China sets CO2 target, garners praise
Paris (AFP) June 30, 2015 -
China, the world's top CO2 polluter, promised Tuesday to peak emissions within about 15 years, in a move widely hailed as a boost for the global effort to curb planet warming.
Beijing's eagerly-anticipated contribution to a roster of carbon-curbing pledges was announced by Prime Minister Li Keqiang when he met French President Francois Hollande in Paris.
The venue and timing were symboli ...
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Coral gardening beckons ecotourists to restore reefs
Miami (AFP) June 30, 2015 -
Coral reefs are fragile and in danger worldwide, but a growing movement to restore them is based on the science of breaking off pieces in order to grow more, known as coral gardening.
It works like this: marine biologists cut off the tips of live branching corals, hang the pieces on man-made underwater trees where they grow, and later "outplant" them on real reefs on the ocean floor.
Aft ...
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Obama and Rousseff focus on climate, play down spy row
Washington (AFP) June 30, 2015 -
US President Barack Obama and Brazil's Dilma Rousseff traded compliments and vowed to work together on renewable energy Tuesday, bidding to put a bitter spying row behind them.
The pair met for extensive White House talks, a meeting originally planned for 2013 but scuppered by revelations the National Security Agency eavesdropped on Rousseff's calls.
Turning on the charm, Obama hailed st ...
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The physics of swimming fish
Washington DC (SPX) Jun 28, 2015 -
Fish may seem to glide effortlessly through the water, but the tiny ripples they leave behind as they wriggle their way along are evidence of a constant give-and-take of energy between the swimmer and its aqueous environment - a momentum exchange that propels the fish forward but is devilishly tricky to quantify because of the continuous nature of a large, ever-flowing body of water.
When ...
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Scientists expect below average Chesapeake Bay dead zone this summer
Washington DC (SPX) Jun 28, 2015 -
Scientists are expecting that this year's Chesapeake Bay hypoxic low-oxygen zone, also called the "dead zone," will be approximately 1.37 cubic miles - about the volume of 2.3 million Olympic-size swimming pools. While still large, this is 10 percent lower than the long-term average as measured since 1950.
The anoxic portion of the zone, which contains no oxygen at all, is predicted to be ...
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Backward-moving glacier helps scientists explain glacial earthquakes
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (SPX) Jun 28, 2015 -
The relentless flow of a glacier may seem unstoppable, but a team of UK and US researchers have shown that during some calving events - when an iceberg breaks off into the ocean - the glacier moves rapidly backward and downward, causing the characteristic glacial earthquakes which until now have been poorly understood.
This new insight into glacier behaviour should enable scientists to mea ...
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Rats dream about the future -- future food
London (UPI) Jun 26, 2015 -
Turns out, we have something in common with rats, after all. We both dream of cheese, sort of.
According to researchers at University College London, rats dream about the future and the routes they might take to forbidden foods. Travel and food - rats may be more sophisticated then they get credit for.
To get an idea of where rodent minds wander during down time, scientists stra ...
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