassini Space Probe Will Take Photo Of The Earth As Seen From Saturn On July 19 was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

The longest day of the year — the summer solstice — is almost here. On June 21 2013, at exactly 1:04 am EDT (5:04 UTC), the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth will reach its point of greatest inclination to the Sun. The term ‘summer solstice’ generally refers to the exact moment in time when this occurs, but also to the day. The day, and also the general period in time, are also referred to as midsummer. The summer solstice is an important holiday in much of the Northern Hemisphere, and was very important to many ancient cultures.

Image Credit: Midsummer Bonfire via Wikimedia Commons

While the cultural symbols associated with the summer solstice of course vary significantly between different cultures — the solstice was invariably an important time. The general themes that seem to have been associated with it are fertility, fire, celebration, healing, and magic. Many of the celebrations seem to have been accompanied by large bonfires (especially on shorelines), feasting, singing, dancing, and the gathering of medicinal/magic plants.

The solstice was/is thought to be the time “when the forces of nature are at their most powerful, and the boundaries between the physical and spiritual worlds are thinnest.” The term used in modern times — solstice — is derived from the Latin words sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still).

Image Credit: Breisgau Summer Solstice via Wikimedia Commons

Some of the other names that the summer solstice goes by are: Adonia, St. John’s Feast Day, Līgo, Liða, Midsommar, Ivan Kupala Day, Juhannus, Alban Hefin, Gŵyl Ganol yr Haf, Sankthans, Jaanipäev, Keskikesä, and Rasos.

A final note — those in many of the world’s more northerly regions will have the good fortune to celebrate the solstice with a full 24 hours of daylight. And even in regions that aren’t quite northern enough to get a full 24 hours of daylight, the extremely long twilights are quite nice. Enjoy.

Image Credit: Cornish Hilltop Fire via Wikimedia Commons

Summer Solstice 2013 — Midsummer Begins June 21 2013 was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Looks like someone’s been having fun on Mars without telling anyone. Trails in slopes that seem suspiciously like sled tracks have been documented by research photographs. They weren’t made by little green men though. Blocks of dry ice are the suspects this time.

These tracks are called linear gullies and you can see a much larger photograph on the Apod.gov site. The speculation is that the blocks of dry ice evaporate by the time they reach the bottom of the slopes, so there is no longer any physical evidence remaining, other than the gullies themselves. They are about two kilometers long and end suddenly in a pit.

Researchers on Earth tested blocks made of various materials on sand dune slopes. The ice and wood ones didn’t move much, but a block of dry ice slid down the dune all the way to the bottom with ease. The researchers explained that when it heats up, dry ice emits a gas that pushes against the sand. The CO2 it emits functions like a lubricant, which allows the block to move smoothly downwards. Even on a test dune that was much less steep, a block of dry the researchers used moved easily downwards.

Would it be possible someday for astronauts to ride a slab of dry ice down the slopes of Mars? In theory, yes, but it might take someone like Richard Branson to try it first. Though it might be difficult to quaff his favorite beverage at the same time.

Mars is also very cold – the warmest it gets at noon is about 70 degrees Fahrenheit, but at the poles temperatures can be minus 225 F. (Not exactly the best snow boarding weather.)

If these tracks had been photographed in the 1950s, there might have been wild speculation about human-like aliens having ski resorts on Mars. Thankfully, we seem to have progressed on the awareness front somewhat since the 1950s.

Mars Has Sled-like Tracks In Slopes was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Exposure to triclocarban — a chemical commonly found in antibacterial soaps — results in drastically shorter lives and/or death, for the female offspring of individuals that were exposed to the chemical while nursing, a new study done on rats has found.

Image Credit: Antibacterial Soap via Flickr CC

The chemical is a very commonly-used one — found in most antibacterial soaps, in many personal care products, and in many other antibacterial products. A very large proportion of the public is regularly exposed to triclocarban, according to the study’s lead author, Rebekah Kennedy, a graduate student in the Department of Public Health at the University of Tennessee.

“Our study provides supporting evidence for the potential adverse effects of triclocarban exposure during early life, specifically during the lactation period,” Kennedy stated. “The results indicate that a mother’s long-term use of this compound might affect the early development of her offspring, at least according to our animal model.”

The Endocrine Society Provides Details:

In this study, the researchers sought to learn if exposure to the same compound, either in the womb or during lactation, would affect rat pups.

Beginning on pregnancy day 5 and continuing until 21 days after giving birth, maternal rats continuously had free access to regular rat chow (the control rats) or chow supplemented with either 0.2% or 0.5% triclocarban. The doses found in the blood of maternal rats exposed to triclocarban correspond to blood levels of triclocarban in humans after a 15-minute whole-body shower using a bar soap containing 0.6% triclocarban, Chen said.

After birth, some littermates were moved to other groups so that each rat mother nursed two of her own pups and two pups from each of the other two groups. The offspring were weighed daily.

Body weight did not differ at birth among rat pups from the three groups, but by day 3, pups nursed by control rats were heavier than either triclocarban-exposed group, Kennedy reported. Pups nursed by rats that received 0.2% triclocarban were about half as heavy at weaning on day 21 as pups nursed by controls, and only 4 of 30 pups survived.

The investigators found that all pups nursed by the control rats survived until weaning, including those born to triclocarban-fed maternal rats but nursed by control rats. No pups nursed by rats that received the larger triclocarban dose, 0.5%, survived until day 6. Among pups nursed by rats that received the 0.2% dose of triclocarban, 57% reportedly lived to nine days after birth, and only 13% survived after weaning.

“Our data suggest that the critical exposure window affecting rat pup survival is related to lactation, as all pups raised by control rats survived regardless of triclocarban exposure status during gestation,” Kennedy said.

While the researchers didn’t measure the triclocarban levels present in the offspring, they theorize “that the chemical entered the gastrointestinal tract through the mother’s milk and affected the pups’ growth and development.”

Triclocarban — Chemical In Antibacterial Soaps Shortens Lifespan Of Female Offspring From Mothers Exposed While Nursing, Animal Study Finds was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

On June 23 2013 the Moon will be closer to the Earth than at any other point in all of 2013. This Supermoon — as it’s known — will appear about 14% larger and 30% brighter than a typical Full Moon does. The Moon will be at its closest distance to the Earth at exactly 7:32 am EDT (4:32 am PDT) on June 23 2013 — as a result of that timing, both the night of June 22 and the night of June 23 will offer good shows.

Image Credit: Supermoon In Africa via Flickr CC

Something to note — this Supermoon will actually be the closest that the Moon will get to the Earth until August 2014, so enjoy the sight while you can.

The Supermoon is a regularly recurring event, it’s the result of the Moon reaching its perigree — the portion of its orbit where it’s closer to the Earth than at any other time. During the upcoming perigee on June 23 the Moon will be right around 221,824 miles away from us. That’s compared to 252,581 or so miles away that it’s at when it’s farthest distance from the Earth — the apogee.

With regards to the common rumors that tend to accompany upcoming Supermoons — while they certainly do create uncommonly strong tides, the tides are nothing very extreme. What can expect to see are tides that are a couple of inches higher and lower than those seen during regular Full Moons. With regards to the Supermoon causing earthquakes or volcanic eruptions — the jury is still out but there is no evidence that they do, Supermoons are a common occurrence and very rarely match up with irregularly strong earthquakes or eruptions.

Image Credit: Supermoon Dusk via Flickr CC

Make sure to check out the other amazing astronomical events of 2013: Astronomy 2013 — Comet ISON, Perseids, Supermoon, Geminids, Solar Eclipses, Super Venus, Etc

An interesting note — while the Moon currently orbits at a distance of between 225,623 and 252,088 miles — it was previously much, much closer to the Earth, and has been slowly moving away. It is currently moving away from the Earth at a rate of about 1.5 inches a year.

Something else to note — as a result of the Moon moving away from the Earth — the two celestial bodies are slowly slowing one another down. The length of a day is currently growing by about 1/500th of a second every century.

Supermoon 2013 Date And Time — Supermoon On June 23 2013 was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Marine mammals possess truly remarkable underwater endurance — some of them, such as the sperm whale, can remain submerged during their dives for as long as an hour and a half. That’s an hour and a half of physical exertion on a single breath. What physiological adaptions allow such impressive abilities? The answers to that question are now becoming more clear thanks to new research from the University of Liverpool.

Image Credit: Seal via Flickr CC

The new research identified “a distinctive molecular signature of the oxygen-binding protein myoglobin in the sperm whale and other diving mammals, which allowed them to trace the evolution of the muscle oxygen stores in more than 100 mammalian species, including their fossil ancestors.”

To provide context, myoglobin is the the primary oxygen-carrying pigment of muscle tissues, it’s what gives the meat of diving mammals such a dark, almost black, color. It’s present in the muscles of said diving mammals in very high concentrations — especially in those most known for deep-diving. Until this new research though it wasn’t very clear if/how the molecule itself was adapted in deep-diving mammals.

The University of Liverpool explains:

Proteins tend to stick together at high concentrations, impairing their function, so it was unclear how myoglobin was able to help the body store enough oxygen to allow mammals, such as whales and seals, to endure underwater for long periods of time without breathing. Elite mammalian divers can hold their breath for over an hour while they hunt in the depths of the oceans, while land mammals, such as humans, can hold their breath for only a few minutes.

