Radioactive cesium found in Japan’s fish, seawater. PSU study finds 'caffeinated' coastal waters. Public release date: 18-Jul-2012 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: David Santensantend@pdx.edu 503-725-8765Washington State University A new study finds elevated levels of caffeine at several sites in Pacific Ocean waters off the coast of Oregon—though not necessarily where researchers expected.
This study is the first to look at caffeine pollution off the Oregon coast. It was developed and conducted by Portland State University master's student Zoe Rodriguez del Rey and her faculty adviser Elise Granek, assistant professor of Environmental Science and Management, in collaboration with Steve Sylvester of Washington State University, Vancouver. In spring 2010, Rodriguez del Rey and Granek collected and analyzed samples from 14 coastal locations and seven adjacent water bodies as far north as Astoria, Ore., and as far south as Brookings.
Fukushima as Manufactured Disaster. Chernobyl's radioactive trees and the forest fire risk. 6 July 2012Last updated at 20:30 ET By Patrick Evans Chernobyl, Ukraine.
One Planet Economy Network. The scenario functions in EUREAPA enable decision makers to answer questions about the effects of policy on environment, consumption, industry and trade, thus helping to formulate strategies for sustainable consumption and production in Europe and beyond.
EUREAPA contains baseline data on the economy, greenhouse gas emissions, ecological footprints and water footprints for every EU member state and 16 other countries and regions of the world. At the heart of EUREAPA is an environmentally extended multi-region input-output model which combines tables from national economic accounts and trade statistics with data from environmental and footprint accounts. The extensive data system models the flow of goods and services between 43 countries and regions covering the global economy for 57 individual sectors over a year.
The sectors cover a range from agricultural and manufacturing industries to transport, recreational, health and financial services. Calculating the environmental footprint of governments. What does your life style do to our planet?
And what about your government's decisions? (Illustration photo: Coloubox) From new cars to email messages, from bananas to home-grown tomatoes: everything we buy, produce or consume has an environmental cost that has come to be called a “footprint”. Amid Censored Radiation Spikes, Major Nuclear Base Run Containment Exercise. Climate Change: Carbon Dioxide Levels In World's Air Reach 'Troubling Milestone' WASHINGTON — The world's air has reached what scientists call a troubling new milestone for carbon dioxide, the main global warming pollutant.
Monitoring stations across the Arctic this spring are measuring more than 400 parts per million of the heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere. The number isn't quite a surprise, because it's been rising at an accelerating pace. Years ago, it passed the 350 ppm mark that many scientists say is the highest safe level for carbon dioxide. Apocalypse Soon: Has Civilization Passed the Environmental Point of No Return? Remember how Wile E.
Today's environment influences behavior generations later: Chemical exposure raises descendants' sensitivity to stress. Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Washington State University have seen an increased reaction to stress in animals whose ancestors were exposed to an environmental compound generations earlier.
Gulf Seafood Deformities Raise Questions Among Scientists And Fisherman. While the true extent of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill was not known for about 4 years, as Al Jazeera notes in the video above, the repercussions of BP's 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico may become apparent more quickly.
Discovering eyeless shrimp, lesioned fish and other mutated and underdeveloped seafood, fisherman in the Gulf are pointing fingers at the BP spill. Biologist Dr. Darryl Felder told the news agency that Gulf seafood populations are dropping at alarming rates and that species richness is "diminished. " After nuclear disasters, wildlife thrives. Radiation from nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima may, surprisingly, have done the local wildlife no harm at all.
Until now, it had been believed that radiation following the Chernobyl disaster must have had a dramatic effect on bird populations by causing damage to birds’ antioxidant defence mechanisms. But British scientists have now modeled the production of free radicals from radiation - and found that the birds’ antioxidant mechanisms could easily cope with radiation at the levels seen after Chernobyl and Fukushima. "I wasn’t really surprised by these findings – there have been many high profile findings on the radiation damage to wildlife at Chernobyl but it’s very difficult to see significant damage and we are not convinced by some of the claims," says professor Jim Smith of the University of Portsmouth.
Immediately after the Chernobyl accident, extremely high radiation levels did damage organisms. How to Double Global Food Production by 2050 and Reduce Environmental Damage. To feed the world's growing and more affluent population, global agriculture will have to double its food production by 2050.
More farming, however, usually means more environmental harm as a result of clearing land, burning fossil fuels, consuming water for irrigation and spreading fertilizer. Agriculture already imposes a greater burden on Earth than almost any other human activity, so simply doubling current practices would ruin large areas of land as well as poisoning rivers and oceans. An international research team led by Jon Foley at the University of Minnesota has concluded that five basic changes in the way agriculture operates—and in the ways we eat—could double food production, yet decrease overall environmental impacts.
Agro-ecology: Lessons from Cuba on agriculture, food, and climate change. Photograph by STR/AFP/Getty Images.
On Thursday, April 12, Future Tense, a partnership of Slate, the New America Foundation, and Arizona State, will host a live event in Washington, D.C. on the future of food. Chickens Fed Caffeine, Banned Antibiotics, and Prozac Often Without The Farmer’s Knowledge. Qmnonic'/CC BY 2.0 It’s no surprise that conventionally factory farmed chickens aren't fed the best diet.
We already knew that they were routinely fed arsenic. In fact, a 2004 study from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy showed that more than half of store-bought and fast-food chickens contained elevated levels of arsenic. Roughly 2.2 million pounds of it are being used every year to produce 43 billion pounds of poultry. Yet Another Study Links Insecticide To Bee Losses. Halibut pierced with mysterious ’projectile parasite’ The newly-discovered parasite which creates mysterious holes in the Greenland halibut was discovered by Greenlandic fishermen, and researchers have yet to figure out how prevalent this parasite is. (Photo: Kurt Buchmann) The halibut is a popular delicacy among seafood lovers. Monsanto’s Roundup Can Cause Amphibians to Change Shape. NASA's Perpetual Ocean animation turns ocean currents into art. NASA's stunning Perpetual Ocean animation visualizes ocean currents (Image: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center is an unlikely entrant in the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival.
Explosion, Pollution, Massive Oil Spill Probable: North Sea Gas Leak. The French energy company Total boasted today that they have discovered the source of the natural gas leak, which is steadily casting a plume of natural gas into the air and a six-mile long 'sheen' in the ocean surrounding the oil and gas platform in the North Sea; however, as fears of a catastrophic explosion increase, current options for plugging the leak carry great risks and may take months to complete.