Hong Kong urged to accept 'imperfect' democracy
Hong Kong (AFP) Aug 28, 2014 -
Hong Kongers must accept Beijing's version of democracy even if they think it is imperfect because the interests of the city's business community have to be safeguarded, one of China's foremost legal experts said Thursday.
Wang Zhenmin, a well-connected scholar and regular advisor to Beijing, said greater democratic freedom in the semi-autonomous city must be balanced against the city's powe ...
more
Nouveaux riches and pollutants in new Chinese dictionary
Beijing (AFP) Aug 28, 2014 -
A new Chinese dictionary backed by the national language regulator offers a glimpse into the social and environmental concerns of the citizenry, adding nearly 100 phrases to the lexicon, a report said Thursday.
The additions to the third edition of the Standard Dictionary of Modern Chinese "underscore characteristics of the time", publishing house Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press ...
more
Brazil arrests 8 in Amazon deforestation swoop
Sao Paulo (AFP) Aug 28, 2014 -
Brazilian police said Thursday they had made eight arrests in raids to smash a gang considered the worst perpetrators of deforestation in the Amazon region.
"Eight arrests have been made so far. Police are searching for a further six (suspects) considered to be on the run," a police spokesman in the Amazonian state of Para told AFP.
The gang would invade public land in northern Para stat ...
more
Regional crisis talks as Ebola death toll tops 1,500
Accra (AFP) Aug 28, 2014 -
Ebola-hit nations met for crisis talks on Thursday as the death toll topped 1,500 and the World Health Organization warned that the number of cases could exceed 20,000 before the outbreak is stemmed.
Nigeria announced that the virus had reached its oil-producing hub, dashing hopes that the country had successfully contained it to its biggest city, Lagos.
Hopes were raised meanwhile of a ...
more
China landslide kills seven: report
Beijing (AFP) Aug 28, 2014 -
Seven people died and another 20 were left missing by a landslide in China, state media reported Thursday.
The landslide engulfed a village near Fuquan city in the southwestern province of Guizhou, the Xinhua news agency said.
Torrential rain complicated the rescue work, it said. Pictures showed emergency personnel levering up slabs of tiled wall.
A total of 77 houses collapsed or we ...
more
New signs of eruption at Iceland volcano
Reykjavik (AFP) Aug 28, 2014 -
Teams monitoring Iceland's Bardarbunga volcano have found evidence of a possible underground eruption as powerful earthquakes continue to shake the area, Icelandic authorities said Thursday.
Scientists flying over the area on Wednesday discovered a four to six kilometre (2.5-4 mile) line of giant craters or cauldrons - 10 to 15 metres deep and one kilometre wide - on the Vatnajoekull glac ...
more
Chinese panda fakes pregnancy to get more food [UPDATED]
Chengdu, China (UPI) Aug 28, 2014 -
Earlier this summer, at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Center in China, the lights were on and the camera was rolling. Film crews and biologists had gathered in anticipation of a rare panda birth - a birth set to be broadcast on live television. The only problem, the 6-year-old expectant mother, Ai Hin, wasn't actually pregnant. The live broadcast had to be called off at the last m ...
more
Locust plague descends on Madagascar capital
Antananarivo (AFP) Aug 28, 2014 -
A thick grey swarm of locusts engulfed Madagascar's capital on Thursday, sending children scuttling and causing florists to burn tyres in panic.
A bank of ravenous insects clouded the sky over Antananarivo, with countless thousands raining down dead on to the streets.
"We are going to give them to the chickens to eat, if the chickens don't die, we'll eat them," said 13-year-old Anthoni ...
more
How to prevent organic food fraud
Washington DC (SPX) Aug 29, 2014 -
A growing number of consumers are willing to pay a premium for fruits, vegetables and other foods labelled "organic", but whether they're getting what the label claims is another matter.
Now scientists studying conventional and organic tomatoes are devising a new way to make sure farms are labelling their produce appropriately. Their report, which appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural an ...
more
New study charts the global invasion of crop pests
Exeter, UK (SPX) Aug 29, 2014 -
Many of the world's most important crop-producing countries will be fully saturated with pests by the middle of the century if current trends continue, according to a new study led by the University of Exeter.
More than one-in-ten pest types can already be found in around half the countries that grow their host crops. If this spread advances at its current rate, scientists fear that a sign ...
more
Walking fish reveal how our ancestors evolved onto land
Montreal, Canada (SPX) Aug 29, 2014 -
About 400 million years ago a group of fish began exploring land and evolved into tetrapods - today's amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. But just how these ancient fish used their fishy bodies and fins in a terrestrial environment and what evolutionary processes were at play remain scientific mysteries.
Researchers at McGill University published in the journal Nature, turned to a li ...
more
Evolution used similar toolkits to shape flies, worms, and humans
New Haven CT (SPX) Aug 29, 2014 -
Although separated by hundreds of millions of years of evolution, flies, worms, and humans share ancient patterns of gene expression, according to a massive Yale-led analysis of genomic data.
Two related studies led by scientists at Harvard and Stanford, also published Aug. 28 in the same issue of the journal Nature, tell a similar story: Even though humans, worms, and flies bear little ob ...
more
Water 'thermostat' could help engineer drought-resistant crops
Durham NC (SPX) Aug 29, 2014 -
Duke University researchers have identified a gene that could help scientists engineer drought-resistant crops. The gene, called OSCA1, encodes a protein in the cell membrane of plants that senses changes in water availability and adjusts the plant's water conservation machinery accordingly.