Dr Michael Berenbrink, of the University’s Institute of Integrative Biology, states: “We studied the electrical charge on the surface of myoglobin and found that it increased in mammals that can dive underwater for long periods of time. We were surprised when we saw the same molecular signature in whales and seals, but also in semi-aquatic beavers, muskrats and even water shrews.

“By mapping this molecular signature onto the family tree of mammals, we were able to reconstruct the muscle oxygen stores in extinct ancestors of today’s diving mammals. We were even able to report the first evidence of a common amphibious ancestor of modern sea cows, hyraxes and elephants that lived in shallow African waters some 65 million years ago.”

Dr Scott Mirceta, PhD student, states: “Our study suggests that the increased electrical charge of myoglobin in mammals that have high concentrations of this protein causes electro-repulsion, like similar poles of two magnets. This should prevent the proteins from sticking together and allow much higher concentrations of the oxygen-storing myoglobin in the muscles of these divers.”

“We are really excited by this new find, because it allows us to align the anatomical changes that occurred during the land-to-water transitions of mammals with their actual physiological diving capacity. This is important for understanding the prey items that were available to these extinct animals and their overall importance for past aquatic ecosystems.”

The research was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council — with the hope that the research would provide insight into a number of different human diseases/disorders. Primarily those where protein aggregation is a problem — Alzheimer’s, diabetes, etc. There is also the possibility that the research may help in the development of artificial blood substitutes.

Dr Berenbrink says: “This finding illustrates the strength of combining molecular, physiological and evolutionary approaches to biological problems and, for the first time, allows us to put ‘flesh’ onto the bones of these long extinct divers.”

New Light Shed On The Physiology Of Diving Mammals — Research Exposes Secrets Of Whales, Dolphins, Otters, Seals, Etc was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

An exoplanets in the process of formation? NASA’s Hubble Space Tlescope may have recently spotted just such a thing — an unexplained gap in an enormous protoplanetary disk of gas and dust rotating around the red dwarf star TW Hydrae.

“Comparison of TW Hydrae Disk and Solar System. This illustration shows that the TW Hydrae protoplanetary disk is much wider than the size of our solar system. In fact, the gap in the TW Hydrae disk produced by a suspected planet resides 7.5 billion miles from the star. At this distance, the putative planet would orbit far beyond our Kuiper Belt, a reservoir of icy, leftover material from the formation of our solar system.”
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI)

TW Hydrae is located about 176 light-years away in the constellation Hydra — the Sea Serpent. The only plausible explanation — yet put forward — for the gap in the protoplanetary disc that surrounds the star is that it is the result of a growing planet that is gravitationally gathering up much of the material that would otherwise be there. Of course such a planet has yet to be observed, and there are other possibilities…

Something to note, the distance between the gap and the parent star is rather large — 7.5 billion miles. If the proposed planet was within our solar system that would put it at about two times the distance from the Sun that Pluto is — that’s quite a distance.

The location of the proposed planet seems strange though, to those in field — challenging most popular theories on how planets form. The most popular theory claims that over a period of tens of millions of years that the material of a protoplanetary disc slowly aggregates — concentrating the dust, rocks, and gas, of the disc into a proto planet. TW Hydrae and its newly proposed planet don’t match up with this theory though — the star system is only 8 million years old. “There has not been enough time for a planet to grow through the slow accumulation of smaller debris. In fact, a planet at 7.5 billion miles from its star would take more than 200 times longer to form than Jupiter did at its distance from the Sun because of its much slower orbital speed and a deficiency of material in the disk.”

There are other planet-formation theories though, one of which suggests that planets may form rapidly. That one theorizes that a portion of the disc may rapidly become gravitationally unstable and collapses in on itself. If this theory is true a planet could form as quickly as a couple of thousand years.

“If we can actually confirm that there’s a planet there, we can connect its characteristics to measurements of the gap properties,” states John Debes, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “That might add to planet formation theories as to how you can actually form a planet very far out. There’s definitely a gap structure. We think it’s probably a planet given the fact that the gap is sharp and circular.”

Further complicating this already rather strange and unexpected finding is the reality that the red dwarf star is only about 55% the mass of our Sun. “It’s so intriguing to see a system like this,” Debes notes. “This is the lowest-mass star for which we’ve observed a gap so far out.”

The disc also — somewhat strangely — seems to lack any large dust grains in the outer reaches. “Observations from ALMA (the Atacama Large Millimeter Array) show that millimeter-sized (tenths-of-an-inch-sized) dust, roughly the size of a grain of sand, cuts off sharply at about 5.5 billion miles from the star, just short of the gap. The disk is 41 billion miles across.”

“Typically, you need pebbles before you can have a planet. So, if there is a planet and there is no dust larger than a grain of sand farther out, that would be a huge challenge to traditional planet-formation models,” Debes states.

The Space Telescope Science Institute has more:

The Hubble observations reveal that the gap, which is 1.9 billion miles wide, is not completely cleared out. The team suggests that if a planet exists, it is in the process of forming and not very massive. Based on the evidence, team member Hannah Jang-Condell at the University of Wyoming in Laramie estimates that the putative planet is 6 to 28 times more massive than Earth. Within this range lies a class of planets called super-Earths and ice giants. Such a small planet mass is also a challenge to direct-collapse planet-formation theories, which predict that clumps of material one to two times more massive than Jupiter can collapse to form a planet.

TW Hydrae has been a popular target with astronomers. The system is one of the closest examples of a face-on disk, giving astronomers an overhead view of the star’s environment. Debes’s team used Hubble’s Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) to observe the star in near-infrared light. The team then re-analyzed archival Hubble data, using more NICMOS images as well as optical and spectroscopic observations from the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS). Armed with these observations, they composed the most comprehensive view of the system in scattered light over many wavelengths.

When Debes accounted for the rate at which the disk dims from reflected starlight, the gap was highlighted. It was a feature that two previous Hubble studies had suspected but could not definitively confirm. These earlier observations noted an uneven brightness in the disk but did not identify it as a gap.

“When I first saw the gap structure, it just popped out like that,” Debes explains. “The fact that we see the gap at every wavelength tells you that it’s a structural feature rather than an instrumental artifact or a feature of how the dust scatters light.

The new research was published June 14th in The Astrophysical Journal.

Exoplanet Observed While In The Process Of Formation? Hubble Telescope Spots Mysterious Gap Near TW Hydrae was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

The hunting and locomotion dynamics of wild cheetahs have had some new light shed on them as a result of new research from the Royal Veterinary College. The new research is the first to provide detailed direct measurements and data on the hunting and locomotion dynamics of the wild cheetah while still in its natural habitat.

Image Credit: K Golabek

The new work was done by utilizing a newly created GPS and motion sensing collar — designed by the researchers. By outfitting the cheetahs with the collars the researchers were able to obtain a great deal of data on the animal’s running and hunting dynamics. Some of the cheetahs used for the research were recorded running at speeds of up to 58 miles per hour.

Before this new research was done the only measurements ever taken of cheetah locomotion mechanics were made on captive animals running in a straight line while pursuing a lure. Most of these studies didn’t record the cheetahs as being very fast — often not even being faster than racing greyhounds. There had been no direct measurements taken of wild cheetahs running in their natural habitat — the estimates of their speed had been made entirely from direct observation or film, not direct measurement.

So, to remedy this, the researchers developed a “tracking collar equipped with a GPS module and electronic motion sensors (accelerometers, magnetometers, gyroscopes) capable of delivering processed position and velocity data and sensitive to the animal’s movements. The collar was powered by a combination of solar cells, rechargeable and non-rechargeable batteries.”

The Royal Veterinary College provides some details:

Collar software monitored the accelerometers to create activity summaries and detect the brief hunting events and adapted collar operation to battery voltages and time of day, meaning that researchers only captured data during a hunt. Overall, researchers recorded data from 367 runs by three female and two male adult cheetahs over 17 months. An episode of feeding after a run indicated hunting success, and was identified in the activity data by consistent, low-magnitude acceleration.

Data revealed that wild cheetah runs started with a period of acceleration, either from stationary or slow movement (presumably stalking) up to high speed. The cheetahs then decelerated and maneuvered before prey capture. About one-third of runs involved more than one period of sustained acceleration. In successful hunts, there was often a burst of accelerometer data after the speed returned to zero, interpreted as the cheetah subduing the prey — in this case mainly Impala, which made up 75% of their diet.

The average run distance was 173m. The longest runs recorded by each cheetah ranged from 407 to 559 m and the mean run frequency was 1.3 times per day, so, even if some hunts were missed, high speed locomotion only accounted for a small fraction of the 6,040-m average daily total distance covered by the cheetahs.

Using the data the researchers were able to clearly identify the factors that made up a ‘successful’ hunt. “Successful hunts involved greater deceleration on average, but there was no significant difference in peak acceleration, distance travelled, number of turns, or total turn angle. This indicates that outcome was determined in the final stages of a hunt rather than hunts being abandoned early to save energy or reduce risk of injury, and the higher deceleration values may reflect actual prey capture.”

“Grip and maneuverability, rather than top speed, were shown to be key to hunting success. Hunts involved considerable maneuvering, with maximum lateral (centripetal) accelerations often exceeding 13ms-2 at speeds less than 17ms-1 (polo horses achieve 6ms-2).”

