International donors pledge $3bn to save shrinking Aral Sea
Tashkent (AFP) Oct 30, 2014 -
Leading international donor organisations have pledged $3 billion to help save the shrinking Aral Sea - the worst man-made ecological catastrophe ever.
The funds will go to improve the socio-economic, health and ecological situation in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, the countries bordering the lake, officials said late Wednesday at the end of two-day international conference held ...
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Research Shows Solar Energy Owners Predominantly Middle-Class
Hudson MA (SPX) Oct 31, 2014 -
Most people going solar in Massachusetts have household incomes (HHI) of less than $150,000, according to a survey conducted by New England Clean Energy. Nearly 250 customers responded to the Hudson-based installer's survey on HHI. The results show that people purchasing solar electricity systems, with or without financing, cross all income brackets, but predominantly (67 percent) earn less than ...
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Fresh clashes in France after dam protest death
Paris (AFP) Oct 30, 2014 -
Fresh clashes broke out overnight in Paris between police and activists protesting over the death of a young man who was killed during a demonstration against a controversial dam project.
A group of around 250 people gathered late Wednesday outside the City Hall in Paris, with some hurling missiles at police and scrawling "Remi is dead, the state kills" on walls.
Remi Fraisse, 21, was fo ...
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Ukrainian gas deal 'within reach,' Europe says
Brussels (UPI) Oct 30, 2014 -
An agreement meant to settle longstanding gas disputes between Russia and Ukraine is "within reach," the president of the European Commission said Thursday.
Brussels hosted trilateral meetings between Russian, European and Ukrainian officials aimed at resolving gas disputes growing out of geopolitical rows over post-Soviet Ukriane.
European Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger s ...
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China 'vulnerable' to Ebola outbreak: expert
Tokyo (AFP) Oct 30, 2014 -
China is "vulnerable" to the deadly Ebola outbreak due to the soaring number of Chinese working in Africa and poor infection control at home, a co-discoverer of the virus warned Thursday.
Belgian microbiologist Peter Piot also said experience with other viral outbreaks showed that airport screening was largely ineffective, and repeated his earlier criticism of the World Health Organization's ...
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Technip sales up despite caution among oil industry players
Paris (AFP) Oct 30, 2014 -
French oil services group Technip on Thursday reported soaring sales even though weak petrol prices have forced energy giants to be cautious about future investments.
The engineering group, which provides engineering services to oil and gas giants such as Total, BP or Shell, said sales rose 17.8 percent to 2.82 billion euros.
Net profit slid to 12.3 percent to 131.6 million euros, but Te ...
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Psychedelic mushrooms enable a hyperconnected brain
London (UPI) Oct 30, 2014 -
Many laypeople as well as scientists know the chemical that puts the "magic" in magic mushrooms is psilocybin. But how exactly does psilocybin affect the brain? What is the mechanism by which psilocybin delivers magic mushrooms' hallucinogenic and mind-bending properties?
Thanks to the work of researchers at King's College London, scientists now have better answers to these questions. P ...
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US economy clocks solid growth in third quarter
Washington (AFP) Oct 30, 2014 -
The US economy grew at a faster-than-expected 3.5 percent pace in the third quarter helped by stronger exports and defense spending, suggesting enough momentum to do without Federal Reserve stimulus.
The Commerce Department report for the July-September period on Thursday came just a day after the Fed announced it would end its quantitative easing program of buying bonds this month, after pu ...
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Rains hamper Sri Lanka mudslide tragedy search effort
Koslanda, Sri Lanka (AFP) Oct 30, 2014 -
Heavy rains disrupted a massive search Thursday for scores of people feared buried in a landslide on a Sri Lankan tea estate, further dimming prospects of finding anyone alive.
An estimated 100 people are still listed as missing, according to the national Disaster Management Centre (DMC), a day after dozens of tin-roofed homes were buried under tonnes of mud, with only a handful of bodies re ...
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TransCanada: Energy East pipeline application submitted
Quebec City (UPI) Oct 30, 2014 -
Pipeline planner TransCanada Corp. said Thursday it filed a formal application for its Energy East pipeline project for eastern Canadian oil refineries.
The Energy East oil pipeline involves the construction of a new 930-mile segment and converting 1,800 miles of gas line for oil service. It's designed to carry 1.1 million barrels of oil per day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to eastern ...
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Thriving in Poland, Hucul ponies yet to gallop in native Ukraine
Odrzychowa, Poland (AFP) Oct 30, 2014 -
At the foot of the wild Carpathian mountains in Poland near the Ukraine border, both countries are working to protect the Hucul pony, a small native horse breed that was on the brink of extinction just 70 years ago.
"When we began reintroducing the Hucul here about 40 years ago, there were barely 100 mares in all of Poland," Wladyslaw Brejta, who runs the stud farm that spearheaded the EU-sp ...
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U.S. sinks $25 million in funding for renewables
Washington (UPI) Oct 30, 2014 -
The U.S. Energy Department said it released $25 million in funding for the advance of wave and solar energy, with solar setting installation records.
The Energy Department said it was working with the U.S. Navy by offering $10 million to support the continued development of wave energy conversion devices at a military base in Hawaii. The project is being developed by MHK Technologies. / ...
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Why NASA is watching Ebola
Washington (UPI) Oct 30, 2014 -
It's well known that scientists at NASA are eager to get samples of soil and rock from Mars into labs here on Earth. And and the most coveted of samples are those that might contain evidence of life, microbial or otherwise.