"It's similar to a thermostat," said Zhen-Ming Pei, an associate professor of biology at Duke. The ...
more
Therapy for Sudan strain of Ebola may help contain some outbreaks
Washington DC (SPX) Aug 29, 2014 -
Ebola is a rare, but deadly disease that exists as five strains, none of which have approved therapies. One of the most lethal strains is the Sudan ebolavirus (SUDV).
Although not the strain currently devastating West Africa, SUDV has caused widespread illness, even as recently as 2012. In a new study appearing in the journal ACS Chemical Biology, researchers now report a possible therapy ...
more
Stone-tipped spears lethal, may indicate early cognitive and social skills
Phoenix AZ (SPX) Aug 29, 2014 -
Attaching a stone tip on to a wooden spear shaft was a significant innovation for early modern humans living around 500,000 years ago. However, it was also a costly behavior in terms of time and effort to collect, prepare and assemble the spear.
Stone tips break more frequently than wooden spears, requiring more frequent replacement and upkeep, and the fragility of a broken point could nec ...
more
Southwest may face 'megadrought' this century
Ithaca NY (SPX) Aug 29, 2014 -
Due to global warming, scientists say, the chances of the southwestern United States experiencing a decade long drought is at least 50 percent, and the chances of a "megadrought" - one that lasts over 30 years - ranges from 20 to 50 percent over the next century.
The study by Cornell University, University of Arizona and U.S. Geological Survey researchers will be published in a forthcoming ...
more
The roots of human altruism
Zurich, Switzerland (SPX) Aug 29, 2014 -
Scientists have long been searching for the factor that determines why humans often behave so selflessly. It was known that humans share this tendency with species of small Latin American primates of the family Callitrichidae (tamarins and marmosets), leading some to suggest that cooperative care for the young, which is ubiquitous in this family, was responsible for spontaneous helping behavior. ...
more
Snowfall in a warmer world
Boston MA (SPX) Aug 29, 2014 -
If ever there were a silver lining to global warming, it might be the prospect of milder winters. After all, it stands to reason that a warmer climate would generate less snow.
But a new MIT study suggests that you shouldn't put your shovels away just yet. While most areas in the Northern Hemisphere will likely experience less snowfall throughout a season, the study concludes that extreme ...
more
Pacific plate shrinking as it cools
Houston TX (SPX) Aug 29, 2014 -
The tectonic plate that dominates the Pacific "Ring of Fire" is not as rigid as many scientists assume, according to researchers at Rice University and the University of Nevada.
Rice geophysicist Richard Gordon and his colleague, Corne Kreemer, an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, have determined that cooling of the lithosphere - the outermost layer of Earth - makes so ...
more
Yellowstone supereruption would send ash across North America
Washington DC (SPX) Aug 29, 2014 -
In the unlikely event of a volcanic supereruption at Yellowstone National Park, the northern Rocky Mountains would be blanketed in meters of ash, and millimeters would be deposited as far away as New York City, Los Angeles and Miami, according to a new study.
An improved computer model developed by the study's authors finds that the hypothetical, large eruption would create a distinctive k ...
more
The Kardashians and Climate Change: Interview with Judith Curry
Washington DC (SPX) Aug 28, 2014 -
Climate change continues to drive energy policy, despite the fact that there is no way to reconcile eradicating energy poverty in much of the world with reducing carbon dioxide emissions. This is one of the many conundrums of the climate change debate-a debate that has been taken over by social media and propaganda, while scientists struggle to get back into the game and engage the public.
...
more
Photon speedway puts big data in the fast lane
Berkeley CA (SPX) Aug 28, 2014 -
A series of experiments conducted by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) researchers is shedding new light on the photosynthetic process. The work also illustrates how light sources and supercomputing facilities can be linked via a "photon science speedway" as a solution to emerging challenges in massive data analysis.
Last y ...
more
Yale Journal Explores Advances In Sustainable Manufacturing
New Haven CT (SPX) Aug 28, 2014 -
In recent years, increasing pressure from policymakers, consumers, and suppliers has prompted manufacturers to set environmental targets that go beyond reducing the pollutants they emit from their smokestacks or discharge into rivers and lakes. Today companies must also assess environmental performance at every step in their process, from the mining of primary materials to the use and recycling ...
more
Turning waste from rice, parsley and other foods into biodegradable plastic
Washington DC (SPX) Aug 28, 2014 -
Your chairs, synthetic rugs and plastic bags could one day be made out of cocoa, rice and vegetable waste rather than petroleum, scientists are now reporting. The novel process they developed and their results, which could help the world deal with its agricultural and plastic waste problems, appear in the ACS journal Macromolecules.
Athanassia Athanassiou, Ilker S. Bayer and colleagues at ...
more
Westinghouse Aims to Bring Benefits of AP1000 Reactors to Western US
Pittsburgh PA (SPX) Aug 28, 2014 -
Westinghouse Electric Company and Blue Castle Holdings has announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding to pursue the development of a two-unit AP1000 nuclear power plant at the Green River site in Utah.
Under the agreement, the companies will work together to develop a scope of activities for enabling the Blue Castle Project under a definitive agreement, including marketing, nuc ...
more
