Tag Archives: east coast

Great Barrier Reef in Gefahr: Australien gibt grünes Licht für Versenkung von Erdaushub

By Guest PostFebruary 4, 2014Environment, Natureabbot point, adani gruppe, annemarie kohl, australia, australien, chelonia mydas, das meeresreservat, deutschland, die umwelt, east coast, gefahr, great barrier reef, green turtle, Greenpeace, greenpeace queensland campaigner, greg hunt, kohle, kohle hafen, korallenriff, louise matthiesson, meeresexperte von greenpeace, michael roche, nicolai schaefer, oekosystem, sara westerhaus, thilo maack, versenkung von erdaushub, world heritage committee

Umweltschützer protestieren: An der australischen Nordostküste sollen rund drei Millionen Kubikmeter Meeresboden abgeladen werden. Die Entscheidung folgt auf einen Beschluss der australischen Regierung, die im Dezember den Ausbau eines Kohle-Hafens unweit des weltberühmten Korallenriffs genehmigt hatte. Der Erdaushub soll etwa drei Kilometer vor der Küste abgelagert werden. Umweltschützer reagieren empört, für Greenpeace ist es eine “Peinlichkeit von internationalem Ausmaß”.

Es geht um drei Millionen Tonnen Schlamm, die in das Meeresreservat gekippt werden sollen, das zum Unesco-Weltkulturerbe zählt. Laut der zuständigen Behörde sei nur ein Drittel des Naturparks – der etwa so groß ist wie Deutschland – streng geschützt. Die übrige Fläche dürfe daher für andere Zwecke verwendet werden. Der erweiterte Hafen soll der Erschließung von Kohle im Volumen von 28 Milliarden US-Dollar dienen. (more…)

Weltnaturerbe in Gefahr

By Guest PostFebruary 1, 2014Natureannemarie kohl, australia, australian, biodiversitaet, chelonia mydas, der chinesische frachter, duengemittel, east coast, great barrier reef, green turtle, hafen abbot point, haie, industrielle ausbau, klimawandel, kohlehafen, marine conservation society, meeresschildkroeten, mega ports, nicolai schaefer, nordkueste australiens, oekosysteme der erde, pestizide, queensland, riff bewohner, rochen, shen neng, stephan lutter, typen von hartkorallen, uneco, wasserqualitaet, weltnaturerbe in gefahr

WWF-Report: Australien schützt das Great Barrier Riff nicht genug/ Verlust des Welterbetitels droht

Das weltberühmte Great Barrier Reef läuft Gefahr, seinen Status als Weltnaturerbe zu verlieren. Die Umweltschutzmaßnahmen der australischen Behörden sind trotz Vorwarnung des UNECO Welterbe-Komitees weiterhin unzureichend. Teile der Korallenriffe und angrenzender Lebensräume sind in schlechtem Zustand – mit fatalen Folgen für die Biodiversität und „Riff-Bewohner“ wie Haie, Rochen und Meeresschildkröten. Ein aktueller Report des WWF und der Australian Marine Conservation Society, präsentiert die Verfehlungen und mangelnden Fortschritte, das größte Korallenriff der Erde zu schützen. Demnach wurde keine der sieben UNESCO Empfehlungen erfüllt oder mit gutem Fortschritt umgesetzt, besondere Defizite gibt es bei Hafenausbau und Schiffahrt. Morgen läuft die Frist, binnen derer Australien ein besseres Umweltmanagement für das Riff nachweisen soll, aus. (more…)

Powerful Animal Tracking System Helps Research Take Flight

By Guest PostJuly 21, 2013Naturealaska, animal tracking system, big data approach, birds eye view, east coast, env data, galapagos albatross, Germany, gil bohrer, gps tracking, gps tracking data, individual birds, lafayette college, max planck institute, migration, migration patterns, north Carolina, ohio state university, ornithology, project, roland kays, satellite, scientific users, state university, U.S. Geological Survey, university of Illinois, university of konstanz, urbana-champaign, youtube video

Call it a bird’s eye view of migration. Scientists are taking a fresh look at animal movement with a big data approach that combines GPS tracking data with satellite weather and terrain information.

The new Environmental-Data Automated Track Annotation (Env-DATA) system, featured in the journal Movement Ecology, can handle millions of data points and serve a hundred scientists simultaneously, said co-founder Dr. Roland Kays, a zoologist with North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. (more…)

Making Health Fun

By Guest PostJanuary 4, 2013Health, Technologyabout handling stress, better angels, change, delaware, do something, east coast, eating well, Facebook, fun, get up, health behavior, healthy lifestyle, medium, mike peterson, motivational, optimal health, paige woolley, playing, positive, promote health, social marketing, website, work life balance

Get Up and Do Something is source for optimal health

Mike Peterson believes that the best way to bring about changes in health behavior is to take an approach that’s fun, positive, and motivational.

