Environmental Impacts of Shale Gas Extraction in Canada
Ottawa, Canada (SPX) May 05, 2014 -
The North American energy landscape is undergoing dramatic change. Unconventional oil and gas resources are fuelling an energy boom that is having profound economic, environmental, and social impacts across much of the continent, including Canada.
At the forefront of this change is shale gas, which has been characterized as a "game changer" because it is abundant, often close to major mark ...
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Approaching the island of stability: Observation of the superheavy element 117
Mainz, Germany (SPX) May 05, 2014 -
The periodic table of the elements is to get crowded towards its heaviest members. Evidence for the artificial creation of element 117 has recently been obtained at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, an accelerator laboratory located in Darm-stadt, Germany. The experiment was performed by an international team of chemists and physicists headed by Prof. Christoph Dullmann, who holds ...
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Protests against British energy companies turn violent
London (UPI) May 5, 2013 -
Though operations are in their infancy, protests against hydraulic fracturing in the United Kingdom have turned violent, corporate officials said.
A manager working for Dart Energy was assaulted by a protester last month near the company's drilling site in Daneshill. The company's chief executive officer, John McGoldrick, said the attacks were "cowardly."
One member of Dart's sta ...
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Jury holds line on damages in Apple patent case
San Francisco (AFP) May 05, 2014 -
Jurors on Monday held the line on its $119.6 million damages award to Apple in its latest patent battle with smartphone rival Samsung in Silicon Valley.
Jury members who had been asked by the judge to fill in a missing royalty amount due to Apple for a Samsung smartphone found to infringe did so, while adjusting downward some other figures to leave the overall award about the same as declare ...
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Chinese rig suspected of entering Vietnamese waters illegally
Hanoi, Vietnam (UPI) May 5, 2013 -
China National Offshore Oil Corp. is operating in waters claimed by the government of Vietnam, a spokesman for the Vietnamese government said.
China Foreign Minister spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Monday CNOOC was working "completely within the area belonging to [the Chinese government]," though the claims were disputed by Vietnam.
China's Maritime Safety Administration said Satur ...
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Brussels air 'catastrophe' narrowly avoided, say residents
Brussels (AFP) May 05, 2014 -
Angry Brussels residents Monday said a Turkish cargo plane following a controversial new flight path over the city almost caused an "aviation catastrophe," but the airport's traffic control denied the charge.
Thousands of residents have signed petitions against a new flight path that entered into force in February and one group of anti-noise pollution campaigners, the UBCNA, said a Turkish B ...
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IBM expands cyber-security solutions
Armonk, N.Y. (UPI) May 5, 2013 -
New security software and services to help protect the critical data of organizations from cyber-intrusion were introduced Monday by IBM.
The IBM Threat Protection System utilizes security intelligence and behavioral analytics to disrupt attacks across the entire attack chain - from break-in to exfiltrate. IBM's Critical Data Protection Program security consulting services is based on ...
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China tycoon eyes Norway after cold reception in Iceland
Shanghai (AFP) May 05, 2014 -
A Chinese property tycoon shut out by Iceland after he sought to buy a vast tract of the country is turning his attention to Norway, he told AFP on Monday.
Huang Nubo, founder of Chinese property firm Zhongkun Group, said in a telephone interview that he still wants to develop high-end resorts in northern Europe and plans to invest 80 million euros ($111 million) in Norway over the next five ...
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Tin helps scientists build new cheaper solar cells
Evanston, Ill. (UPI) May 5, 2013 -
That man on the street corner sporting the tin hat and claiming to have conversed with aliens may not be crazy after all; he could have just been demonstrating the sun-absorbing qualities of tinplate, the silvery-white metal element of atomic number 50.
Tinplate, or tin - as researchers from Northwestern University recently proved - is cheaper than lead and just as good at absorbing s ...
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Iran ready to help European energy sector as Odessa burns
Tehran (UPI) May 5, 2013 -
Iran is ready to help meet European energy needs through pipeline or liquefied natural gas deliveries, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zangenah said.
European leaders are working to find new sources of natural gas in an effort to break Russia's grip on the regional energy sector. With one of the largest gas reserves in the world, Zangeneh said Iran was ready to help.
"As a country cap ...
