Deforestation, considered by scientists to contribute significantly to global warming, has been shown by a Yale-led team to actually cool the local climate in northern latitudes, according to a paper published Nov. 17 in Nature.
“If you cut trees in the boreal region, north of 45 degrees latitude, you have a net cooling effect,” says Xuhui Lee, the study’s principal investigator and professor of meteorology at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. “You release carbon into the atmosphere by cutting down trees, but you increase the albedo effect — the reflection of sunlight.” (more…)
*Initiative provided practical advice to dozens of cities worldwide in 2011*
Armonk, NY, – 24 Oct 2011: IBM today announced that it has opened the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grant program to new applications for 2012. Smarter Cities Challenge is a three-year, 100-city, US$50 million grant program in which IBM’s top technical experts and consultants provide actionable advice to urban centers.
This highly successful grant program provides select applicant cities with access to teams of elite IBM employees with expertise on a variety of urban-related matters, such as finance, sustainability, public safety, and citizen services. They devote weeks of their time analyzing unique opportunities and challenges facing municipalities, particularly within the context of today’s challenging economic climate. After conferring with officials, citizens, businesses, academics and community leaders, the IBM teams recommend actions to make the delivery of services to citizens more efficient and innovative. Issues addressed include jobs, health, public safety, transportation, social services, recreation, education, energy, and sustainability. (more…)
The so-called “superstreet” traffic design results in significantly faster travel times, and leads to a drastic reduction in automobile collisions and injuries, according to North Carolina State University researchers who have conducted the largest-ever study of superstreets and their impacts.
Superstreets are surface roads, not freeways. It is defined as a thoroughfare where the left-hand turns from side streets are re-routed, as is traffic from side streets that needs to cross the thoroughfare. In both instances, drivers are first required to make a right turn and then make a U-turn around a broad median. While this may seem time-consuming, the study shows that it actually results in a significant time savings since drivers are not stuck waiting to make left-hand turns or for traffic from cross-streets to go across the thoroughfare. (more…)
Republican claims of political corruption in North Carolina’s Democratic Party have made little impact on public opinion among potential voters in the state, according to new polling data analyzed by North Carolina State University researchers. The findings show that highlighting actual corruption is not necessarily an effective electoral strategy.(more…)
A new study examining death sentences in North Carolina over a 28-year period ending in 2007 shows that among similar homicides, the odds of a death sentence for those who are suspected of killing whites are approximately three times higher than the odds of a death sentence for those suspected of killing blacks.
