How honey bees stay cool
Somerville MA (SPX) Jul 24, 2014 -
Honey bees, especially the young, are highly sensitive to temperature and to protect developing bees, adults work together to maintain temperatures within a narrow range. Recently published research led by Philip T. Starks, a biologist at Tufts University's School of Arts and Sciences, is the first to show that worker bees dissipate excess heat within a hive in process similar to how humans and ...
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China's ageing millions look forward to bleak future
Beijing (AFP) July 24, 2014 -
As she nears retirement along with millions of other Chinese, He Xiangying is too busy sending her son money and raising a stranger's child to worry about who will eventually look after her.
The nanny's plan is to work until her health fails, then go back to her home village in the Chinese countryside and grow vegetables to save money.
She holds out little hope of help from her jobless s ...
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Bruised, battered but still fighting: Bob Geldof
Melbourne (AFP) July 24, 2014 -
After three months of private grief over the death of his daughter Peaches, Bob Geldof returned to the world spotlight on Thursday, taking up the cause of AIDS with his trademark mix of anger and empathy.
In an interview with AFP on the sidelines of the International AIDS Conference, Geldof blasted rich countries that were becoming indifferent to the pandemic and lashed Russia, Uganda and Ni ...
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'Shocking' underground water loss in US drought: study
Washington (AFP) July 24, 2014 -
A major drought across the western United States has sapped underground water resources, posing a greater threat to the water supply than previously understood, scientists said Thursday.
The study involves seven western states - including Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, California, New Mexico and Nevada - in an area known as the Colorado River Basin.
Since 2000, the region has seen t ...
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As humans multiply, bugs decline and conflict spikes
Washington (AFP) July 24, 2014 -
As the number of humans on Earth has nearly doubled over the past four decades, the number of bugs, slugs, worms and crustaceans has declined by 45 percent, researchers said Thursday.
Meanwhile, the larger loss of wildlife big and small across the planet may be a key driver of growing violence and unrest, said another study in the journal Science as part of a special series on disappearing a ...
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US food firm sorry over China 'bad meat' scandal
Shanghai (AFP) July 24, 2014 -
The US food supplier at the centre of an expired meat scandal in China has apologised, as KFC and Pizza Hut's parent company said it would stop using the firm's products in the key Chinese market.
Shanghai authorities at the weekend shut a plant owned by privately-held OSI Group for mixing out-of-date meat with fresh product, and on Wednesday detained five officials from the OSI subsidiary ...
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Australian injecting room upholds fight against AIDS epidemic
Sydney (AFP) July 24, 2014 -
Nestled among the bars and strip clubs of Sydney's Kings Cross is a service which not only saves lives, but continues the pragmatic approach which prevented a HIV epidemic among drug-users in Australia.
Behind a nondescript shopfront is the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre - the only place in the southern hemisphere where users can inject heroin and other drugs under the care of ...
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Footprints suggest tyrannosaurs were gregarious
Ottawa (AFP) July 24, 2014 -
Scientists in western Canada have discovered the fossilized footprints of three tyrannosaurs that suggest these fearsome predators may have hunted in packs.
The sets of tyrannosaur footprints are the first ever to be found in proximity to one another and are the only clear evidence so far that these dinosaurs may have been social rather solitary animals.
"The evidence is as strong as you ...
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OCO-2 Data to Lead Scientists Forward into the Past
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 23, 2014 -
NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2, which launched on July 2, will soon be providing about 100,000 high-quality measurements each day of carbon dioxide concentrations from around the globe. Atmospheric scientists are excited about that. But to understand the processes that control the amount of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, they need to know more than just where carbon dioxide is now. ...
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Four billion-year-old chemistry in cells today
Norwich, UK (SPX) Jul 25, 2014 -
Parts of the primordial soup in which life arose have been maintained in our cells today according to scientists at the University of East Anglia.
Research published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry reveals how cells in plants, yeast and very likely also in animals still perform ancient reactions thought to have been responsible for the origin of life - some four billion years ago. ...
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Climate change and the soil
Washington DC (SPX) Jul 24, 2014 -
The planet's soil releases about 60 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year, which is far more than that released by burning fossil fuels. This happens through a process called soil respiration.
This enormous release of carbon is balanced by carbon coming into the soil system from falling leaves and other plant matter, as well as by the underground activities of plant roots. ...
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Parched West is using up underground water
Irvine CA (SPX) Jul 25, 2014 -
A new study by University of California, Irvine and NASA scientists finds more than 75 percent of the water loss in the drought-stricken Colorado River Basin since late 2004 came from underground resources. The extent of groundwater loss may pose a greater threat to the water supply of the western United States than previously thought.
This study is the first to quantify the amount that gr ...
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The geography of the global electronic waste e-waste burden
Washington DC (SPX) Jul 24, 2014 -
As local and national governments struggle to deal with ever-growing piles of electronic waste (or "e-waste"), scientists are now refining the picture of just how much there is and where it really ends up.
Published in the ACS journal Environmental Science and Technology, their study found that nearly a quarter of e-waste that developed countries discard floods into just seven developing c ...