For an idea of how the cheetahs matched up with other animals, and with people we think of as being fast: “The greatest acceleration and deceleration values were almost double values published for polo horses and exceeded the accelerations reported for greyhounds at the start of a race. The acceleration power for the cheetahs was four times higher than that achieved by Usain Bolt during his world record 100 meters run, about double that for racing greyhounds and more than three times higher than polo horses in competition.”

Professor Alan Wilson, stated: “Although the cheetah is recognised as the fastest land animal, very little is known about other aspects of its notable athleticism, particularly when hunting in the wild. Our technology allowed us to capture what to our knowledge is the first detailed locomotor information on the hunting dynamics of a large cursorial predator in its natural habitat and as a result we were able to record some of the highest measured values for lateral and forward acceleration, deceleration and body mass.

“In the future, equivalent data for other wild cursorial species would enhance what we know about natural speed, agility and endurance, and provide detailed information on ranging behaviour in the wild. For example, information on habitat selection by endangered species detailing where animals are commuting, hunting and resting would be informative when attempting to evaluate wildlife-protected areas.”

The new research was published June 13th in the journal Nature.

Cheetah Hunting Dynamics Revealed By New Study — First Direct Measurements Of Wild Cheetah Locomotion was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Editor’s Note: Reposted from Bikocity, here’s an interesting article about some cool bikes that have flipped the switch on urban transportation as well as how to sell bikes.

Even though I am a lifelong biker, I don’t care about the latest in the “best” head gear, and even though I am naturally quite athletic, I don’t care about lycra sporting equipment and bikes that cost a fortune. It is not my aesthetic sense. I don’t care how many gears it has, or who made the brakes. I want practical, affordable, and simple. Yes, it is nice if it looks good, better yet if it is low/no maintenance.

Image Credit: Papillionaire

Image Credit: Papillionaire

Papillionaire appeals to my needs on this note. Papillionaire makes lovely, affordable Dutch-style bikes that are highly attractive to me and a lot of people… especially the ladies. Many of us do not even notice that charged-up, overly-yang bike store on the corner, yet put some sky blues and round reds on a bike in a composed quiet style and we will gravitate towards your store with delight.

Get these kindred spirits of nice-looking, easy-practicality, regular women on a bike and they find the experience swiftly begins to cultivate a fresh range and vital dimension exchanging the status quo of daily activity with a new adventure. Many of us do not want or have time to start a new hobby, or join a bike race, but we are able to form new patterns in regular life. Living a life you love in the outdoors, enjoying a new form or mobility, needs to be readily available as part of daily routine. The Olympian biker is not who or what many of us aim for or need to be. Fresh air and exercise without even trying, found from day to day habits, is what we do critically need.

Image Credit: Papillionaire

Image Credit: Defiance Magazine

Vintage Bicycles by Papillionaire

As Papillionaire describes, its bikes are modern, with great facility and easy riding. Papillionaire bicycles merge timeless aesthetics with contemporary design. Founded in Australia, it maintains stores across the globe. Drop in to its Brooklyn, New York location if you’re in the Big Apple or one of the other shops and take a test ride today, or visit its online shop for free shipping across the USA → Wow.

Melbourne-based Papillionaire (a made-up word playing off the French word for butterfly) launched US operations in Brooklyn shortly before Hurricane Sandy. It is a Dutch-influenced, Australian-designed bike company who’s taking quite a different approach: Yes, biking is good for sport, and yes, it has health and sustainability benefits, but it’s also part of an easy-going way of life. I think it is incredible that there are all these bike shops mostly just catering to serious athletic bicyclist. Nonetheless, it is time to have a store for a few for us simple, utilitarian, normal types. Papillionaire seems to be addressing this niche. Led by women, the company is still very aesthetically concerned — the Dutch-influenced bike style is solid, simple, stylish, and classic in looks but attracting a decidedly modern clientele.

Image Credit: Papillionare

Image Credit: Papillionare

Image Credit: Papillionare

Flipping the statistics is what Papillionaire is doing, and how wonderful this is. This flipping could really flip society more. Let’s hope so. In Australia, where the company began, 80% of its customers are women. They’re really breaking through to a new audience. And helping us all on an ecological note. Thank you. However, according to Papillionaire, we have some pretty fearless women buying the more athletic ones in the US.

“In the US, it’s 60-70%, but with an interesting difference: There’s what appear to be an emerging class of women buying bikes. They gravitate to their typically male geared Classic bike, and are as Saxon Baird, head of US operations says, ‘…very driven and strong-minded and athletic but also very particular about style. I’ve sold a handful of Classic styles to women who I know use it to commute every day to Manhattan from Brooklyn. In other words, they are simply bad-ass ladies. I am not even sure I would do that.’”

I am American, but I belong with the Aussies on this one.

Papillionaire Bicycles Are Cool, Cute, Relaxed, & Maybe Even Revolutionary was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Someone shared this video with me awhile back. Thanks to it being a catchup Sunday, I just got around to watching it. It makes the case for vegetarianism using the heart in an excellent way. Check it out:

If you’d like a more sophisticated, intellectual case for going veggie, watch this one below from meat-eating food journalist Mark Bittman. Just one note I’ll add (also added at that link above): research has found that 51% or more of human global warming emissions are actually from livestock production. Either the way, the point is clear. (Note: this second video isn’t actually focused on the environment, but even more so on our health.)

Case For Vegetarianism Made By Young Boy (Video)… And Food Journalist (Video) was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries have been under development for years, and have already demonstrated the ability to store 400 Wh per kg of batteries. However, this time, there is an all-solid lithium-sulfur battery that could do even better. Will it last longer than previous lithium-sulfur batteries?

Lithium-sulfur cell.
Image Credit: Oakridge National Laboratory.

Lithium-sulfur batteries have been stated to last “few tens of cycles” before malfunctioning, according to a scholar at Stanford University, Johanna Nelson. This was said to be due the loss of sulfur in the cathode.

“The cycle life of lithium-sulfur batteries is very short. Typically, after a few tens of cycles the battery will die, so it isn’t viable for electric vehicles, which require many thousands of cycles over a 10- or 20-year lifetime.”

“Based on previous experiments, we expected sulfur particles to completely disappear from the cathode when the battery discharges,” said Nelson, the lead author of the JACS study. “Instead, we saw only negligible changes in the size of the particles, the exact opposite of what earlier studies found.”

This new solid battery (not to be confused with solid-state batteries) was able to survive 300 cycles without malfunctioning, and it still achieves four times the energy density of conventional lithium-ion batteries.

Its success is partially attributed to reduced “sulfur dissolution,” because the electrolyte is solid. The researchers developed this battery’s electrolyte and cathode with sulfur that was obtained as a byproduct of oil extraction, which helps keep the cost of it down.

Using byproducts instead of mining them also tends to be the most sustainable way to go.

Another heartwarming fact is that sulfur stores more energy than the other, less-sustainable transition metals used in lithium-ion battery cathodes.

All-Solid Lithium-Sulfur Battery Stores 4x As Much As Li-ion was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

This is a really beautiful time-lapse video from Yosemite National Park (National Park Service page for Yosemite here). Check it out:

Yosemite Time-Lapse Video Is Amazing, Beautiful was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

The flare star WX UMa was recently observed releasing a solar flare (stellar flare) that was so powerful that the star itself became 15 times brighter in a matter of just a couple of minutes. The flare was observed by researchers at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and the Byurakan Observatory in Armenia.

Image Credit: Casey Reed/NASA

“We recorded a strong flare of the star WX UMa, which became almost 15 times brighter in a matter of 160 seconds,” states the astrophysicist Vakhtang Tamazian, a professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela.

The flare star — WX UMa — is located within the Ursa Major constellation, just about 15.6 light years from the Earth. The star is part of a binary system where the companion star is nearly 100 times brighter — though not always, as this new finding has shown. The star was already known to regularly release powerful flares — hence the “flare star” label — but none nearly as powerful as this recent one.

Dr Tamazian, along with his fellow researchers, observed the exceptional brightness of the “recent” flare from the Byurakan Observatory in Armenia. “Furthermore, during this period of less than three minutes the star underwent an abrupt change from spectral type M to B; in other words, it went from a temperature of 2,800 kelvin (K) to six or seven times more than that.”

The press release provides some background:

Based on their spectral absorption lines, stars are classified using letters. Type M stars have a surface temperature of between 2,000 and 3,700 K; Type B between 10,000 and 33,000 K.
WX UMa belongs to the limited group of ‘flare stars,’ a class of variable stars which exhibit increases in brightness of up to 100 factors or more within a matter of seconds or minutes. These increases are sudden and irregular, practically random, in fact. They then return to their normal state within tens of minutes.

While the “causes” are still not clearly understood, the development process is: “For some reason a small focus of instability arises within the plasma of the star, which causes turbulence in its magnetic field,” explains Tamazian. “A magnetic reconnection then occurs, a conversion of energy from the magnetic field into kinetic energy, in order to recover the stability of the flow, much like what happens in an electric discharge.”

Next, kinetic energy in the plasma transforms into thermal energy in the upper layers of the atmosphere and the star’s corona. This significant rise in the temperature and brightness of the star enables astronomers to detect changes in the radiation spectrum.

