Tag Archives: maryland

Rising Seas Put Millions of Americans at Risk for Flooding

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…)

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Maryland Commission Recommends ‘Common Sense’ Immigration Policy

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Immigrants to Maryland contribute significantly to the state’s economy, and were vital to its workforce expansion in both technical and less-skilled occupations from 2000 to 2010, concludes a new report by a Maryland commission. During this period, immigrants mostly complemented rather than competed with U.S.-born state residents for jobs, it adds.

The Commission to Study the Impact of Immigrants in Maryland, a state panel coordinated by the University of Maryland, evaluated the economic contributions of the state’s foreign-born and the cost of government services for them. It also studied the education experience of the children of immigrants, immigration law enforcement issues facing local communities, and the use of the federal E-Verify system to verify workers’ immigration status. (more…)

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Potential energy – Study of Maryland Demonstrates Mid-Atlantic Offshore Wind Capacity

Offshore wind farms could generate more than enough energy to meet Maryland’s annual electricity consumption, according to a just-published study by researchers at the University of Delaware. The potential power output is nearly double current energy demands for the state, even when taking into account various limitations on where to place equipment in the Atlantic.

“Installing wind turbines far off the coast of Maryland would help the state generate large quantities of electricity while creating local jobs,” said study co-author Willett Kempton, professor of marine policy in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment (CEOE). “Producing more electricity this way also displaces fossil fuel generation, thus reducing harmful carbon dioxide emissions and improving air quality.” (more…)

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USGS Releases New Assessment of Gas Resources in the Marcellus Shale, Appalachian Basin

The Marcellus Shale contains about 84 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas and 3.4 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas liquids according to a new assessment by the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS).

These gas estimates are significantly more than the last USGS assessment of the Marcellus Shale in the Appalachian Basin in 2002, which estimated a mean of about 2 trillion cubic feet of gas (TCF) and 0.01 billion barrels of natural gas liquids. (more…)

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Summer Sailing in the Cloud With Office 365

*Three friends are sailing the U.S. Eastern Seaboard in search of the American spirit. They’ve chronicled their journey and stayed connected with help from Office 365, an official sponsor of the trip.*

BOSTON – July 5, 2011 – In 1987, John Mirassou and two friends set sail from Ft. Lauderdale on a 17-foot Boston Whaler. They didn’t expect to find anything more than good times on their journey, which ultimately logged some 6,100 miles. They were wrong.

“What started out as way to see the country by boat really turned into a story about the American people,” Mirassou said. “Everywhere we went we were taken in by people we had never met. This American spirit came out in amazing instances of generosity.” (more…)

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IBM Turns 100

*Chairman and CEO Samuel J. Palmisano Says Managing for the Long Term Will Drive Growth for Next 100 Years*

ARMONK, N.Y., – 16 Jun 2011: IBM today is marking the 100th anniversary of its founding on June 16, 1911. To celebrate the milestone, the company is releasing a book, “Making the World Work Better: The Ideas That Shaped a Century and a Company,” debuting a new film, “Wild Ducks,” and ringing the Opening Bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

During its first century, IBM has played a leading role in transforming business, science and society. The company’s history can be seen as a succession of key milestones – from investing in a research lab in the depths of the Great Depression, to developing the first hard disk drive that created the data storage industry, to working with the U.S. government to develop the Social Security System. It continued with such “big bets” as a radical new computing model, the System/360 mainframe; the invention of the UPC code; the invention of the IBM Personal Computer that launched the PC revolution; and the recent development of Watson, the computer that triumphed on the TV game show Jeopardy!. (more…)

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2,000 Year-old Deep-sea Black Corals call Gulf of Mexico Home

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — For the first time, scientists have been able to validate the age of deep-sea black corals in the Gulf of Mexico.  They found the Gulf is home to 2,000 year-old deep-sea black corals, many of which are only a few feet tall. 

These slow-growing, long-living animals thrive in very deep waters—300 meters (984 feet) and deeper—yet scientists say they are sensitive to what is happening in the surface ocean as well as on the sea floor.  (more…)

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Widespread Ancient Ocean “Dead Zones” Challenged Early Life

*Persistent lack of oxygen in Earth’s oceans affected animal evolution*

The oceans became oxygen-rich as they are today about 600 million years ago, during Earth’s Late Ediacaran Period. Before that, most scientists believed until recently, the ancient oceans were relatively oxygen-poor for the preceding four billion years.

Now biogeochemists at the University of California-Riverside (UCR) have found evidence that the oceans went back to being “anoxic,” or oxygen-poor, around 499 million years ago, soon after the first appearance of animals on the planet. (more…)

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