Tag Archives: India

J. Timmons Roberts: What did Durban do for climate?

By Guest PostDecember 13, 2011Environment1992 earth summit, american, atmosphere, brown researchers, carbon dioxide, center for environmental studies, China, climate change, climate change negotiations, climate talks in durban, copenhagen, democrats, durban, environmental experts, fossil fuel emissions, global citizens, global network, greenhouse gas emissions, India, j timmons roberts, kyoto protocol, mood, republicans, richard lewis, rio de janeiro, South Africa, timmons roberts, united nations, united states

J. Timmons Roberts, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Environmental Studies, led a group of Brown researchers and students to the United Nations climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa. On his return, Roberts spoke with Richard Lewis, reflecting on the Durban meetings, the status of research, and the challenges of activism on issues of climate change.

Timmons Roberts, professor and director of the Center for Environmental Studies, has just returned from attending climate talks in Durban, South Africa. Roberts and a delegation from Brown — faculty, postdoctoral researchers, graduate and undergraduate students — witnessed the negotiations up close as observers to ministerial speeches and negotiations. The talks ended with an agreement to extend the greenhouse gas emissions targets set under the Kyoto Protocol and a pledge to work on a replacement treaty incorporating the United States, China, and India.

Roberts spoke with Richard Lewis on the importance of the talks, the need for industrialized countries to compensate developing countries for damages from climate change, and the unique opportunity for people from Brown’s environmental program to attend the talks. (more…)

Link Between Air Pollution and Cyclone Intensity in Arabian Sea

By Guest PostNovember 5, 2011Environmentabcs, aerosol, air pollution, amato evan, anjuli bamzai, arabian sea, arabian sea cyclones, atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns, atmospheric brown clouds, atmospheric concentrations of pollutants, biomass, chul eddy chung, climate, climatological vertical wind shear, cyclone gonu, cyclone phet, diesel emissions, gujarat, gulf of oman, gwangju institute of science and technology, himalayan glacial melting, India, iran, james p kossin, lpg fuel, monsoon season, national science foundation, oman, Pakistan, pollution, rainfall patterns in south asia, scripps institution of oceanography, sea surface temperatures, south korea, storms, university of virginia, veerabhadran ramanathan, wind shear patterns

*Disruption of wind shear enables stronger storms*

Pollution is making Arabian Sea cyclones more intense, according to a study in this week’s issue of the journal Nature.

Traditionally, prevailing wind shear patterns prohibit cyclones in the Arabian Sea from becoming major storms.

The Nature paper suggests that weakening winds have enabled the formation of stronger cyclones in recent years–including storms in 2007 and 2010 that were the first recorded storms to enter the Gulf of Oman. (more…)

Chemical in Spice Turmeric Kickstarts Cancer-Killing Mechanisms in Human Saliva

By Guest PostSeptember 18, 2011Health, Scienceanti aging agent, anti inflammatory effects, cancer enhancing cytokines, curcumin, enzyme, eri srivatsan, head and neck cancer, hpv virus, human saliva, ikk, India, kappa β kinase, marilene wang, medicinal properties, menstrual cramps, nfκβ, not toxic, nuclear factor kappa β, oral cancers, poultice, pro inflammatory cytokines, signaling molecules, south asian and middle eastern cooking, spice turmeric, transcription factor, turmeric, wound healing

Curcumin, the main component in the spice turmeric, suppresses a cell signaling pathway that drives the growth of head and neck cancer, according to a pilot study using human saliva by researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The inhibition of the pathway also correlated with reduced expression of a number of pro-inflammatory cytokines, or signaling molecules, in the saliva that promote cancer growth, said senior study author Dr. Marilene Wang, a professor of head and neck surgery and a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher. (more…)

Imagine Cup Competitors Fired Up by Ballmer, Sachs, and Crowley; Finalists Announced

By Guest PostJuly 12, 2011Technologyarthur vanderveen, Bangladesh, brazil, bulgaria, columbia university, cyber knightz, dennis crowley, earth institute, economist, foursquare, france, imagine cup, imagine cup 2011, India, information technology, Japan, jeffrey sachs, limits of ecosystems, limits of food supply, malaysia, Microsoft, microsoft ceo, Netherlands, new york city, new york city department of education, new zealand, resource limits, romania, senegal, steve ballmer, Thailand, wai lun chan, world finals

*Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, economist Jeffrey Sachs, and Foursquare founder and CEO Dennis Crowley opened the Imagine Cup 2011 World Finals on Friday night. The competition heated up over the weekend with the first set of finalists being announced Sunday night.*

NEW YORK CITY – Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer inspired them to be great, economist Jeffrey Sachs gave them the homework assignment of saving the world, and Foursquare founder and CEO Dennis Crowley showed them how tangibly close they are to success.