“Photometric and spectroscopic monitoring of this kind of flare stars is very relevant because it provides us with information about the changing states and physical processes, which are in turn key to studying the formation and evolution of stars,” Tamazian continues.

“Additionally, in cases of binary systems such as that which unites WX UMa with its companion, observation of flares acquires a special importance, because we can investigate whether there is any relation between the frequency of flares and the position of the pair of stars on their orbit, a question which remains open.”

Something to note — flare stars are inherently weak, they are only observable (with current technology) at relatively close astronomic distances. In general, only those flare stars which are rather close to us — up to a distance of a few tens of light years — are also visible to us.

The new findings were recently published in the journal Astrophysics.

Flare Star WX UMa Released Solar Flare Which Increased The Star’s Brightness 15-Fold In Less Than 3 Minutes was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Loggerhead turtles rely on their vision while hunting for jellyfish in the open ocean — not their hearing or sense of smell, new research has found. The new research — from the University of Tokyo — was done by tracking the turtles’ underwater movements with with 3D loggers and National Geographic Crittercams.

Image Credit: Loggerhead Turtle via Flickr CC

The researchers also found that the turtles observed for the study foraged for jellyfish — and similar prey — roughly twice every hour. The researchers think that this means that the turtles may be more reliant upon jellyfish for nutrition than was previously thought.

“Previous studies have shown that turtle diets vary with their age, habitat and other factors, but adult turtles depend on deep-sea hard-shelled animals like mollusks for food. The gelatinous prey studied here are low-energy, easily digestible foods that are unlikely to replace these other prey. However, the authors suggest that opportunistic foraging on such prey may benefit loggerhead turtles during oceanic migrations, when prey at the bottom of the sea is harder to reach.”

The researchers note that the new insight into the diet of the endangered animal may aid in the development of maps detailing where the “areas with higher foraging opportunities along oceanic migratory routes for loggerhead turtles” are.

The new research was just published in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

Loggerhead Turtles Use Sight To Hunt Jellyfish — Not Sound Or Smell, Research Finds was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

The Antarctic ice shelves have been melting at ever increasing rates in recent years — losing mass, though not always extent, as much of the mass loss has been with regards to ice thickness. And now, new research has shed some new light on the causes of this ice loss — the warming ocean waters have been melting the ice shelves from underneath, it’s not primarily the result of icebergs calving into the ocean as was previously thought.

“Aerial photo of front of Venable Ice Shelf, West Antarctica, an example of a small ice shelf that is a large meltwater producer. Such ice melts are far more common than previously thought and will change predictions about the thawing continent. Taken onboard the Chilean Navy P3 aircraft during the NASA/Centro de Estudios Cientificos fall 2008 campaign.”
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UC Irvine

The new research — representing the first comprehensive survey of all Antarctic ice shelves — has found that basal melt (ice dissolving from underneath) was responsible for 55% of all ice shelf loss from 2003 to 2008. That is a much higher rate than was previously assumed. As a reminder of why this matters — ice shelves, which are essentially the floating extensions of glaciers, surround 75% of the absolutely enormous frozen continent.

The researchers think that this new work will allow others in the field to “improve projections of how Antarctica, which holds about 60% of the planet’s fresh water locked in its massive ice sheet, will respond to a warming ocean and contribute to sea level rise.” How the ice sheets of Antarctica will respond to the significant warming that is predicted to occur over the next 100 years is an important question — one which is especially important when you consider that the vast majority of the world’s most important economic regions are relatively close to coastlines. Rising seas as well as increasing flood/storm events could have devastating consequences for many of the world’s largest economies.

Back to the research — as the researchers put it “it turns out that the tug of seawaters just above the freezing point matters more than the breaking off of bergs.”

“We find that iceberg calving is not the dominant process of ice removal. In fact, ice shelves mostly melt from the bottom before they even form icebergs,” explained lead author Eric Rignot, a UC Irvine professor, and also a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “This has profound implications for our understanding of interactions between Antarctica and climate change. It basically puts the Southern Ocean up front as the most significant control on the evolution of the polar ice sheet.”

The press release provides context and details:

Ice shelves grow through a combination of land ice flowing to the sea and snow falling on their surfaces. The researchers combined a regional snow accumulation model and a new map of Antarctica’s bedrock with ice shelf thickness, elevation and velocity data captured by Operation IceBridge — an ongoing NASA aerial survey of Greenland and the South Pole.

Ocean melting is distributed unevenly around the continent. The three giant ice shelves of Ross, Filchner and Ronne, which make up two-thirds of Antarctica’s ice shelves, accounted for only 15 percent of the melting. Meanwhile, less than a dozen small ice shelves floating on relatively warm waters produced half the total meltwater during the same period.

The researchers also compared the rates at which the ice shelves are shedding ice with the speed at which the continent itself is losing mass and found that, on average, the shelves lost mass twice as fast as the Antarctic ice sheet did.

“Ice shelf melt can be compensated by ice flow from the continent,” Rignot said. “But in a number of places around Antarctica, they are melting too fast, and as a consequence, glaciers and the entire continent are changing.”

While rising sea levels are themselves an issue, the real issue — and one that is not often mentioned — is that as sea levels rise, more and more economically and industrially important infrastructure will be exposed to storm and flood events. Events similar to Hurricane Sandy, to Hurricane Katrina, could become very common — that would have a devastating effect on the economies of the affected regions. Something to keep in mind…

The new research was just published in the June 14 issue of Science.

Antarctic Ice Shelves Losing Mass As A Result Of The Undersides Melting — Not Iceberg Calving As Was Previously Thought was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Going green is a great way to help out the environment and to ensure that your descendants can enjoy planet Earth as much as you do today. In fact, people have been going green for years in an effort to preserve the planet for the future. This includes everyone from presidents to celebrities.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

Celebrities Who Went Green

President Andrew Jackson was the first to set aside land for preservation in 1832. He established legislation to protect an area in Arkansas that is now known as Hot Springs Reservation. Later on, President Abraham Lincoln ceded Yosemite Valley and the Great Sequoia Forest to the state of California, an area of land that would later become Yosemite National Park.

Today, many celebrities do what they can to further the green movement. Actor Brad Pitt founded the “Make It Right Initiative” in 2007 to focus on building affordable, sustainable homes for the needy. The initiative has helped build many homes for people in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, an area devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Cameron Diaz was one of the first people to drive a hybrid car, helping to increase the visibility of this new technology. She also hosted a show called “Trippin’” that focused on the many eco-adventures of guests on the program. Even St. Elsewhere’s Dr. Victor Ehrlich, known in real life as actor Ed Begley Jr, lives in an environmentally friendly home, drove one of the first electric vehicles in the 1970s, and now works as an environmentalist. Ed Begley Jr’s house is a Platinum LEED-certified home, meaning that it has achieved the highest rating possible from the US Green Building Council in sustainability, and for having a minimal to nil impact on the environment.

How You Can Go Green

You can also make the effort to go green in your day-to-day life with just a few changes. These small changes can add up to a dramatic reduction in pollution, energy usage, and used resources. Start by taking a look at the major areas of your life, such as home, work, and travel. Many people can make the biggest changes in how they get to work, and what they do at home.

It may not be possible to go off the grid entirely, but you can start cutting back on energy usage by installing energy-efficient appliances and fluorescent light bulbs or LEDs, and reducing the amount of energy you use for different tasks. For instance, simply turning off the lights when you leave the room can save a lot of energy and cut your electric bill. At work, you could save money and the environment by packing your lunch using reusable containers and washing them at home. Getting to work can even be an exercise in environmental friendliness by taking the bus, walking, or using an energy efficient vehicle. Many of you can also now go solar for cheaper than paying for electricity.

While the steps towards living green made by celebrities and those in the government are impressive, the biggest changes come from everyday people. Take a look at home, work, and travel and see if there’s any place you could make a small change to create a big savings. Chances are, these small changes will also improve your budget and your health.

How The Famous Got Green And What You Can Do was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

The newly discovered fossilized teeth of an extinct kangaroo species — as well as a variety of new fossils from other extinct marsupials — are helping to shed new light on the climate of the Australian Pliocene — revealing that the region of Australia where they were found was much less arid than was previously thought.

Image Credit: Red Kangaroo via Wikimedia Commons

The fossils were discovered in southeastern Queensland, and date back to around 2.5-5-million-years ago. Based on the new research, this region was apparently a ‘mosaic’ of wetlands, forests, and grasslands — considerably wetter than was previously thought. The new findings are the result of the chemical analysis of tooth enamel taken from the fossils.

The chemical analysis of the tooth enamel has revealed distinctive carbon isotope ratios, ones which strongly imply that the extinct kangaroo species ate plants similar to those eaten by extant kangaroos living in temperate and tropical regions — as opposed to the plants that currently grow in the region. “The fossils examined also suggest that different animals in the area occupied specialized dietary niches and did not rely on identical sources of food.”

The researchers provide some context: “This period, the Pliocene, is critical to understand the origins and evolution of Australia’s unique modern animals. It is during this time that the Australian fauna first began to take on its modern appearance and distinctiveness, with many modern Australian marsupials, such as the agile wallaby Macropus gracilis, first appearing in Pliocene fossil deposits.”

