The “turtle and dugong capital of the world”, the northern Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait region, faces increased pressure under climate change from human actions such as fishing, hunting, onshore development and pollution. The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for…

Changes in population growth and composition, including aging and urbanization, could significantly affect global emissions of carbon dioxide over the next 40 years. The research, appearing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was conducted by an international team of scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the International Institute for…

Physicists at Rutgers University in New Jersey have discovered new properties in a material that could result in efficient and inexpensive plastic solar cells for electricity production. The discovery, posted online and slated for publication in an upcoming issue of the journal Nature Materials, reveals that energy carrying particles generated by packets of light can…

The Pacific Ring of Fire is an area where large numbers of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur in the basin of the Pacific Ocean. In a 25,000 mile horseshoe shape, it is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and/or plate movements. The Ring of Fire has 452…

Asthma is a common chronic inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and bronchial spasms. Symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath. Dirty polluted air is known to cause respiratory inflammation. Now exposure to dirty air has been linked to decreased function of a gene…

Sleep is sleep. Diet is diet. Then again cutting back on sleep reduces the benefits of dieting, according to a study published October 5, 2010, in the Annals of Internal Medicine. When dieters in the study got a full night’s sleep, they lost the same amount of weight as when they slept less. When dieters…

All industries across the world face the same regulatory maze and misdirection. In some cases it has led to industry leaving and going to China where laws are more permissive, That is not an option for the aviation industry which flies everywhere. All aviation stakeholders, including manufacturers, airlines, airports and navigation service providers, have issued…

Geologists have found evidence that some 55 million years ago a river as big as the modern Colorado River flowed through Arizona into Utah in the opposite direction from the present-day river. Writing in the October issue of the journal Geology, they have named this ancient northeastward-flowing river the California River, after its inferred source…

Accidents happen. Unfortunately, for BP, they have been in the news often for some major incidents. Besides the Gulf of Mexico spill this year, there was the March 23, 2005 incident. This was a fire and explosion that occurred at BP’s Texas City Refinery in Texas City, Texas, killing 15 workers and injuring more than…

Oil and gas supplies and their future use is a major variable for the 21st. century. On the one hand there is a demand to go to renewable sources. On the other hand is that oil and gas will be used for many years to come. Turkmenistan’s president said on September 3oth. that his country…