Fuego Volcano eruption subsides in Guatemala
Guatemala City (AFP) Nov 11, 2015 -
A live volcano whose increased activity this week near Guatemala's capital - causing ash columns in the sky, explosions and tremors - sparked an alert subsided on Wednesday, emergency response officials said.
"The eruption of Fuego Volcano has diminished considerably... and this Wednesday it presented a relatively weak explosion considered within normal parameters," a spokesman for the Dis ...
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China's Singles Day sparks baby formula shortage in Australia
Sydney (AFP) Nov 11, 2015 -
An Australian company has apologised to mothers after its premium organic baby milk formula flew off supermarket shelves ahead of China's Singles Day buying frenzy on Wednesday.
Consumers spent US$9 billion in the first 12 hours of Singles Day, a 24-hour retailing bonanza that is the world's biggest online shopping day, with infant formula maker Bellamy's Organic caught up its the wake.
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Climate summit: 'considerable task ahead', says France
Paris (AFP) Nov 10, 2015 -
Ministers and negotiators from more than 75 nations have made headway in talks ahead of a crunch UN climate summit but "the task ahead is considerable", France's foreign minister said Tuesday.
Laurent Fabius, who will preside over the November 30-December 11 conference in Paris, told journalists the three days of talks, which ended Tuesday, had been an important step and "progress has been m ...
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Shipping fears as Rhine falls to lowest level in 40 years
The Hague (AFP) Nov 11, 2015 -
The Rhine has been hit by its longest period of low water in 40 years, Dutch officials said Wednesday, raising inland shipping costs and fears of collisions on one of Europe's busiest rivers.
"The Netherlands is currently hit by the lowest water levels in the Rhine since 1976," said the Rijkswaterstaat, the department tasked with dealing with transport infrastructure.
On Monday "the 1976 ...
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Climate summit: 'considerable task ahead', says France
Paris (AFP) Nov 10, 2015 -
Ministers and negotiators from more than 75 nations made headway in talks ahead of a crunch UN climate summit but "the task ahead is considerable", France's foreign minister said Tuesday.
Laurent Fabius, who will preside over the November 30-December 11 conference in Paris, told journalists the three days of talks ending Tuesday had been an important step and "progress has been made on at le ...
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China two-child policy to add 3 million babies a year: officials
Beijing (AFP) Nov 10, 2015 -
Around three million extra babies will be born each year after Beijing abolished its hugely controversial "one child" policy to allow all couples to have two offspring, officials said Tuesday.
Decades of strict, sometimes brutal enforcement left the world's largest population - 1.37 billion people - ageing rapidly and with a shrinking workforce that has heightened the challenges of slowing ...
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Oil giant Saudi Arabia submits carbon-curbing pledge
Paris (AFP) Nov 10, 2015 -
Oil export giant Saudi Arabia submitted its pledge Tuesday to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a move observers hailed as a step in the right direction.
In an action plan filed with the UN three weeks before a crucial climate conference in Paris, the world's biggest crude oil exporter said up to 130 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per year would be "avoided" by 2030.
I ...
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EU looks beyond borders for energy
Brussels (UPI) Nov 10, 2015 -
Some of the key pillars to strengthening energy security in the European Union lie beyond the bloc's borders, a European energy official said from Brussels.
The European economies depend heavily on imports of oil and natural gas from Russia, Norway and elsewhere. Strains on production brought on by lower crude oil prices, and geopolitical conflicts along the border with Russia, have pre ...
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Bank of England gauges impact of lower oil prices
London (UPI) Nov 10, 2015 -
With about 60 percent of the drop in crude oil prices linked to demand issues, the Bank of England suggested pressure may be negative for the British economy.
Lower crude oil prices have translated to a de facto form of stimulus to consumers and consuming nations, but left exporters struggling to cope with weakened economies.
The Canadian economy most recently said it was flirtin ...
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Dispersants fail: Half the spilled BP oil may be on Gulf floor
Athens, Ga. (UPI) Nov 10, 2015 -
New research suggests a chemical dispersant used in the wake of the BP oil spill failed to help, and may have actually hindered, the cleanup.
A study led by researchers at the University of Georgia showed a chemical concoction thought to encourage the oil's breakdown, in fact, hampers the ability of microorganisms to naturally degrade the hydrocarbons.
Scientists recreated the co ...
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U.S. shale oil basins to decline
Washington (UPI) Nov 10, 2015 -
Only the Permian shale basin in the southern United States is expected to record a year-on-year increase in oil production, federal data show.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration in a monthly report on drilling productivity found most of the seven inland shale basins that account for nearly all of the domestic oil production growth between 2011-14 are now in decline.
Energ ...
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China to push alternative trade pact at APEC: minister
Beijing (AFP) Nov 10, 2015 -
China will seek to push its own vision of an Asia-Pacific trade pact at a regional summit next week, senior officials said Tuesday, after this month's release of a rival US-led deal that pointedly excludes the Asian giant.
Beijing sought to promote the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) at last year's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, which it hosted.
At the meeti ...
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'Sharing economy' firms urge safety net for workers
Washington (AFP) Nov 10, 2015 -
A coalition of "sharing economy" startups joined labor activists and others Tuesday to endorse efforts for a "flexible safety net" for workers without traditional job protection.