Shaena Montanari, from the American Museum of Natural History, says: “It is vital for us to understand what types of environments Australian megafauna thrived in during the Pliocene. Obtaining detailed environmental records from this time can help us find the drivers of the subsequent extinctions of many of these large marsupials.”

The discovery isn’t that surprising — new species typically emerge within very-productive habitats, very often tropical or temperate forests, or wetlands. The species which live in marginal regions — deserts, cold environments, drylands, etc — typically emerge in habitats such as tropical/temperate forests or wetlands, before then expanding their range opportunistically, and losing the traits/qualities which are maladaptive in the new regions.

The new research was just published in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

Fossil Kangaroo Teeth Shed New Light On Climate During The Australian Pliocene — Much Less Arid Than Previously Thought was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Crocodilians — crocodiles, alligators, gharials, and caimans — are some of the most successful predators on the planet, as well as being very interesting looking. They possess an impressive array of “super-sensory” adaptations that make them very effective hunters within their preferred habitats. They are also some of my “favorite” animals — meaning that their hunting spirit and ability, as well as their preferred methods, are something that I can appreciate.

For those that have not had the good fortune of growing up around these animals, I present you with these 10 images. Enjoy.

Nile Crocodiles

Image Credit: Nile Crocodile via Flickr CC

Image Credit: Nile Crocodile Versus Wildebeest via Flickr CC

Image Credit: Nile Croc Ambush Wildebeest via Flickr CC

Caiman

Image Credit: Jacaré via Flickr CC

American Alligators

Image Credit: Alligator Crossing Road via Flickr CC

Image Credit: Otter Versus Small Gator via Flickr CC

Image Credit: Alligator Get-Together via Flickr CC

Gharial

Image Credit: Gharial via Flickr CC

Saltwater Crocodiles

Image Credit: Saltwater Crocodile via Flickr CC

Image Credit: Saltwater Crocodile Open Mouth via Flickr CC

Crocodiles, Alligators, Caimans, and Gharials — Crocodilian Facts And Images (10 Friday Photos) was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Baobab is the common name for the trees of the genus Adansonia — along with the names boab, boaboa, bottle tree, upside-down tree, and monkey bread tree. The genus contains nine different species, six of which are native to Madagascar, two native to the African mainland, one to Australia, and one to the Arabian Peninsula. One of the species native to the African mainland was only identified as a unique species just last year — in 2012. Several of the species are have now been introduced to and planted in much of the temperate world.

Image Credit: African Baobab via Wikimedia Commons

The beautiful trees grow to heights of a 100 or so feet, and feature massive trunks which can grow to as large as 36 feet in diameter. The largest specimen known in modern times — the Glencoe Baobab — had a circumference of 154 feet until recently. That specimen recently split into two separate trunks though. The Sundland baobab of South Africa is probably now the largest individual baobab in the world — it measures about about 35 feet in diameter and has a circumference of around 110 feet.

While some of the trees are quite, quite old, they don’t actually produce growth rings like many trees do — as a result, carbon dating is usually used to establish estimated ages. Many of the larger trees are thought to be at least several thousand years old.

Image Credit: Baobab and Person via Flickr CC

The trees are an excellent resource for those that live near them — providing food via the fruits and seeds, freshwater via the rainwater trapped in the trunks, medicine via the leaves, fiber for textiles, and dyes.

One tree in Australia — with a hollow in its trunk — even served as a temporary prison during the 1890s. It’s worth noting that the “prisoners” were all Aboriginal prisoners being held by the relatively new Australian authorities.

An interesting story with regards to that tree: “Some years ago a trooper was bringing into Wyndham a party in chains when at dusk they arrived at the baob-tree. As there wasn’t room inside for everybody the trooper chained two of the prisoners to the tree. One of the pair was a magnificent specimen of a man well over six feet high with well shaped arms and legs and a blacksmith’s chest. At daybreak that native was missing and so was the chain. But an iron bolt to which the chain had been padlocked was left bent back in the form of a hairpin.”

Image Credit: Baobab Fruit via Wikimedia Commons

With regards to the use of the leaves, fruits, and seeds as food — they are all quite nutritious. As per Wikipedia: “The fruit has a velvety shell and is about the size of a coconut, weighing about 1.5 kilograms (3.3 lb). It has an acidic, tart flavor, described as somewhere between grapefruit, pear, and vanilla. The dried fruit powder contains about 12% water and various nutrients, including carbohydrates, dietary fiber, vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, B vitamins, potassium and iron. It contains 50% more calcium than spinach, is high in antioxidants, and has three times the vitamin C of an orange.”

A couple of final notes — some of the stouter trees apparently served very effectively as bomb shelters during some of the wars of the last 100 years — not surprising when you see in person just how thick some of the trunks can get. Some of the larger trees also function very effectively as a means to store large quantities of rain water — the trunks sometimes storing as much as 32,000 gallons of water. That’s no doubt a useful environmental feature for the people and animals in the area during the dry season.

Image Credit: Baobabs Sunset via Flickr CC

And no doubt the most important thing to note — most of the species are currently highly endangered and possibly headed towards extinction.

Baobab Tree — Adansonia Facts, Uses, And Photos was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Suncor Energy, the largest producer in Canada’s tar sands oil operations, has announced it will require fewer major safety maintenance “shut-down” checks at its Alberta production sites, decreasing the required checks to once every five years, down from its prior four-year schedule.

Image Credit: Suncor sign in Calgary, Canada via Jeff Whyte / Shutterstock.com

Steve Douglas, Suncor’s vice president of investor relations, said that routine safety shut downs cost the company money due to necessary replacement of equipment, labor, and lost revenue during the shut-down. This was reported by Reuters on June 7.

Ignoring the implications for public health, safety, and carbon-related climate consequences of tar sands operations, Douglas focused on revenue stream, saying, “You’re entirely down during a maintenance period. There’s significant foregone revenue during a period like that. It’s material.”

With not just a hint of Orwellian logic, the decision to require fewer major safety checks was made despite many high-profile Suncor accidents in recent months and years.

Some examples:

• April 2013 — A Suncor storage tank in Port Moody spilled, sending hundreds of barrels of fuel dangerously close to the waters of the Burrard Inlet. It was later reported that the company kept the accident secret, speaking publicly about it only after the media reported the accident — five days after the spill. The Mayor of Port Moody said Suncor failed to notify anybody.
• March 2013 — A spill from one of Suncor’s tar sands facilities in Alberta sent some 350,000 liters of waste water into the Athabasca river.
• March 2013 — Contaminated water poured from a broken pipe at a Suncor tar sands plant for more than four hours before crews could contain the flow.
• March 2013 — Alberta government ordered Suncor to immediately fix a wastewater treatment facility, a full two years after the problem was discovered.
• December 2011 — an accident at Suncor’s refinery in Commerce City, Colorado leaked extremely hazardous waste into Sand Creek and the South Platte River. The Environmental Protection Agency later found that the contamination included high levels of benzene — a known carcinogenic chemical — including in the drinking water at the refinery.
• In 2008, nearly 1 million liters of waste water from a Suncor containment pond leaked into the Athabasca River — and went unreported for up to eight months. The scandal resulted in Suncor being charged by the Alberta government for non-compliance with government Water Act rules.  

Suncor’s safety record is not unique among oil companies. The incidents of extraction, pipeline, and refinery accidents — from all companies — is immense. As reported by Planetsave previously, there were at least three oil spills in the US during just one week in April – largely unreported in mainstream media. Wikipedia’s page on pipeline accidents alone consists of multiple windows, listed by decade and divided by accident type.

Suncor also has a record of dangerous workplace conditions. In this video, Rene Gauthier describes in tragic detail the sub-par conditions at Suncor’s Fort McMurray, Alberta processing plant, which caused the death of his 64-year old father.

Suncor’s vice president, Steve Douglas, nevertheless praised the decision to require fewer safety shut downs, saying, “If you’re doing four maintainance turnarounds in 20 years versus four in 16 years, clearly there is a significant benefit.“

Largest Tar Sands Oil Producer, Seeking To Avoid “Foregone Revenue,” Announces Fewer Safety Checks was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

With pollution reaching levels never before seen and having a major effect on our environment, it is more important than ever to do what we can to stop it. Most people do not realize it, but they can do something right now to improve the environment by going “Carbon Neutral.” Going carbon neutral means that you produce almost no carbon emissions through your day-to-day activities. You then completely clear your carbon debt by purchasing carbon offsets. This means you have no carbon footprint and you are not contributing to the problems of carbon pollution in our atmosphere. There are many ways to start going carbon neutral at home and on the go.

Image Credit: Some rights reserved by Tim J Keegan

Travel

Start by looking at your travel plans, such as where you go on vacation and how you get to work every day. Most people drive or use a car to get to work and do chores. These vehicles release fumes, such as carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. Consider doing more walking or riding a bicycle to work if you live close enough. If you need to drive, look at fuel-efficient vehicles or even electric vehicles that produce no carbon emissions. Even taking the bus on a daily basis can help you cut down on your personal carbon footprint (while also saving you about $10,000 a year).

