An Epochal Discovery: A Habitable Planet Orbits Our Neighboring Star One hundred and one years ago this October, a Scottish astronomer named Robert Innes pointed a camera at a grouping of stars near the Southern Cross, the defining feature of the night skies above his adopted Johannesburg. He was looking for a small companion to Alpha Centauri, our closest neighboring star system. Hunched over glass photographic plates, Innes teased out a signal. Across five years of images, a small, faint star moved, wiggling on the sky. It shifted just as much as Alpha Centauri, suggesting its fate was intertwined with that binary system.
UN experts denounce 'myth' pesticides are necessary to feed the world The idea that pesticides are essential to feed a fast-growing global population is a myth, according to UN food and pollution experts. A new report, being presented to the UN human rights council on Wednesday, is severely critical of the global corporations that manufacture pesticides, accusing them of the “systematic denial of harms”, “aggressive, unethical marketing tactics” and heavy lobbying of governments which has “obstructed reforms and paralysed global pesticide restrictions”. The report says pesticides have “catastrophic impacts on the environment, human health and society as a whole”, including an estimated 200,000 deaths a year from acute poisoning.
Microbial Life - Educational Resources Teaching and learning about the diversity, ecology and evolution of the microbial world; discover the connections between microbial life, the history of the earth and our dependence on micro-organisms. The expansive Sunset Lake of the Black Sand Basin is one of the largest thermal bodies of water in Yellowstone National Park. Details This site contains a variety of educational and supporting materials for students and teachers of microbiology.
Recycling for Kids These days it is recognised that it is important that children know how to help the environment by recycling, and schools do a really good job! Consequently children are often the instigators and policemen of recycling in the home. If they are not, are if you think the children you know need a little nudge in the right direction, you can find plenty of inspiration on our Recycling pages!
Your Favorite Housewares Are Spewing Poison Dust Inside Your Home People buy the nicest homes they can afford. They spend years—sometimes decades—pouring money into nest-feathering by stocking up on creature comforts. It’s no wonder we spend 90 percent of our lives indoors. Types of Wind Turbines Used Today Capturing the earth’s natural energy through wind was once an abstract idea. Eventually, however, engineers were able to focus the idea and put it into action through innovative technology. Throughout the development of wind turbines, many prototypes were created, and many of the first ones designed are still used today, just with more modern engineering. Here are a few of the different wind turbines we are used to seeing today, and some we definitely are not.
GEO - Group on Earth Observations Global geospatial community to convene in Geneva on May 5-9 Geospatial Media and Communications, in partnership with the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and SwissTopo, will host the Geospatial World Forum on 5-9 May 2014 in Geneva. The conference will convene representatives of the geospatial commercial sector and government/policy end users. A program titled, "Geospatial Industry Forging Ties with GEOSS" will be held on Monday, 5 May, and the GEO Appathon 2014 will kick off on Wednesday, 7 May.
Recycling Game - Recycling Word Search Game - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - Ozzoom - Planet Ozkids - Games, Puzzles and Crosswords Ozzoom > Word Search Games > Recycling Recycling Word Search Game Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Taking care of the environment is very important to all of us. You can make a difference!
Pacific Islanders appear to be carrying the DNA of an unknown human species Hints of an unidentified, extinct human species have been found in the DNA of modern Melanesians - those living in a region of the South Pacific, northeast of Australia. According to new genetic modelling, the species is unlikely to be Neanderthal or Denisovan - two ancient species that are represented in the fossil record - but could represent a third, unknown human relative that has so far eluded archaeologists. "We’re missing a population, or we’re misunderstanding something about the relationships," Ryan Bohlender, a statistical geneticist from the University of Texas, told Tina Hesman Saey at Science News.
How climate change may drive extreme weather —Whether a specific extreme weather event can be linked to climate change rarely gets a straightforward answer from climate scientists or meteorologists. It's complicated, they'll say, but that doesn't mean there isn't a relationship. "Climate scientists have been willing to link the general increase in certain types of weather extremes (heat waves, droughts, and floods) to climate change in a generic sense," says Michael Mann, an atmospheric scientist at Pennsylvania State University. Rising global temperatures and other climate forces can certainly change the conditions that underlie weather, which climate scientists have said can lead to a change in the frequency of a type of weather event. But Dr. Mann and colleagues report that there is a more direct way that climate change is impacting weather extremes: by altering the movement of the jet stream.
Ocean Color Image Archive Page NOTE: All SeaWiFS images presented here are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with GeoEye Category: All Gallery Images This SeaWiFs image provides a view of a Dust storm over the Red Sea. Northwest African Dust Storm A massive dust storm erupted off the northwestern coast of Africa over this past weekend and seemd to be at its maximum intensity on Sunday, 2 March 2003 as seen in this SeaWiFS true color image.