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Scotland protests tax on North Sea energy work
Edinburgh, Scotland (UPI) May 5, 2013 -
A tax on oil rigs operating in the North Sea would have serious consequences for activity in Scottish waters, Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said.
Ewing said the region's energy sector needs a predictable set of governing policies in order to thrive. Tax policies that would make it more expensive to operate in the North Sea are counterproductive.
"This tax on oil rigs coul ...
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Angola's potential 'enormous,' U.S. Secretary of State Kerry says
Luanda, Angola (UPI) May 5, 2013 -
Some of the biggest energy companies in the world are in Angola to the benefit of the nation's economy, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said.
Kerry arrived Sunday in Angola during his tour of African nations, and met there with representatives from Chevron, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips to hear their energy strategies in the country.
Chevron, a new player in the Angolan energ ...
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A small connection with big implications: Wiring up carbon-based electronics
Basque County, Spain (SPX) May 06, 2014 -
Carbon-based nanostructures such as nanotubes, graphene sheets, and nanoribbons are unique building blocks showing versatile nanomechanical and nanoelectronic properties. These materials which are ordered in the nanoscale, that is, in the dimension of a millionth of millimetre, are promising candidates to envision applications in nanoscale devices, ranging from energy conversion to nano-electron ...
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Element 117, discovered by Laboratory, one step closer to being named
Livermore CA (SPX) May 06, 2014 -
Element 117, first discovered by Lawrence Livermore scientists and international collaborators in 2010, is one step closer to being named.
The existence of element 117 and its decay chain to elements 115 and 113 have been confirmed by a second international team led by scientists at GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, an accelerator laboratory located in Darmstadt, Germany. The re ...
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Hunter and Nanometrics Monitor Seismic Zones and Oilfield Induced Seismicity
Ottawa, Canada (SPX) May 06, 2014 -
Hunter Communications has teamed with Nanometrics, one of the world's leading manufacturers of seismology systems and instrumentation, to develop an induced seismic and microseismic monitoring application via satellite for oil and gas drilling sites where hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") is employed.
The application is deployed by the Nanometrics LIBRA very small aperture terminal (VSAT) ...
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Harnessing Magnetic Vortices for Making Nanoscale Antennas
Upton NY (SPX) May 06, 2014 -
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory are seeking ways to synchronize the magnetic spins in nanoscale devices to build tiny yet more powerful signal-generating or receiving antennas and other electronics. Their latest work, published in Nature Communications, shows that stacked nanoscale magnetic vortices separated by an extremely thin layer of copper can b ...
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New revolutionary sensor links pressure to color change
Riverside CA (SPX) May 06, 2014 -
Imagine an automobile crash test that uses test dummies painted all over with a substance that can change color according to the levels of stress that various parts of the dummies' bodies will endure. Such a "color map" could provide vital information to engineers designing safer automobiles.
Or imagine baseball gloves that when worn show the batters if they are using the appropriate amoun ...
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Molecular Foundry Opens the Door to Better Doping of Semiconductor Nanocrystals
Berkeley CA (SPX) May 06, 2014 -
The icing on the cake for semiconductor nanocrystals that provide a non-damped optoelectronic effect may exist as a layer of tin that segregates near the surface.
One method of altering the electrical properties of a semiconductor is by introducing impurities called dopants. A team led by Delia Milliron, a chemist at Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry, a U.S Department of Energy (DOE) nation ...
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The pitch drops that got the world talking
London, UK (SPX) May 06, 2014 -
In light of recent results from the "world's longest experiment", spanning more than 90 years, at the University of Queensland, a group of researchers from Trinity College Dublin explain the background behind their own pitch-drop experiment in this month's Physics World and offer an explanation as to why their research hit the The pitch drops that got the world talkings in 2013.
Capturing ...
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High Quality Three-Dimensional Nanoporous Graphene
Sendai, Japan (SPX) May 06, 2014 -
Three-dimentional (3D) nanoporous graphene with preserved 2D Dirac electronic characters was successfully synthesized by Dr. Yoshikazu Ito and Prof. Mingwei CHEN at Advanced Institute for Materials Research (AIMR), Tohoku University.
The nanoporous graphene is constructed by a single layer graphene sheet that is continuously inter-connected to form a complex 3D network structure. This free ...
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