EARTH: 2012
The end of the world of just another year of living harm's way
2012-07-25
(Press-News.org) Alexandria, VA – December 21, 2012 – the purported last day of a 5,125-year cycle in the Mesoamerican calendar – has been added to an endless list of days when the world has been expected to end. But what are our real chances of being wiped out by a catastrophic event – the kind that has happened in the past and will inevitably occur again someday? In the August issue of EARTH, we explore four of the most probable global events that could change life on Earth forever.
Near-Earth objects (NEOs), super-eruptions, solar storms and cataclysmic earthquakes all pose serious risks to our planet on a global and regional scale. However, though these threats exist, is it possible to realistically and economically prepare for them all? Find out more online at http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/2012-end-world-or-just-another-year-living-harms-way.
Read this story and more in the August issue of EARTH Magazine, available online at http://www.earthmagazine.org. Turn trash to treasure when scientists turn nonrecylced waste into low-carbon fuel; discover how fossilized raindrops provide clues to Earth's early atmosphere; and learn about the silver lining of potentially hazardous asteroids all in this month's issue of EARTH.
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Keep up to date with the latest happenings in Earth, energy and environment news with EARTH magazine online at http://www.earthmagazine.org/. Published by the American Geosciences Institute, EARTH is your source for the science behind the headlines.
The American Geosciences Institute is a nonprofit federation of geoscientific and professional associations that represents more than 250,000 geologists, geophysicists and other earth scientists. Founded in 1948, AGI provides information services to geoscientists, serves as a voice of shared interests in the profession, plays a major role in strengthening geoscience education, and strives to increase public awareness of the vital role the geosciences play in society's use of resources, resiliency to natural hazards, and interaction with the environment.
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2012-07-25
University of Michigan heart researchers are shedding light on a safer method for steadying an abnormal heart rhythm that prevents collateral damage to healthy cells.
Irregular heart rhythms, or arrhythmias, set the stage for a common, debilitating disorder called atrial fibrillation that puts adults as young as age 40 at risk for fatigue, fainting, cardiac arrest, and even death. Medications can help, but doctors also use catheter ablation in which electrical impulses are delivered to a region of the heart to disrupt the arrhythmia.
However, studies show half of patients ...
2012-07-25
For Immediate Release – July 24, 2012 – (Toronto) – An ongoing survey of Ontario students in grades 7 to 12 conducted for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) shows that while the majority of students have healthy relationships and report overall good mental and physical health, some negative trends, especially among girls, have raised concerns.
The 2011 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey (OSDUHS) Mental Health and Well-Being Report released today reveals important trends in mental and physical health and risk behaviours among Ontario students.
Psychological ...
2012-07-25
An airtight, reusable plastic bag that protects stored rice from moisture, pests, and rats, and keeps rice seeds viable, is now available to Filipino farmers in almost 200 retail stores nationwide.
IRRI Super Bags reduce losses incurred after harvest that usually stem from poor storage conditions – helping prevent physical postharvest losses that can be around 15%. On top of these losses, farmers also experience loss in quality.
Developed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)'s postharvest experts in collaboration with GrainPro Inc., the IRRI Super Bag ...
2012-07-25
Arguments over how best to train horses have raged for centuries. Two years ago, the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) was even moved to ban the practice of hyperflexion as a result of a petition signed by over 40,000 people claiming that it caused the animals unnecessary discomfort. The FEI did make a distinction between hyperflexion by the use of extreme force and what it termed "low, deep and round" (LDR), which essentially achieves the same position without force. How forceful hyperflexion should be distinguished from permissible LDR training was not clearly ...
2012-07-25
Up to 50% of deaths from cardiovascular disease in Europe could be avoided by implementing population level changes such as taxation and regulation of advertising. Population level prevention will produce greater impacts on CVD than individualised approaches, according to the European Association for Cardiovascular Prevention & Rehabilitation (EACPR) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).
Cardiovascular disease is still the main cause of death in Europe, leading to more than 4.3 million deaths each year and costing at least €190 billion. But 80-90% of all cardiovascular ...
2012-07-25
Researchers at NPL have demonstrated for the first time a monolithic 3D ion microtrap array which could be scaled up to handle several tens of ion-based quantum bits (qubits). The research, published in Nature Nanotechnology, shows how it is possible to realise this device embedded in a semiconductor chip, and demonstrates the device's ability to confine individual ions at the nanoscale.
As the UK's National Measurement Institute, NPL is interested in how exotic quantum states of matter can be used to make high precision measurements, of for example, time and frequency, ...
2012-07-25
Mimicking the way mother of pearl is created in nature, scientists have for the first time synthesised the strong, iridescent coating found on the inside of some molluscs. The research was published today in the journal Nature Communications.
Nacre, also called mother of pearl, is the iridescent coating that is found on the inside of some molluscs and on the outer coating of pearls. By recreating the biological steps that form nacre in molluscs, the scientists were able to manufacture a material which has a similar structure, mechanical behaviour, and optical appearance ...
2012-07-25
Philadelphia, PA, July 24, 2012 – The traditional approach to psychiatric diagnosis is based on grouping patients on the basis of symptom clusters. This approach to diagnosis has a number of problems, as symptoms are not necessarily specific to a single diagnosis. Symptoms may vary among patients with a particular diagnosis, and there are no clear diagnostic biomarkers or tests for psychiatry as there are for other areas of medicine.
With this in mind, Steve Chang, along with colleagues from Duke University, introduces a new classification scheme for psychiatric symptoms ...
2012-07-25
A new diabetes study at the University of Leicester has discovered that South Asians (people of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Sri Lanka origin) have higher levels of blood sugar than white Europeans independent of risk factors that influence sugar levels.
The study of 4,688 white Europeans and 1,352 South Asians was led by Dr. Samiul A Mostafa, of the University of Leicester, Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, and was published in Diabetes Care, a journal of the American Diabetes Association.
According to the study South Asians had higher levels of three measures ...
2012-07-25
In a special issue of ZooKeys, initiated by the Natural History Museum London, Vince Smith and Vladimir Blagoderov bring together 18 papers by 81 authors to look at progress and prospects for mass digitising entire natural history collections.
Centuries of exploration and discovery have documented the diversity of life on Earth. Records of this biodiversity are, for the most part, distributed across varied and distinct natural history collections worldwide. That has made the task of assessing the information in these collections an immense challenge, the largest of which ...
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[Press-News.org] EARTH: 2012
The end of the world of just another year of living harm's way