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New perspective on agricultural plastic, debris burning, and air quality
Riverside CA (SPX) Jul 25, 2014 -
To reduce fire hazard in the United States, wildland managers often utilize the silvicultural practice of mechanically cutting woody shrubs and suppressed trees (ladder fuels). These cuttings and other post-logging debris are then burned during periods of low fire danger in order to dispose of the material.
To improve the burning and minimize hazardous air pollutants, managers often cover ...
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More than glitter
Boston MA (SPX) Jul 23, 2014 -
A special class of tiny gold particles can easily slip through cell membranes, making them good candidates to deliver drugs directly to target cells. A new study from MIT materials scientists reveals that these nanoparticles enter cells by taking advantage of a route normally used in vesicle-vesicle fusion, a crucial process that allows signal transmission between neurons.
In Nature Commun ...
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Rising temperatures hinder Indian wheat production
Southampton, UK (SPX) Jul 24, 2014 -
Geographers at the University of Southampton have found a link between increasing average temperatures in India and a reduction in wheat production. Researchers Dr John Duncan, Dr Jadu Dash and Professor Pete Atkinson have shown that recent warmer temperatures in the country's major wheat belt are having a negative effect on crop yield.
More specifically, they found a rise in nighttime tem ...
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Leaf-mining insects destroyed with the dinosaurs, others quickly appeared
University Park PA (SPX) Jul 25, 2014 -
After the asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous period that triggered the dinosaurs' extinction and ushered in the Paleocene, leaf-mining insects in the western United States completely disappeared. Only a million years later, at Mexican Hat, in southeastern Montana, fossil leaves show diverse leaf-mining traces from new insects that were not present during the Cretaceous, according to pa ...
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The microbes make the sake brewery
Washington DC (SPX) Jul 25, 2014 -
A sake brewery has its own microbial terroir, meaning the microbial populations found on surfaces in the facility resemble those found in the product, creating the final flavor according to research published ahead of print in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. This is the first time investigators have taken a microbial census of a sake brewery.
Many sake makers inoculate ...
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Water, water - not everywhere: Mapping water trends for African maize
Princeton NJ (SPX) Jul 23, 2014 -
Today's food production relies heavily on irrigation, but across sub-Saharan Africa only 4 percent of cultivated land is irrigated, compared with a global average of 18 percent. Small-scale farming is the main livelihood for many people in the region, who depend on rainfall to water their crops.
To understand how climate change may affect the availability of water for agriculture, research ...
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Facebook shares profit growth story
San Francisco (AFP) July 23, 2014 -
Facebook on Wednesday reported that is quarterly profit more than doubled amid big gains in ad revenues and a jump in users.
Net income leapt to $791 million during the three months ended June 30 in a 138 percent increase from the $333 million made during the same period a year earlier, the world's biggest social network said.
"We had a good second quarter," Facebook co-founder and chief ...
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Romanian city opens plastic bottle bridge in litter protest
Timisoara, Romania (AFP) July 23, 2014 -
Timisoara in western Romania on Wednesday inaugurated a 23-metre (75 feet) bridge made of more than 157,000 collected plastic bottles to warn against the devastating effects of litter.
Residents claim the bridge crossing the Bega Canal in the city centre is the largest in the world built from plastic bottles. A commission of the Guinness book of records has yet to decide on the issue.
Mo ...
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Boeing boosts 2014 profit forecast after strong Q2
Washington (AFP) July 23, 2014 -
US aerospace giant Boeing on Wednesday raised its full-year profit forecast after earnings soared 52 percent in the second quarter, lifted by increased jetliner deliveries.
Boeing posted net profit of $1.65 billion for the April-June quarter, up from $1.09 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Core earnings per share rose 45 percent to $2.42, widely topping the $2.01 expected by analysts.
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Beijing shuts large coal power plant to curb smog: report
Beijing (AFP) July 23, 2014 -
Beijing on Wednesday closed the first of four large coal-fired power plants that are set to be shut down as part of efforts to curb its choking air pollution, media reported.
The 50-year-old Gaojing Thermal Power Plant is to be replaced with a gas-fired power station, one of four that is to be built as the Chinese capital aims to boost its reliance on cleaner energy, Xinhua news agency said. ...
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Rwanda to Unveil First Utility-Scale Solar PV Power Plant in East Africa
Rwamagana, Rwanda (SPX) Jul 24, 2014 -
The Government of Rwanda is preparing to commission in early August 2014 the first utility-scale solar PV power plant in East Africa with a production capacity of 8.5 MWp. The project has commenced testing phase of up to 20% of its total capacity.
At present, less than one in five households in Rwanda have access to electricity, and this will increase the country's production capacity by u ...
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Playters New Solar Farm 7.25 MW solar farm approved
London, UK (SPX) Jul 24, 2014 -
EEW Eco Energy World is pleased that our proposal for a Solar Farm at Playters New Farm, Church Road, Ellough, Beccles was approved by the Waveney District Council Development Control Committee on Tuesday 15 July.
The solar farm will comprise of nearly 28,000 solar panels each measuring 1.65m x 0.992m. Once installed, the capacity will be 7.245MW, generating approximately 6,719MWH annually ...
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