Home

Many people also use a lot of electricity at home, which is produced by power plants, such as coal plants that release pollution into the air. There are many ways you can cut down on your electricity usage at home to help reduce your carbon footprint. Set the thermostat to a slightly higher temperature in the summer and a slightly lower temperature in the winter so you are not using as much energy to operate the heating and air-conditioning. Make sure to turn off lights after leaving the room, and use fluorescent bulbs or LEDs, which are more energy efficient. Some people can go even further by having solar power panels installed to provide some or all of their electricity at home (which can also now save many people a boatload of money).

Food

Most people do not realize it, but we actually produce a lot of carbon emissions in the production of food. Tractors and other farm equipment use gasoline or diesel to operate. Granaries and other manufacturing plants use electricity and gas to operate their equipment and process food. Truck drivers use diesel to get food to the supermarket. And supermarkets use electricity to power their refrigerators and lights. Furthermore, livestock production as a whole — through deforestation, the inefficient use of land and water, and the many chemicals and gallons of fuel used — is considered to be the single largest cause of global warming globally.

Naturally, you can make some simple adjustments in your daily diet and purchasing habits to reduce your carbon footprint. When possible, make a point of purchasing locally grown foods so that they do not require as much gas to get to your house. Buy from organic farmers who do not use as many pesticides and other chemicals. Eat foods that are low on the food chain, such as lots of vegetables and grains, which do not require as much energy to produce. Finally, do as much as you can to recycle the leftovers and their containers so they do not wind up in landfills producing greenhouse gases through decomposition.

If everyone makes the effort to reduce their carbon footprint and move towards a more carbon neutral lifestyle, we can do a lot to reduce pollution. Making small changes in how you travel, your energy usage at home, and what you eat can make a big difference.

Going Carbon Neutral — What It Means And How To Do It was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

The banana spider — Nephila clavipes — is a large, brightly colored species of spider native to the warmer regions of the Americas. The spider is often recognized by its large webs — which often feature zigzag patterns — and its distinctive coloring. It is most commonly found in swampy regions and near the coasts, and is also known by its common name — the golden silk orb weaver spider. In general though, all of the spiders of the genus Nephilia are known as banana spiders, not just Nephila clavipes.

Image Credit: Nephila Clavipes via Wikimedia Commons

And while in the region that I live in “banana spiders” are all from the genus Nephilia, the name “banana spider” actually refers to a number of different types of spider, depending on the region: the golden silk orb weaver, a type of spider native to the Western Pacific known as Argiope appensa, and also the Brazilian wandering spider. This article will be focused solely on the golden silk orb-weaver though.

The spiders of the Nephila genus can vary very significantly in color depending on the species — from rust-red type colors, to yellowish greens, to white. “Like many species of the superfamily Araneoidea, they have striped legs specialized for weaving (where their tips point inward, rather than outward as is the case with many wandering spiders). Their contrast of dark brown/black and green/yellow allows warning and repelling of potential predators to whom their venom might be of little danger.”

Image Credit: Banana Spider Web via Flickr CC

Female golden silk orb-weavers typically grow to sizes of about (body size, not including legspan) 1.5 – 2 inches. When legs are included, they regularly span more than half a foot. Males are usually around 2/3 smaller than the females. The biggest specimen ever reported on was a 2.7 inch (body size, not including legs) female — though it’s now debated whether that individual may have been from a previously unrecognized subspecies.

That individual was apparently big enough to catch, kill, and feed on a finch — a type of small bird. Perhaps more impressively though, “in 2012 a large individual was photographed killing and consuming a half-meter-long brown tree snake in Freshwater, Queensland.”

“The webs of most Nephila spiders are complex, with a fine-meshed orb suspended in a maze of non-sticky barrier webs. As with many weavers of sticky spirals, the orb is renewed regularly if not daily, apparently because the stickiness of the orb declines with age. When weather is good (and no rain has damaged the orb web), subadult and adult Nephila often rebuild only a portion of the web. The spider will remove and consume the portion to be replaced, build new radial elements, then spin the new spirals,” as Wikipedia notes.

“The circular-orb portion of a mature N. clavipes web can be more than 1 meter across, with support strands extending perhaps many more feet away. In relation to the ground, the webs of adults may be woven anywhere from eye-level upwards high into the tree canopy. The orb web is usually truncated by a top horizontal support strand, giving it an incomplete look.”

With regards to the bite of the animal — it is potent, but it’s nowhere near deadly for humans. The type of poison is similar to that used by black widows, but much less powerful. What you can typically expect from a bite is some redness, discomfort, blisters, and possible swelling — this should all pass within a day or two though. Of course there are those that may possess allergies to the venom, in which case it could be much more dangerous.

Image Credit: Spider And Dragonfly via Flickr CC

Now on to the most interesting facts:

- The Nephila genus of spiders is the oldest surviving spider genus in the world. The oldest known species from that genus lived at least 165 million years ago, and was remarkably similar looking to several species still alive today.

- “The genus name Nephila is derived from Ancient Greek, it means ‘fond of spinning’, from the words (nen) = to spin (related to nema νήμα ‘thread’) + φίλος (philos) = ‘love’.”

- The oldest known species in the Nephila genus — N. jurassica — had a leg-span of half a foot, that makes it the largest fossilized spider yet discovered. The species in question is the one mentioned above, the one that lived about 165 million year old.

- The Australian golden silk orb weaver — Nephila edulis — has often been observed dismantling the lower portion of its web on windy days so as to allow the strong winds to flow through the newly created large opening in the web without breaking it.

- Their presence in gardens can be beneficial — greatly limiting the presence of fruit flies.

- “The silk of N. clavipes has recently been used to help in mammalian neuronal regeneration. In vitro experiments showed that a single thread of silk can lead a severed neuron through the body to the site from which it was severed. With a tensile strength of 4×109 N/m2, it exceeds that of steel by a factor of six. It is not recognized by the immune system.”

- “Fishermen on coasts of the indopacific ocean remove Nephila webs and form them into a ball, which is thrown into the water. There it unfolds and is used to catch bait fish.”

Banana Spider — Golden Silk Orb-Weaver Facts, Pictures, Bite Effects, Etc was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

11 billion people in the world by the year 2100? That’s what a new report from the United Nations is predicting. According to the report, that figure is about 8% higher than was previously predicted (in 2011), with the higher prediction being the result of fertility rates in Africa declining more slowly than was previously predicted.

The new UN report predicts: “The expected population changes from now to 2100 are shown in the graphic. By far the largest expected increase is in Nigeria, projected to increase by 730 million people, from 184 million now to 914 million in 2100. Eight of the top ten increases are in Africa, with India in second place. The United States is eighth, with an expected increase of 146 million, or 46 percent, from 316 million now to 462 million in 2100. The largest projected decline is in China, expected to decrease by about 300 million, from 1.4 billion now to 1.1 billion in 2100.”
Image Credit: UW Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences

“The fertility decline in Africa has slowed down or stalled to a larger extent than we previously predicted, and as a result the African population will go up,” said Adrian Raftery, a University of Washington professor of statistics and of sociology.

Currently, the total population of the African continent is around 1.1 billion people. the report predicts that that number may raise to as high as 4.2 billion by the year 2100…

Does that truly sound believable though? Does the UN report ignore some fundamental realities about the nature of the world as it currently is? There are only so many resources available, so much arable land available, so much fresh water, etc. And many of the most densely populated regions of the world are expected to face significant declines in agricultural production, freshwater resources, and political stability, in the coming years as a result of climate change.

What will happen to the people in these regions? Most of South Asia, much of Africa, much of Australia, much of Central America, most of the Middle East, etc, will likely face these problems — will the majority of the populations in these regions simply emigrate? Go to war for resources perhaps? Can such large numbers of immigrants truly be absorbed by other countries? By countries which will be facing agricultural problems, weather-related problems, water problems, and economic problems, of their own.

And that is all while still completely ignoring the reality that political instability, eroding social structures, increasing rates of disease, and increasing crime, almost inevitably accompany resource scarcity and collapsing economies. Will the world’s population truly increase to the degree predicted in such conditions? Will it decrease? Will it plummet? Will it simply shift towards the polar latitudes? The UN report doesn’t answer any of these questions, or even take them into account to any degree.

Back to the new report — among the other interesting predictions: Europe is likely see a small decline in population as a result of fertility rates staying below replacement levels, and many countries around the world will likely see some increase in population as a result of people living to older ages/increasing quality of medical care.

It’s worth noting that populations which have a larger proportion of their population living to older ages, and also a larger proportion of their population surviving for longer while in a diseased state, are qualitatively different from populations dominated by young males — as is the case in much of the currently poorer regions of the globe, such as the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, etc.

A final note — there were an estimated 7 billion people in the world in 2011, as compared to the 6 billion in the world in 1999.

11 Billion People By 2100? New UN Report Predicts Faster Than Expected Population Rise — But Does The Report Ignore Inevitable And Approaching Realities? was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Over the past 30 years, the food sources that most fish species in the northern Baltic Sea rely on — phytoplankton and zooplankton — have diminished greatly, according to new research from the Finnish Environment Institute.

Image Credit: Minna Ylä-Jarkko

Overall, the nutrition available to the ecosystem as a whole has greatly lessened. “The amount of energy available for planktivorous organisms has declined after the late 1970s, as both the food quality of phytoplankton and the mean size of zooplankton have decreased,” says senior researcher Sanna Suikkanen from Marine Research Centre at the Finnish Environment Institute.

