(Press-News.org) Widespread wildfires are lighting up Indonesia, but these fires were not started accidentally. These fires were set deliberately to clear land for palm oil companies. This type of "slash-and-burn" agricultural has been used for centuries to clear land for new planting, however, the setting of such fires is now illegal in Indonesia. That doesn't seem to be stopping plantation owners from continuing this practice. The Huffington Post reports that Laurel Sutherlin of the Rainforest Action Network, a San Francisco-based environmental organization sent the paper an email stating, "Widespread, illegal burning to clear rainforests and peatlands for palm oil and pulp and paper plantation expansion is unfortunately a well-established yearly ritual in Sumatra."
The worst by-product of this practice is the deliterious smog produced by the fires. Smog so lethal that a record high of 401 pollution index was recorded in the city-state at noon on Friday (Aug. 16), according to UK's The Independent. A measurement over 400 is said to be life-threatening to sick and elderly people, the paper notes. Of course, deforestation is also a negative by-product of this practice as well.
A staple for cooking throughout Southeast Asia and elsewhere, palm oil is the single largest traded vegetable oil commodity in the world, and global demand is rising rapidly, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. The oil is increasingly used in the manufacture of cosmetics, soaps, pharmaceuticals and industrial products. It is also used to make biodiesel fuel.
INFORMATION:
Unlabeled image
NASA's Terra satellite collected this natural-color image with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS, instrument on August 27, 2013. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner with information from the Huffington Post and The Independent
Illegal fires set in Indonesia cause smog problem
2013-08-27
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
New research shows benefit of interval training for women
2013-08-27
BOWLING GREEN, O. -- Interval training is a well-known way to get the maximum benefits of exercise in the shortest amount of time. New research shows that when it comes to running, women may get more out of high intensity interval training (HIIT) than their male counterparts.
"Sex-specific Responses to Interval Training" was conducted by Drs. Matt Laurent and Matt Kutz, Human Movement, Sport and Leisure Studies at Bowling Green State University; Lauren Vervaecke, Division of Applied Physiology, University of South Carolina; and Dr. Matt Green, Department of Health, Physical ...
Hispanics urged to perform skin self-exams, discuss cancer risk with physicians
2013-08-27
This news release is available in Spanish. More than three-quarters of Hispanics patients in North Carolina aren't performing skin self-exams (SSE) to detect possible skin cancers, and physicians need to do a better job of educating their patients about this potentially life-saving practice, say researchers in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Study results were reported earlier this year in the Research Letters section of the Archives of Dermatology.
"We know that the rates of melanoma, one of the deadliest skin cancers, ...
Generational shift in attitudes among young footballers towards gay teammates
2013-08-27
Young footballers on the verge of becoming professionals are now much more likely to be supportive of gay teammates than a decade ago, according to new research from sociologists at the universities of Kent and Winchester.
Conducted via interviews with 22 Premier League academy footballers aged 16-18, the research found that all the participants would openly accept one of their colleagues coming out.
The research, led by Dr Steven Roberts, of the University of Kent's School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, and Professor Eric Anderson, of the University ...
Children's National study finds that apoptosis triggers replication of common viruses
2013-08-27
Washington, DC—Researchers from Children's National Medical Center have found that an alternate, "escape" replication process triggered by apoptosis—the process of cell death or "cell suicide"—appears to be common in human herpesviruses (HHV). The findings have implications for better understanding of viruses and of disease conditions and treatments, like chemotherapy, that stimulate apoptosis. The study was published online, ahead of print, in the Journal of Virology.
HHV are linked to a range of childhood and adult diseases, including chickenpox, mononucleosis, roseola, ...
New treatments better than standard ones just over half the time
2013-08-27
Tampa, FL (August 27, 2013) -- University of South Florida Distinguished Professor Benjamin Djulbegovic, MD, PhD, has studied the ethics of randomized clinical trials and their effectiveness in evaluating the outcomes of new treatments for decades.
Now, in a paper published Aug. 22 in the top journal Nature, Dr. Djulbegovic and colleagues report that on average new treatments work better than existing ones just over half the time. On scientific and ethical grounds, they say, the randomized controlled trial (RCT) system's little more than 50-50 success rate over the past ...
New moms and obese people risk complications from influenza: McMaster study
2013-08-27
Hamilton, ON (August 27, 2013) – Although up to 500,000 people world-wide die of severe influenza each year, there has been no clear evidence about who is susceptible for influenza complications and it may not be who people think, says a study from McMaster University.
This is important because issues during past influenza seasons and pandemics have included vaccine shortage; the time needed to develop vaccines for specific influenza strains and which groups are first in line for vaccination.
New mothers and obese people, two groups not typically regarded as risk groups, ...
Johns Hopkins researchers find promising therapeutic target for hard-to-treat brain tumor
2013-08-27
Johns Hopkins researchers say they have found a specific protein in nearly 100 percent of high-grade meningiomas -- the most common form of brain tumor -- suggesting a new target for therapies for a cancer that does not respond to current chemotherapy.
Importantly, the investigators say, the protein -- NY-ESO-1 -- is already at the center of a clinical trial underway at the National Cancer Institute. That trial is designed to activate the immune systems of patients with other types of tumors that express the protein, training the body to attack the cancer and eradicate ...
Snapping turtles finding refuge in urban areas while habitats are being polluted
2013-08-27
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- In the Midwest, people have a fear of encountering snapping turtles while swimming in local ponds, lakes and rivers. Now in a new study, a University of Missouri researcher has found that snapping turtles are surviving in urban areas as their natural habitats are being polluted or developed for construction projects. One solution is for people to stop using so many chemicals that are eventually dumped into the waterways, the scientist said.
"Snapping turtles are animals that can live in almost any aquatic habitat as long as their basic needs for survival ...
Researcher controls colleague's motions in first human brain-to-brain interface
2013-08-27
University of Washington researchers have performed what they believe is the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface, with one researcher able to send a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of a fellow researcher.
Using electrical brain recordings and a form of magnetic stimulation, Rajesh Rao sent a brain signal to Andrea Stocco on the other side of the UW campus, causing Stocco's finger to move on a keyboard.
While researchers at Duke University have demonstrated brain-to-brain communication between two rats, and Harvard researchers have ...
No evidence of residential property value impacts near US wind turbines
2013-08-27
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) analyzed more than 50,000 home sales near 67 wind facilities in 27 counties across nine U.S. states, yet was unable to uncover any impacts to nearby home property values.
"This is the second of two major studies we have conducted on this topic [the first was published in 2009, see below], and in both studies [using two different datasets] we find no statistical evidence that operating wind turbines have had any measurable impact on home sales prices," says Ben Hoen, the lead author of the new report.
Hoen is a researcher ...