But what are the dangers of such samples? Could Martian bacteria become a public health menace? Could alien organisms become environmental hazards? Yes and no, exper ...
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Smartphone sales lifted by emerging markets
Washington (AFP) Oct 30, 2014 -
Global smartphone sales grew at a healthy pace in the third quarter, boosted by low-cost handsets in emerging markets, industry research showed Thursday.
The research firm IDC said global smartphone shipments jumped 25.2 percent from a year earlier to 327.6 million in the quarter, and were up 8.7 percent over the second quarter.
"Despite rumors of a slowing market, smartphone shipments c ...
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British navy arrives to 'kick Ebola out of Sierra Leone'
Freetown (AFP) Oct 30, 2014 -
A British navy mission said it was nervous but ready "to see that Ebola is kicked out" as it arrived in Sierra Leone Thursday to treat victims of the deadly virus.
The RFA Argus was cheered by dockworkers and other vessels as it completed a 10-day voyage from southwest England to Freetown, the capital of its former colony.
"There was lots of anxiety from us as well as from our relatives ...
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Drones spotted over seven French nuclear sites, says EDF
Paris (AFP) Oct 29, 2014 -
France's state-run power firm EDF on Wednesday said unidentified drones had flown over seven nuclear plants this month, leading it to file a complaint with the police.
The unmanned aircraft did not harm "the safety or the operation" of the power plants, Electricite de France said, adding that the first drone was spotted on October 5 above a plant in deconstruction in eastern Creys-Malville. ...
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Costa Rica on alert after volcano spews ash toward capital
San Jose, Costa Rica (AFP) Oct 30, 2014 -
Costa Rican authorities issued an emergency alert on Thursday after ash from the erupting Turrialba volcano reached the capital San Jose and beyond.
The alert came after a series of eruptions late Wednesday and early Thursday. The National Emergency Commission also ordered the closure of the national park around the volcano.
In a statement, authorities said 11 people had been evacuated t ...
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Active, biodegradable packaging for oily products
Leioa, Spain (SPX) Oct 31, 2014 -
The increase in the presence of plastic in our lives is an unstoppable trend due to the versatility of this material. So innovation in the packaging industry has been focusing on the development of new, more sustainable, economically viable materials with enhanced properties and which also perform the functions required by this sector: to contain, protect and preserve the product, to inform the ...
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China's 31st Antarctic expedition sets out
Beijing (XNA) Oct 31, 2014 -
Chinese research vessel and icebreaker Xuelong (Snow Dragon) set off on Thursday from Shanghai on the country's 31st Antarctic expedition, scheduled to return in April next year.
An important task for the mission is the building of a base station for the BeiDou navigation satellite system. The base will provide data and technical support for the navigation system and for Antarctic surveys ...
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DARPA Circuit Achieves Speeds of 1 Trillion Cycles per Second
Washington DC (SPX) Oct 31, 2014 -
Officials from Guinness World Records have recognized DARPA's Terahertz Electronics program for creating the fastest solid-state amplifier integrated circuit ever measured. The ten-stage common-source amplifier operates at a speed of one terahertz (1012 GHz), or one trillion cycles per second-150 billion cycles faster than the existing world record of 850 gigahertz set in 2012.
"Terahertz ...
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Himalayan Viagra fuels caterpillar fungus gold rush
St. Louis MO (SPX) Oct 31, 2014 -
Overwhelmed by speculators trying to cash-in on a prized medicinal fungus known as Himalayan Viagra, two isolated Tibetan communities have managed to do at the local level what world leaders often fail to do on a global scale - implement a successful system for the sustainable harvest of a precious natural resource, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.
"There's th ...
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Hybrid fluid transmission enables light and swift robotic arms
Glendale CA (SPX) Oct 31, 2014 -
Engineers routinely face tradeoffs as they design robotic limbs - weight vs. speed, ease of control vs. fluidity. A new hybrid fluid transmission developed at Disney Research Pittsburgh promises to eliminate some of those tradeoffs, making possible robot arms that are light enough to move swiftly and gracefully, yet with precise control.
The transmission consists of antagonist pairs of rol ...
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2014 Antarctic Ozone Hole Holds Steady
Washington DC (SPX) Oct 31, 2014 -
The Antarctic ozone hole reached its annual peak size on Sept. 11, according to scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The size of this year's hole was 24.1 million square kilometers (9.3 million square miles) - an area roughly the size of North America.
The single-day maximum area was similar to that in 2013, which reached 24.0 million square ...
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Harnessing error-prone chips
Boston MA (SPX) Oct 31, 2014 -
As transistors get smaller, they also grow less reliable. Increasing their operating voltage can help, but that means a corresponding increase in power consumption.
With information technology consuming a steadily growing fraction of the world's energy supplies, some researchers and hardware manufacturers are exploring the possibility of simply letting chips botch the occasional computatio ...
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Restoring wetlands can lessen soil sinkage, greenhouse gas emissions
Hanover NH (SPX) Oct 31, 2014 -
Restoring wetlands can help reduce or reverse soil subsidence and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to research in California's Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta by Dartmouth College researchers and their colleagues.
The study, which is one of the first to continually measure the fluctuations of both carbon and methane as they cycle through wetlands, appears in the journal by Glo ...
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