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‘Thawing Permafrost Likely Will Accelerate Global Warming in Coming Decades’

By Guest PostFebruary 18, 2011Environmentalaska, Arctic, atmosphere, carbon, carbon dioxide concentration, climate change, CO2, earth, environmental sciences, fossil fuel emissions, frozen in soil, greenhouse gases, industrial age, kevin schaefer, last glacial period, lori bruhwiler, noaa, permafrost, Siberia, tingjun zhang, warming temperatures

Up to two-thirds of Earth’s permafrost likely will disappear by 2200 as a result of warming temperatures, unleashing vast quantities of carbon into the atmosphere, says a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

The carbon resides in permanently frozen ground that is beginning to thaw in high latitudes from warming temperatures, which will impact not only the climate but also international strategies to reduce fossil fuel emissions, said CU-Boulder’s Kevin Schaefer, lead study author. “If we want to hit a target carbon dioxide concentration, then we have to reduce fossil fuel emissions that much lower than previously thought to account for this additional carbon from the permafrost,” he said. “Otherwise we will end up with a warmer Earth than we want.” (more…)

In Watson’s Wake, IBM World Community Grid Registration Skyrockets 700%

By Guest PostFebruary 18, 2011Technologycomputing system, ibm international foundation, ibm scientists, virtual supercomputer, world community grid

$500,000 in IBM Jeopardy! Challenge prize money to fund global research that benefits humanity

ARMONK, N.Y. – 18 Feb 2011: Watson wasn’t the only computer system that won this week when it competed successfully against two human champions on the Jeopardy! game show.

The other computing system is called World Community Grid, a virtual supercomputer that helps scientists solve humanitarian challenges by tapping the unused computing power of personal computers around the world. Scientists who use World Community Grid are not only set to receive $500,000 in prize money — but are already earning unprecedented support worldwide: The day after the tournament’s conclusion, World Community Grid saw a 700% spike in the number of people who normally volunteer their computers’ spare power for the effort. (more…)

Psychological Effects of BP Oil Spill Go Beyond Residents of Impacted Shorelines

By Guest PostFebruary 18, 2011Environment, Health1989 exxon valdez oil spill, alabama, anxiety and depression, bp oil spill, coastal communities, domestic violence, emotional and financial situations, environmental disaster, florida, franklin county, glenn morris, gulf fishing industries, gulf of mexico, human history, longitudinal analysis, natural events, oil exposure, oil spill, protein scum, psychological effects, psychological impact, red tide, seafood, spill, william mahan

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The psychological effects of the BP oil spill, the largest recorded environmental disaster in human history, extend far beyond people living around the areas of the Gulf of Mexico that were directly impacted by the spill, a new study finds.

Writing in the online edition of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, a publication of the National Institutes of Health, the researchers reported that even in areas that did not have oil exposure, people still experienced elevated levels of anxiety and depression and reduced ability to show resilience in difficult emotional and financial situations because of the disaster. (more…)

Regrowing Hair: UCLA-VA Researchers May Have Accidentally Discovered a Solution

By Guest PostFebruary 18, 2011Health, Scienceaging, astressin b, bald, brain gut interactions, chronic stress, corticotrophin releasing factor, crf, gastrointestinal function, graying of hair, hair growth, hair loss, hair restoration remedies, hucksters, humans, mice age, million mulugeta, minoxidil, miracle solvents, peptide, stress, stress related hormone, treat hair loss

It has been long known that stress plays a part not just in the graying of hair but in hair loss as well. Over the years, numerous hair-restoration remedies have emerged, ranging from hucksters’ “miracle solvents” to legitimate medications such as minoxidil. But even the best of these have shown limited effectiveness.

Now, a team led by researchers from UCLA and the Veterans Administration that was investigating how stress affects gastrointestinal function may have found a chemical compound that induces hair growth by blocking a stress-related hormone associated with hair loss — entirely by accident. (more…)

Children Of Working Moms Face More Health Problems

By Guest PostFebruary 17, 2011Healthchildren, health problems, maternal employment, school age, working mothers

Children of working mothers are significantly more likely to experience health problems, including asthma and accidents, than children of mothers who don’t work, according to new research from North Carolina State University. (more…)

Shiller Paper Cited As One of the Century’s Top Economic Articles

By Guest PostFebruary 17, 2011Economy100 year history, aer, american economic review, article, b douglas bernheim, behavioral finance paper, book, changes in stock market prices, daniel l mcfadden, dividends, dot com bubble, efficient markets hypothesis, focal point, irrational exuberance, james m poterba, kenneth j arrow, martin s feldstein, modern era, professor of economics, rational expectations, robert j shiller, robert m solow, shiller index, shiller paper, stephen a ross, stock market, stock prices, top 20 articles, yale professor

An article written by Robert J. Shiller, the Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics, was recently named one of the “top 20” articles in the 100-year history of the American Economic Review (AER), the premier journal in the field of economics.

“Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to Be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?” was published in the June 1981 edition of the AER and became a focal point of debate and research over the question of whether changes in stock market prices are driven by rational expectations — what’s called the efficient markets hypothesis — or by other forces. (more…)

NASA Releases Images of Man-Made Crater on Comet

By Guest PostFebruary 17, 2011Science2005 deep impact mission, b 17 bomber, coma, comet, comet atmosphere, comet tempel 1, crater, denver, don brownlee, images, joe veverka, jpl, lockheed martin space systems, mission operations, NASA, new terrain, nucleus, pete schultz, stardust, stardust next, stardust spacecraft, tim larson, valentine day

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Stardust spacecraft returned new images of a comet showing a scar resulting from the 2005 Deep Impact mission. The images also showed the comet has a fragile and weak nucleus.

The spacecraft made its closest approach to comet Tempel 1 on Monday, Feb. 14, at 8:40 p.m. PST (11:40 p.m. EST) at a distance of approximately 178 kilometers (111 miles). Stardust took 72 high-resolution images of the comet. It also accumulated 468 kilobytes of data about the dust in its coma, the cloud that is a comet’s atmosphere. The craft is on its second mission of exploration called Stardust-NExT, having completed its prime mission collecting cometary particles and returning them to Earth in 2006. (more…)

Iceland Volcano’s Molten Rock Could Become Source of High-Grade Energy

By Guest PostFebruary 16, 2011Environmentbasaltic, electric power, Environment, geologists, geothermal fluids, geothermal steam, geothermal well, hydrothermal alteration, hydrothermally altered basalt, Iceland, iceland deep drilling project, krafla caldera, krafla volcano, leonard johnson, magma, silica poor basalt magma, sources of power, southwest iceland, supercritical geothermal resources, supercritical pressures and temperatures, supercritical water, underground lava, volcanic rocks, volcano, wilfred elders

*Krafla volcano gives geologists unique, unexpected opportunity to study magma*

Geologists drilling an exploratory geothermal well in 2009 in the Krafla volcano in Iceland met with a big surprise: underground lava, also called magma, flowed into the well at 2.1 kilometers (6,900 feet) depth.

It forced the scientists to stop drilling. (more…)

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