Everest trek route suffered minimal quake damage: study
Kathmandu (AFP) Aug 7, 2015 -
The vast majority of guesthouses and trails on the popular Mount Everest trekking route emerged unscathed from Nepal's devastating earthquake, said an assessment report released Friday.
Tourism-dependent Nepal had called in international experts to examine trekking routes in the Everest and Annapurna region following April's disaster to certify that they were safe for hikers.
A team of s ...
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Study to help suburbanites have a pretty and bee-friendly lawn
Lexington, Ky. (UPI) Aug 7, 2015 -
In suburban America, a clean slate of turf serves as the default for front and back yards.
But with bee and butterfly populations in decline, some homeowners are hoping to grow a lawn that's both attractive and eco-friendly. Researchers at the University of Kentucky are looking to give such homeowners and lawn caretakers a viable solution.
Specifically, researchers are trying to ...
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Faroe court convicts five anti-whaling activists
Copenhagen (AFP) Aug 7, 2015 -
A Faroe Islands court on Friday found five activists from the militant conservation group Sea Shepherd guilty of disrupting the region's traditional whale hunt, one of the activists said.
The five were arrested on July 23 in the Faroe Islands - an archipelago of 18 islands that make up an autonomous province of Denmark - as they attempted to stop and document the annual pilot whale cull. ...
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NASA Goddard Technology Helps Fight Forest Pests
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Aug 04, 2015 -
Northeastern forests in the United States cover more than 165 million acres, an area almost as big as Texas. Soon, millions of pine and ash trees in those forests could be wiped out, thanks in part to two types of voracious insects-each smaller than a penny.
A joint operation using technology developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will help the U.S. Forest ...
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Keeping algae from stressing out
Washington DC (SPX) Aug 05, 2015 -
While most people might know some algae as "pond scum," to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), they are tiny organisms that could provide a source of sustainable fuels. Like plants, they can convert light into energy-rich chemical compounds; unlike plants, they require less space and don't need arable soil to grow.
Some algae like Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (or "Chlamy," as it's known to i ...
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Honeywell search and rescue tech commissioned for defense customer
Ottawa, Canada (SPX) Aug 05, 2015 -
Honeywell reports that its Global Tracking business successfully commissioned a next-generation search and rescue (SAR) system for Canada's Department of National Defense.
The new SAR system helps operators in Mission Control Centers perform their life-saving duties more efficiently by quickly displaying location details of alerts and minimizing error-prone manual data entry, resulting in ...
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Scientists solve mystery behind earthworm digestion
London UK (SPX) Aug 05, 2015 -
Scientists have discovered how earthworms can digest plant material, such as fallen leaves, that would defeat most other herbivores.
Earthworms are responsible for returning the carbon locked inside dead plant material back into the ground. They drag fallen leaves and other plant material down from the surface and eat them, enriching the soil, and they do this in spite of toxic chemicals p ...
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