Guest Post – Page 833 – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

Aerial Survey Reveals Exmoor’s Rare Peatlands as Never Seen Before

By Guest PostMarch 17, 2012Environmentaerial survey, blanket bogs, exmoor, peatlands

An unmanned aircraft has captured hundreds of images of Exmoor’s peatlands, revealing the condition of this rare environment as never seen before.

Flying 300 metres above the ground, the state-of-the art remote-controlled vehicle captured very detailed photographs of two five-hectare study sites.

The University of Exeter and South West Water will use the images to monitor the effectiveness of the planned restoration of these rare ecosystems. The research will investigate whether the restoration, due to take place later this year, will result in improved water storage in the blanket bogs, bringing benefits such as cost savings on water bills and improvements in river quality. (more…)

A Half-Billion Stars And Galaxies From NASA’s WISE Mission Revealed — Many For First Time

By Guest PostMarch 17, 2012Scienceall sky catalog, asteroids, atlas, catalog, comets, cosmos, david saxon, distant galaxies, echo, edward l wright, exploded star, galaxies, goggles, great sky, infrared detectors, infrared sky, infrared wavelength, jet propulsion laboratory, jupiter, light, mars, mission, NASA, planet, principal investigator, roc cutri, saturn, stars, supernova explosion, wise, y dwarfs

A new atlas and catalog of the entire infrared sky with more than a half-billion stars, galaxies and other objects captured by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission was unveiled by NASA Wednesday.

“Today WISE delivers the fruit of 14 years of effort to the astronomical community,” said Edward L. (Ned) Wright, a UCLA professor of physics and astronomy and the mission’s principal investigator, who began working on the mission in 1998. (more…)

comScore Releases February 2012 U.S. Online Video Rankings

By Guest PostMarch 16, 2012Technologybrightroll video network, Comscore, comscore video metrix, espn, Facebook, fullscreen, Google, hulu, machinima, online video, specific media, us internet users, vevo, viacom digital, Yahoo, YouTube

*Hulu Streams Record 1.5 Billion Videos Ads in February*

RESTON, VA, March 16, 2012 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that 179 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 38 billion videos of online video content in February.

Top 10 Video Content Properties by Unique Viewers

Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in February with 147.4 million unique viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 60.9 million, VEVO with 52 million, Facebook.com with 43.6 million and Viacom Digital with 43.2 million. Nearly 38 billion video views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 16.7 billion, followed by Hulu with 951 million and Yahoo! Sites with 721 million. The average viewer watched 21.8 hours of online video content, with Google Sites (7 hours) and Hulu (3.8 hours) demonstrating the highest average engagement among the top ten properties. (more…)

Rising Seas Put Millions of Americans at Risk for Flooding

By Guest PostMarch 16, 2012Environmentamericans, atlantic seaboard, benjamin h strauss, california, canal region, coastal elevation, flooding, florida, gulf of mexico, jeremy l weiss, jonathan t overpeck, long beach, los angeles, louisiana, maryland, mission beach, new jersey, new york, remik ziemlinski, rising seas, san diego, sea level, university of arizona, us coastal region, venice

New estimates suggest more U.S. land prone to flooding than previously thought.

About 3.7 million Americans are at risk for flooding as the sea level continues to rise in the coming century, according to a new study from a team that includes University of Arizona researchers.

Areas on the south Atlantic Seaboard and surrounding the Gulf of Mexico appear to be most prone to future flooding. In terms of numbers of people at risk, Florida is the most vulnerable, closely followed by Louisiana, California, New York and New Jersey. (more…)

New Labor-Tracking Tool Proposed To Reduce C-Sections in First-Time Moms

By Guest PostMarch 16, 2012Healthabortions, c sections, cervix, cesarean, childbirth, dystocia, dystocia diagnosis, emily caldwell, gray area, hormonal intervention, jeremy neal, labor, labor assessment, labor tracking tool, linear process, nancy lowe, oxytocin, painful scarring, partograph, pregnant women, stillbirths, united states

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers have designed a new version of a labor-tracking tool for pregnant women that they predict could reduce the use of hormonal intervention during labor and lower the number of cesarean sections performed on low-risk, first-time mothers.

The tool, called a partograph, takes into account the most recent research findings that suggest labor is not a linear process, but is instead slower during earlier labor and accelerates gradually as labor advances. A diagnosis of abnormally slow labor is the No. 1 reason that C-sections are performed in low-risk births by first-time moms. (more…)

A Fragrant New Biofuel

By Guest PostMarch 16, 2012Environmentagricultural waste, biofuels industry, diesel fuel, energy rich molecules, methyl ketone synthesis, methyl ketones, renewable fuel

JBEI Researchers Develop a New Candidate for a Cleaner, Greener and Renewable Diesel Fuel

A class of chemical compounds best known today for fragrance and flavor may one day provide the clean, green and renewable fuel with which truck and auto drivers fill their tanks. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have engineered Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria to generate significant quantities of methyl ketone compounds from glucose. In subsequent tests, these methyl ketones yielded high cetane numbers – a diesel fuel rating comparable to the octane number for gasoline – making them strong candidates for the production of advanced biofuels. (more…)

Very Few Low-Income Moms Meet Breastfeeding Recommendations

By Guest PostMarch 16, 2012Healthawareness, awareness of breastfeeding, breastfeeding, low income moms

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Less than 2 percent of low-income mothers met breastfeeding recommendations in a recent study – a drastic decline compared with a more affluent population – and a lack of support and available resources appears to play a key role. (more…)

Study Links Past Changes in Monsoon to Major Shifts in Indian Civilizations

By Guest PostMarch 15, 2012Environmentasia, band of heavy rain, bay of bengal, camilo ponton, civilizations, climate change, cmz, core monsoon zone, dorian fuller, drilling vessel, drought, equator, eth, global warming, godavari river, harappan civilization, humid monsoon, India, indian monsoon, indian peninsula, insolation, inter tropical convergence zone, itcz, joides resolution, liviu giosan, modern agriculture, monsoon, northern hemisphere, ocean, paleo climatic information, plankton fossil, sahara desert, sediment core, solar radiation, tim eglinton, tropical forest, vegetation, whoi, zurich

A fundamental shift in the Indian monsoon has occurred over the last few millennia, from a steady humid monsoon that favored lush vegetation to extended periods of drought, reports a new study led by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). The study has implications for our understanding of the monsoon’s response to climate change.

The Indian peninsula sustains over a billion people, yet it lies at the same latitude as the Sahara Desert. Without a monsoon, most of India would be dry and uninhabitable. The ability to predict the timing and amount of the next year’s monsoon is vital, yet even our knowledge of the monsoon’s past variability remains incomplete. (more…)

Author Archives: Guest Post