“The observed change is probably due to complex interactions between climate warming, eutrophication and overfishing.”

The new research was done by conducting an analysis of “plankton data originating from the northern Baltic Sea, collected by the Finnish Marine Research Institute, Finnish Environment Institute and Finnish Meteorological Institute during late-summer HELCOM monitoring cruises between the years of 1979-2011. In addition to the Gulf of Finland and Åland Sea, also the northern Baltic proper was monitored. The aim was to investigate long-term changes in plankton communities and the environmental factors affecting them.” The research was a collaboration between the Finnish Environment Institute, Research and Development Institute Aronia, and the University of Sassari.

“The most significant change affecting plankton communities in the whole study area is the remarkable increase in late summer surface water temperatures. At the same time, salinity decreased in the Baltic proper. On the other hand, concentrations of dissolved inorganic nutrients increased especially in the Gulf of Finland, which indicates eutrophication.”

The press release continues:

Several changes were observed in the phytoplankton communities, mostly due to warming and eutrophication. Many species increased, which could be seen in the rise of chlorophyll a concentrations and amount of total phytoplankton. Cyanobacteria, haptophytes and chrysophytes increased in the entire study area. Cryptophytes, on the other hand, decreased in the whole area.

Due to the lower nutritional quality of cyanobacteria and haptophytes, compared to cryptophytes, the food quality for zooplankton has declined despite the general increase of phytoplankton.
Both cyanobacteria and haptophytes, as well as the dinoflagellates that increased in the northern Baltic proper, include many potentially toxic or otherwise harmful species.

In the zooplankton communities, there was an increase of small-sized rotifers, but a decrease of total abundance of zooplankton and especially adult and large cladocerans and copepods. The proportion of younger and smaller individuals in the zooplankton community increased. In practice this means that the amount of energy available for e.g. fish has declined.

“It seems that the large-sized zooplankton of the northern Baltic are suffering from changes in the phytoplankton communities, combined with other stressors, such as climate warming, decrease of salinity and increase of planktivorous fish, caused by e.g. overfishing of the large predatory fish,” says Sanna Suikkanen.

While this finding isn’t surprising, it is concerning. Much of the world likely faces a similar situation in the coming years — overfishing and the continued warming of the world’s oceans may very well lead to large-scale collapses of major fisheries in the near-future…. And something to keep in mind, a great many people in the world are entirely dependent upon such fisheries for their life or livelihood…

Fish In The Northern Baltic Sea Have Seen Their Food Sources Greatly Diminish Over The Past 30 Years, Research Finds was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

The preserved musculature of a 380 million year old armored fish was recently discovered in north-west Australia. This unprecedented discovery is now giving researchers their first direct insight into how the musculature of these ancient animals worked — providing a means to improve our understanding of how exactly neck and abdominal muscles developed during the diversification of jawed vertebrates from jawless ones.

Image Credit: ESRF/Sophie Sanchez

Fossils of soft tissue — such as this fish’s musculature — are exceptionally rare, this recent finding is a truly unexpected one, and one that offers a great opportunity or new discoveries. Typically researchers have to “extrapolate skin coverings and musculature from knowledge of modern organisms and from the fossilized skeletons.” But now, thanks to the new discovery, we do have some insight into the musculature of some of the armored fish species which lived 380 million years ago.

The press release provides some background:

The Gogo Formation, a sedimentary rock formation in north-western Australia, has long been famous for yielding exquisitely preserved fossil fish. Among other things it contains placoderms, an extinct group that includes some of the earliest jawed fish.

A few years ago, an Australian research team work led by Professor Kate Trinajstic, of Curtin University, made the remarkable discovery that these fossils also contained soft tissues including nerve and muscle cells. Now they have collaborated with the research group of Professor Per Erik Ahlberg, of Uppsala University, and with the European Synchrotron (ESRF) in Grenoble, France, to document and reconstruct the musculature of the placoderms.

“High contrast X-ray images were produced thanks to a powerful beam and a protocol developed for fossil imaging at the ESRF. This is unique in the world and has enabled us to ‘reconstruct’ some fossilized muscles and document the muscles of neck and abdomen in these early jawed fish, without damaging or affecting the fossilised remains,” says Sophie Sanchez, one of the authors, from the ESRF and Uppsala University.

What these reconstructions have shown is that these early vertebrates had very well-developed neck musculature and also very powerful abdominal muscles — perhaps surprisingly similar to modern vertebrates, such as humans. In contrast, almost all modern fish “have a rather simple body musculature without such specializations.”

“This shows that vertebrates developed a sophisticated musculature much earlier than we had thought” says Per Ahlberg, co-author of the project. “It also cautions against thinking that we can interpret fossil organisms simply by metaphorically draping their skeletons in the soft tissues of living relatives.”

The findings were recently published in the journal Science.

380-Million-Year-Old Fossil Of Armored Fish Features Preserved Musculature — Finding Provides Surprises was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

How did diving mammals develop the impressive abilities that they possess? What physiological changes occurred? New research from the University of Liverpool has now shed some light on this interesting question — identifying some of the physiological changes that allow diving mammals to be so successful.

Image Credit: Pinneped via Wikimedia Commons

The researchers identified a “distinctive molecular signature of the oxygen-binding protein myoglobin in the sperm whale and other diving mammals, which allowed them to trace the evolution of the muscle oxygen stores in more than 100 mammalian species, including their fossil ancestors.”

As those that have seen whale meat know, the meat of diving mammals can very, very dark. The reason for this is the presence of very high levels of myoglobin — it’s present in such high concentrations in elite mammalian divers that the muscle meat is sometimes almost black. Until this new research though, it wasn’t exactly clear how the presence of such high levels could be effective.

“Proteins tend to stick together at high concentrations, impairing their function, so it was unclear how myoglobin was able to help the body store enough oxygen to allow mammals, such as whales and seals, to endure underwater for long periods of time without breathing. Elite mammalian divers can hold their breath for over an hour while they hunt in the depths of the oceans, while land mammals, such as humans, can hold their breath for only a few minutes.”

Dr Michael Berenbrink, from the University’s Institute of Integrative Biology, who led the international team, says: “We studied the electrical charge on the surface of myoglobin and found that it increased in mammals that can dive underwater for long periods of time. We were surprised when we saw the same molecular signature in whales and seals, but also in semi-aquatic beavers, muskrats and even water shrews.

“By mapping this molecular signature onto the family tree of mammals, we were able to reconstruct the muscle oxygen stores in extinct ancestors of today’s diving mammals. We were even able to report the first evidence of a common amphibious ancestor of modern sea cows, hyraxes and elephants that lived in shallow African waters some 65 million years ago.”

Dr Scott Mirceta, PhD student on the project, elaborates: “Our study suggests that the increased electrical charge of myoglobin in mammals that have high concentrations of this protein causes electro-repulsion, like similar poles of two magnets. This should prevent the proteins from sticking together and allow much higher concentrations of the oxygen-storing myoglobin in the muscles of these divers.”

“We are really excited by this new find, because it allows us to align the anatomical changes that occurred during the land-to-water transitions of mammals with their actual physiological diving capacity. This is important for understanding the prey items that were available to these extinct animals and their overall importance for past aquatic ecosystems.”

The researchers think that this new work may also help to improve the scientific understanding of a variety of different human diseases where protein aggregation is a problem — Alzheimer’s, diabetes, etc. As well as helping in the development of artificial blood substitutes.

Dr Berenbrink states: “This finding illustrates the strength of combining molecular, physiological and evolutionary approaches to biological problems and, for the first time, allows us to put ‘flesh’ onto the bones of these long extinct divers.”

How Did Diving Mammals Develop Such Impressive Underwater Endurance? New Research Sheds Light On Physiology was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

No matter what niche your profession sees you in, and what other roles you fill as a human living on Earth, our only home in this vast universe, the “green” trend is one that is well-worth paying close attention to. Helping to shape our business practices, and leading to a more Earth-friendly approach to the products that we create and sell, following a green path can also lead to positive and uplifting changes in personal habits, making the entire endeavor a winning one for each and every one of us.

If you’re interested in taking your habits, both personal and professional, to a more sustainable place, check out any one of these five eco-friendly meetups in Europe in order to educate yourself, even while meeting like-minded people:

1. Sustainable Energy Week

Take an entire week to celebrate both current technologies and those to come where the green energy sector is concerned, providing yourself with the knowledge and know-how that you need to make eco-friendly decisions now and into the future, all with the Sustainable Energy Week event, set this year for a date in Brussels.

You’ll find speakers, technology showcases, product expos, and in-depth workshops to attend, each of them offering unique insight into how to be a responsible inhabitant of Earth, from both a personal and professional perspective.

When and Where: This year’s Sustainable Energy Week in Europe will be held in the Belgium capital of Brussels from June 24-28, 2013, bringing you together with high-powered CEOs and the general public alike in as you learn about the green practices that will help to make your business more successful, both financially and ecologically.

2. Green People Berlin

Meet people from around the city of Berlin who all share an interest in sustainable living, giving you access to the kinds of minds that have something very valuable to offer your own way of life. From personalized topics like lowering energy costs at home, to more broad looks at the burgeoning world of eco-friendly business, this group has something to offer everyone – friendship included!