Students representing 70 countries and regions descended on New York City over the weekend to participate in the Imagine Cup 2011 Worldwide Finals, which challenges students from across the globe to use technology to solve world problems like feeding the hungry, fighting disease, and creating new forms of energy. Finalists in the competition’s nine categories were announced on Sunday and the overall winners will be announced on Wednesday. (more…)

When Matter Melts

By Guest PostJune 27, 2011Scienceantiproton collisions, balance of matter and antimatter, bedangadas mohanty, berkeley lab, CERN, color force, critical point, distribution of ordinary matter, elemental constituents of matter, geneva, gluons, hadronic matter, hans georg ritter, heavy ions, India, kolkata, Large Hadron Collider, lattice theory, massive gold nuclei, neutrons, nu xu, phase diagrams, protons, qcd, quantum chromodynamics, quark gluon plasma, relativistic heavy ion collider, rhic, sourendu gupta, tata institute of fundamental research, universe, variable energy cyclotron centre, xiaofeng luo

*By comparing theory with data from STAR, Berkeley Lab scientists and their colleagues map phase changes in the quark-gluon plasma*

In its infancy, when the universe was a few millionths of a second old, the elemental constituents of matter moved freely in a hot, dense soup of quarks and gluons. As the universe expanded, this quark–gluon plasma quickly cooled, and protons and neutrons and other forms of normal matter “froze out”: the quarks became bound together by the exchange of gluons, the carriers of the color force.

“The theory that describes the color force is called quantum chromodynamics, or QCD,” says Nu Xu of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), the spokesperson for the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. “QCD has been extremely successful at explaining interactions of quarks and gluons at short distances, such as high-energy proton and antiproton collisions at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. But in bulk collections of matter – including the quark-gluon plasma – at longer distances or smaller momentum transfer, an approach called lattice gauge theory has to be used.” (more…)

India Turns to the Web for the Latest Updates During 2011 Cricket World Cup

By Guest PostMarch 28, 2011Technologyaustralia, Bangladesh, Comscore, cricket, cricket websites, cricket world cup, England, espncricinfo, India, internet traffic, joe nguyen, Pakistan, southeast asia, yahoo cricket, zimbabwe

*India vs. South Africa Match Drives More than 1.4 Million Visitors to ESPNCricInfo.com in India*

Mumbai, India, March 28, 2011 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released results from a study of Internet traffic to cricket websites during the 2011 Cricket World Cup. The report found that the tournament caused a surge in visitation to cricket sites in India as fans went online for the latest results and match updates. Sites reached their highest volume of traffic for the month during the week ending March 13, with 16.4 percent of India’s online population visiting ESPNCricInfo.com and 13.4 percent of web users visiting Yahoo! Cricket. (more…)

Asia Arms Itself to the Teeth

By PravdaMarch 19, 2011WeaponsBeijing, China, chinese arms, defense products, defense technologies, egypt, Europe, Germany, global export, India, largest importer of arms, latin america, middle east, Pakistan, russia, russian federation, south korea, stockholm international peace research institute, usa, world

India became the world’s largest importer of arms during 2006-2010, a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said. The share of India’s world arms shipments made up nine percent. China’s share was evaluated at six percent. The list of other active arms importers includes South Korea (6%) and Pakistan (5%). The largest exporters of arms in the world are the USA, Russia and Germany.

According to SIPRI experts, Russia remains the primary supplier of arms and military hardware to India. Russia’s share in arms transfers to India during the recent five years was evaluated at 82 percent. (more…)

WaterWheel Will Bring Clean Water to a Thirsty World

By Guest PostFebruary 25, 20111 commentEnvironmentclean water, colm fay, cynthia koenig, dow sustainability innovation student challenge, India, rajasthan, rolling water barrel, waterwheel, wello, wheel, world

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Cynthia Koenig knows that by reinventing the wheel she could change the world. In a few months, she hopes to make a difference in India.

Koenig, a graduate student at the University of Michigan, created the WaterWheel, a 20-gallon rolling water barrel and Wello, the business that distributes it in developing countries, where clean water is scarce. (more…)