So the website he developed and runs with the health promotion master’s students at the University of Delaware is “not about ‘guilting’ people into doing things — it’s about playing to their better angels.” (more…)

Shark Social Networking

By Guest PostOctober 17, 2012Natureacoustic tags, acoustic transmitter, apex predator, battery recharge, behavior, biotelemetry, coast, coastal water, concern, conventional, danielle haulsee, delaware, delaware bay, delmarva peninsula, device, dewayne fox, east coast, eastern seaboard, ecological balance, georgia aquarium, habitat, identification sensor, indian river, inlet, maryland, matthew oliver, migration pattern, mobile transceiver, network, ocean, ocean observation, oceanographic, otis, real-time, remote controlled, researcher, shark migration, species, telemetry, tiger shark, tracking technique, transmitter, underwater robot, university, vemco, vmt

Shark migrations studied with underwater robot along Delmarva Peninsula

University of Delaware researchers are using an underwater robot to find and follow sand tiger sharks that they previously tagged with transmitters. The innovative project is part of a multi-year partnership with Delaware State University to better understand the behavior and migration patterns of the sharks in real time.

“In the past week our new, specially equipped glider OTIS – which stands for Oceanographic Telemetry Identification Sensor – detected multiple sand tiger sharks off the coast of Maryland that were tagged over the past several years,” said Matthew Oliver, assistant professor of oceanography in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. “This is the first time that a glider has found tagged sharks and reported their location in real time.” (more…)

What Will You Do If an Earthquake Hits?

By Guest PostOctober 14, 2012Environmentaftershock, california, california drill, canada, central virginia, concept, earthquake, earthquake risk, east coast, fault, great shakeout, greg anderson, Japan, large earthquake, magnitude, mark benthien, material, mid atlantic, nsf, potential loss, region, san andreas, scec, seismic zone, shakeout scenario, territories, tremor, US, usgs, washington d.c., website

Join the Great ShakeOut on October 18, 2012, to prepare

The Central Virginia Seismic Zone, it’s called, and it sometimes shakes everything in sight.

As long ago as 1774, people in central Virginia felt small earthquakes and suffered damage from intermittent larger ones. A magnitude 4.8 quake happened in 1875.

Then last year, on August 23, 2011, a magnitude 5.8 quake hit the same region. Several aftershocks, ranging up to magnitude 4.5, occurred after the main tremor.

Will there be another such quake in the mid-Atlantic region? (more…)

A Prime Seat to a Once-in-a-Lifetime Spectacle

By Guest PostJune 8, 2012Scienceadam block, alan strauss, astrophotographer, black void, digital slr camera, earth, east coast, England, exoplanets, expedition, filaments, Hubble Space Telescope, hydrogen alpha filter, jeremiah horrocks, liverpool, martin hamar, mount lemmon skycenter, much hoole, planet, planet venus, schulman telescope, southern arizona, sun, telescope, transit of venus, ua, venus, venus transit, village

Hosted by world-renowned astrophotographer Adam Block at the UA’s Mount Lemmon SkyCenter, a group of sky and astronomy enthusiasts watched Venus cross the sun from the highest vantage point in Southern Arizona.

On Nov. 24, 1639, in the tiny village of Much Hoole not far from Liverpool, England, a poor farmer’s son and self-taught astronomer affixed a sheet of paper in front of a makeshift telescope pointed at the sun and waited.

Thirty-five minutes before sunset, a dark, round spot appeared right next to the bright disc that was the sun’s face projected on the paper, and made Jeremiah Horrocks, only 20 years old at the time, the first known human to predict, observe and record a transit – the passage of a planet across the sun as seen from Earth.

Almost 373 years later, a group of sky enthusiasts is gathered beneath the dome of one of the University of Arizona’s observatories on Mount Lemmon just north of Tucson, Ariz. (more…)

Power of Possibility

By Guest PostApril 11, 2012Culture, Education, Generalactivelon cleaning solutions, aramark, aspiring entrepreneur, Bolivia, business ownership 101, christina estrada, clinton tymes, creative ability, creative thinking, develop, east coast, franchisee, francis kwansa, ghana, hrim, ipads, iPhone, lozelle deluz, mcdonalds franchises, nuts and bolts, orbio technologies, organic natural cleaners, ownership, paul altero, personal computer, power of possibility, sbtdc, Steve Jobs, the caribbean, think the unthinkable, university of delaware

ARAMARK executive, industry experts share entrepreneurial lessons with students

Believe in the power of possibility. “Possibility for success, possibility to impact others, possibility to create jobs and contribute to your communities – the possibility of successful business ownership is real for you,” Christina Estrada told students in a keynote address at the sixth annual Hospitality and Entrepreneurship Summit held recently on the University of Delaware campus in Newark.

For Estrada, global chief diversity officer for ARAMARK, possibility is rooted in an entrepreneurial spirit that sparks creative thinking into diversification.

“As an aspiring entrepreneur you need creative thinking after the big idea,” said Estrada. “You need to understand your industry and know what your customers need that is unique, as well as what they want consistently and that is reliable. As an aspiring entrepreneur, you need to believe in the power of possibility.” (more…)