When and Where: This relatively new group of like-minded green thinkers meets up in and around the city of Berlin, Germany, discussing the many ecological issues that face us on both personal and professional levels, and providing you with endless networking opportunities all the while!

3. Vegetarians and Vegans of Montpellier

Given just how much we eat, we have to acknowledge that food is an excellent starting point when it comes to establishing an eco-friendly lifestyle, and that’s exactly the focus at meetups of the Vegetarians and Vegans of Montpellier group in France! You’ll learn more about establishing healthy eating practices, where to find vegan-friendly alternatives to your favorite products, and how to generally eat well for both yourself, and your planet.

When and Where: If you’re interested in taking your green eating habits to the next level, the Vegetarians and Vegans of Montpellier is a great group to get involved with, meeting up on a regular basis around the city and surrounding area. You can learn more about the city of Montpellier at FranceMagazine.com!

4. Sustainable Innovation Conference

The Sustainable Innovation Conference aims to provide a platform from which attendees can discuss both the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead when it comes to focusing on business models that promise profitability without putting our home at risk in the process.

When and Where: The 2013 iteration of the Sustainable Innovation Conference is set to be held in Surrey, United Kingdom from November 4-5, 2013, bringing you the best of English hospitality and European innovation, all in one stop.

5. Sustainable Brands Europe

Being eco-friendly in your business practices is obviously smart from an environmental point of view, but there can be no denying the power of the “green” trend in business, either! Attending the Sustainable Brands Europe conference in London will help to show you exactly how you can be a good citizen of the world, even while you profit from it; a very attractive combination!

When and Where: Learn more about taking your brand to the next level of green at the Sustainable Brands Europe event in London, England from November 18-19, 2013.

For more eco-related meetups please check this article.

5 Eco-Friendly Meetups In Europe was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

When will the next megathrust earthquake strike the Pacific coast of North America? It’s an important question for those living in the region, and also more generally for the governments and economies of the United States and Canada, but it is a difficult one to answer. But now, new research may finally be helping to bring some clarity to this subject — the first truly comprehensive and well-dated record of earthquake history along the southern coast of British Colombia.

Image Credit: Dan Anthon, Royal Roads University

Such a record gives us a much more accurate understanding of the size and frequency of large earthquakes — especially megathrust earthquakes — along the Pacific coast of North America. The new work was done by utilizing a new high-resolution age model to identify and date the “disturbed sedimentary layers in a 40-meter marine sediment core raised from Effingham Inlet. The disturbances appear to have been caused by large and megathrust earthquakes that have occurred over the past 11,000 years.”

Dr Audrey Dallimore, Associate Professor at Royal Roads University, and a study co-author, explains: “Some BC coastal fjords preserve annually layered organic sediments going back all the way to deglacial times. In Effingham Inlet, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, these sediments reveal disturbances we interpret were caused by earthquakes. With our very detailed age model that includes 68 radiocarbon dates and the Mazama Ash deposit (a volcanic eruption that took place 6800 yrs ago); we have identified 22 earthquake shaking events over the last 11,000 years, giving an estimate of a recurrence interval for large and megathrust earthquakes of about 500 years. However, it appears that the time between major shaking events can stretch up to about a 1,000 years.”

“The last megathrust earthquake originating from the Cascadia subduction zone occurred in 1700 AD. Therefore, we are now in the risk zone of another earthquake. Even though it could be tomorrow or perhaps even centuries before it occurs, paleoseismic studies such as this one can help us understand the nature and frequency of rupture along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, and help Canadian coastal communities to improve their hazard assessments and emergency preparedness plans.”

“This exceptionally well-dated paleoseismic study by Enkin et al., involved a multi-disciplinary team of Canadian university and federal government scientists, and a core from the 2002 international drill program Marges Ouest Nord Américaines (MONA) campaign,” says Dr. Olav Lian, an associate editor of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, professor at the University of the Fraser Valley and Director of the university’s Luminescence Dating Laboratory. “It gives us our first glimpse back in geologic time, of the recurrence interval of large and megathrust earthquakes impacting the vulnerable BC outer coastline. It also supports paleoseismic data found in offshore marine sediment cores along the US portion of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, recently released in an important United States Geological Survey (USGS) paleoseismic study by a team of researchers led by Dr. Chris Goldfinger of Oregon State University.”

Additionally, the Effingham Inlet site has provided further information on the climate of the time period when these earthquakes occurred — providing data that is of great use in other fields.

As a side note — the Cascadia Earthquake of 1700 is well accounted for by oral traditions passed down by the American Indian tribes which lived in the area.

“They had practically no way or time to try to save themselves. I think it was at nighttime that the land shook. … I think a big wave smashed into the beach. The Pachena Bay people were lost. … But they who lived at ‘House-Up-Against-Hill’ the wave did not reach because they were on high ground. … Because of that they came out alive. They did not drift out to sea with the others.”

The new research was published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences.

Megathrust Earthquake Strikes The North American West Coast — When Will The Inevitable Happen? was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

The biggest, brightest Moon of the year is almost here. On June 23, 2013, a Supermoon will be occurring. What that means is that the Moon will be closer to the Earth than at any other time during the year — in fact, the upcoming Super Moon will be the closest encounter between the Earth and the Moon until August 2014.

Image Credit: Supermoon Over Germany via Wikimedia Commons

The Moon will reach its closest distance to the Earth at exactly 7:32 am EDT (4:32 am PDT) on June 23, but because it will be peaking in the early morning hours, both June 22 and June 23 will put on similar shows. So either day will be a good opportunity to see the larger-and-brighter-than-normal Supermoon.

This year the Supermoon will be up to 14% larger and 30% brighter than a typical Full Moon is. This is a result of the Moon reaching its perigree — the closest that it gets to the Earth during the course of its orbit. During perigree on June 23 the Moon will be “only” about 221,824 miles away, as compared to the 252,581 miles away that it is at its furthest distance from the Earth (apogee). The Moon will actually be at apogee only two weeks after the Supermoon, on July 7.

Something to note — Supermoons do create stronger tides than typical Full Moons do, though nothing extreme. What you’re likely to see are tides which are a couple of inches higher than usual. Of course, if such especially-high-tides happen to coincide with powerful storm systems, than significant flooding is a real possibility.

“The supermoon of March 19, 2011 (right) compared to a more average moon of December 20, 2010 (left), as viewed from the Earth”
Image Credit: Supermoon Comparison via Wikimedia Commons

For information on the other great astronomical events of 2013 see: Astronomy 2013 : Comet ISON, Solar Eclipses, Meteor Showers, Supermoon, Etc

Here’s some background on the phenomena and on the terminology used (via Wikipedia):

A supermoon is the coincidence of a full moon or a new moon with the closest approach the Moon makes to the Earth on its elliptical orbit, resulting in the largest apparent size of the moon’s disk as seen from Earth. The technical name is the perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system. The term ‘supermoon’ is not astronomical, but originated in modern astrology.The association of the Moon with both oceanic and crustal tides has led to claims that the supermoon phenomenon may be associated with increased risk of events such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. However, the evidence of such a link is widely held to be unconvincing.

Enjoy the show.

Supermoon 2013 — Super Moon Occurring On June 23 2013 was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

A report jointly produced by the Environmental Services Association and Waste and Resources Action Programme has found that 10,000 jobs could be generated by the UK recycling industry.

Image Credit: Guinnog

One of the main areas for potential recycling and reuse is the electronics industry, because an estimated 12 million tons of electronics waste will be created by 2020. An estimated seven billion pounds (as in the currency, not mass) of valuable precious metals might be extracted from all that electronic waste.

The increasing cost of raw materials would mean that being able to reuse existing materials from products that are thrown away could save a great deal of money. Further, once that material was successfully reused, it might serve as evidence that a circular economy is advantageous, rather than being a burden and not much more than a civic duty. Cell phone recycling is one example.

‘About 80% of the environmental impact of a product is determined at design stage. If we work together to change the way products are designed, we can avoid the current trend of a third of potentially recyclable material being lost to the economy. This is vital for resource efficiency and security, and to reduce environmental impacts including greenhouse gas emissions,’ explained David Palmer Jones, chairman of the ESA. (Source: The Guardian)

This is exciting news, because waste is a culturally-based concept that results in linear thinking. This thinking means that culturally we have certain beliefs that have caused much useful material to be thrown away at times. The UK has actually increased its recycling rate very much in the last decade and is anticipated to meet the EU goal of 50% by about 2017.

During WWII, UK citizens practiced recycling with meticulousness. A survivor described this mentality,

‘Even before the war, we were always careful. Ordinary people didn’t have the sort of money they do today and anyway, things just weren’t so available. No ordering things on the internet! If you wanted something that you couldn’t get in the local shops, you had to make it for yourself and we’d always collect good containers to put things in – you’d never dream of throwing things away. All my father’s nails and screws were kept in old jam jars – a different jar for each type. That’s the sort of world it was; waste not, want not. You just didn’t think anything of it – and these days I get letters from my local council telling me how I must recycle more. You have to laugh, I suppose.’ (Source: Recycling Expert)

10,000 Jobs Could Be Created By Recycling In UK was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.