A statement signed by the founders of ride-sharing startup Lyft, the delivery group Instacart and leaders of think tanks and venture capital firms said more should be done to ensure social protection for the growing ...
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Weak China inflation stokes fears over slowing demand
Beijing (AFP) Nov 10, 2015 -
China's consumer price inflation fell to a five-month low in October, the government said Tuesday, in another sign of weak demand in the world's second-largest economy.
China is a key driver of global growth but expansion slowed to its lowest rate in nearly a quarter of a century in 2014 and has continued to weaken this year.
A year-on-year rise of 1.3 percent in the consumer price index ...
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IEA praises Canadian carbon capture initiative
Paris (UPI) Nov 9, 2015 -
The launch in Canada of the world's first carbon capture project for oil sands is a welcome statement from an industry under the microscope, the IEA said.
With momentum building for the U.N. climate negotiations in Paris, the International Energy Agency said the Canadian oil sands industry was taking remarkable steps with the launch of a novel carbon capture and storage project, which i ...
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New Jersey is next for offshore wind energy
Washington (UPI) Nov 10, 2015 -
Two energy companies won the rights to advance wind energy off New Jersey's coast, where the potential exists to power 1.2 million homes, the government said.
RES America Development and U.S. Wind Inc. bid more than $1.8 million collectively for the rights to consider the potential to develop wind energy in the federal waters off the coast of New Jersey.
"We are optimistic about ...
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UMD discovery could enable portable particle accelerators
College Park MD (SPX) Nov 10, 2015 -
Conventional particle accelerators are typically big machines that occupy a lot of space. Even at more modest energies, such as that used for cancer therapy and medical imaging, accelerators need large rooms to accommodate the required hardware, power supplies and radiation shielding.
A new discovery by physicists at the University of Maryland could hold the key to the construction of inex ...
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Researchers build nanoscale autonomous walking machine from DNA
Austin TX (SPX) Nov 09, 2015 -
Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a nanoscale machine made of DNA that can randomly walk in any direction across bumpy surfaces. Future applications of such a DNA walker might include a cancer detector that could roam the human body searching for cancerous cells and tagging them for medical imaging or drug targeting.
The study by researchers Cheulhee Jung, Pet ...
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A new slant on semiconductor characterization
Evanston IL (SPX) Nov 10, 2015 -
From laptops and televisions to smartphones and tablets, semiconductors have made advanced electronics possible. These types of devices are so pervasive, in fact, that Northwestern Engineering's Matthew Grayson says we are living in the "Semiconductor Age."
"You have all these great applications like computer chips, lasers, and camera imagers," said Grayson, associate professor of electric ...
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A new dimension to high-temperature superconductivity
Menlo Park, CA (SPX) Nov 10, 2015 -
A team led by scientists at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory combined powerful magnetic pulses with some of the brightest X-rays on the planet to discover a surprising 3-D arrangement of a material's electrons that appears closely linked to a mysterious phenomenon known as high-temperature superconductivity.
This unexpected twist marks an important milestone ...
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Few bright spots for U.S. coal
New York (UPI) Nov 10, 2015 -
The coal industry in the United States faces more prospects of decline because of strains on export options and green agendas, Fitch Ratings finds.
Fitch said there's been a "wave of bankruptcies" in the United States, with at least three major producers announcing major defaults this year.
New York City is leading a national trend in divestments from coal, with pension fund mana ...
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Explaining a mysterious barrier to fusion known as the 'density limit'
Washington DC (SPX) Nov 11, 2015 -
For more than 50 years physicists have puzzled over a daunting mystery: Why do tokamak plasmas spiral apart when reaching a certain maximum density and halt fusion reactions? This "density limit" serves as a barrier that prevents tokamaks from operating at peak efficiency, and understanding what sets this maximum density would speed the development of fusion as a safe, clean and abundant energy ...
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Chinese plane to arrive, six years late: report
Shanghai (AFP) Nov 10, 2015 -
China's main commercial aircraft maker will deliver its long-delayed first homegrown regional jet by the end of 2015, state media reported Tuesday, years behind the originally announced deadline.
State-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China (COMAC) will deliver a 78-90 seat ARJ21 to domestic carrier Chengdu Airlines in late November or early December, the official Xinhua news agency said. ...
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Striking the right note on a magnetic violin
Washington DC (SPX) Nov 11, 2015 -
The swirling plasma in donut-shaped fusion facilities called tokamaks are subject to intense heat bursts that can damage the vessel's walls. Halting or mitigating these bursts, called Edge Localized Modes (ELMs), is a key goal of fusion research.
While physicists have long known that they could suppress ELMs by pushing and pulling on the plasma with magnetic fields, they frequently found t ...
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The long and short of plasma turbulence
Washington DC (SPX) Nov 11, 2015 -
For more than 60 years, fusion scientists have tried to use "magnetic bottles" of various shapes and sizes to confine extremely hot plasmas, with the goal of producing practical fusion energy. But turbulence in the plasma has, so far, confounded researchers' ability to efficiently contain the intense heat within the core of the fusion device, reducing performance. Now, scientists have used one o ...
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