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News Briefs 12-10-05

Looking up into the sky, the clouds say there are a lot of boiling frogs beneath. Post your thoughts.

  • Regarding boiling frog syndrome.
  • The Big Wedding: 9/11, the Whistle-Blowers and the Cover-Up.
  • Vanadium appears to play role in speeding recovery from infections.
  • Endless diversity in bacterial genomes.
  • More hobbit bones are discovered.
  • Water energy gets to the point. Let’s hope in means cheap electricity in the British Isles.
  • Dinosaurs are not birds ancestors.
  • Blind woman recognises colours by touch.
  • What cloud shapes predict.
  • Robot to climb shafts of Cheops pyramid.
  • Lunar eclipse monday could spell more disaster.
  • Drugs, art and the aliens who lit our way to civilisation.
  • Pakistan quake: the animals knew.
  • Electric supernovae. Like squeezing a zit.
  • Taking the figurative literally, centaurs actually existed. The article hilariously moves on to the history of buggery. Good stuff.
  • New revelations of the Americas before Columbus.
  • Ancient skeletons with belongings unearthed from dolmen in Gilan.
  • Titan’s enigmatic bright spot is surface make-up.
  • Viagra helps out endangered species.
  • Does dark matter really exist?
  • The flying lizards missing lift.
  • Asia’s space race.
  • In defence of happy pills.
  • Ozone link to Permian extinction.
  • Waking the genes that grow new limbs.

Quote of the Day:

All prisoners of conscience long to be free: some even from their conscience.

Jameske

  1. Great quote Jameske
    I am trying really really hard to imagine those human/animal creatures that lived side by side with humans through the ages but I just can’t see them.
    But I do know, and I think I have mentioned here that the only race of people in the world that certain American sheep farmers will have tending their sheep are the Basques.
    It is said that they are the only people who will not interfere with the sheep and give them diseases.
    I read something about the Sumerians recently, can’t remember what, that said that in their folk lore they believed that Sumerians had only ever had relations with sheep, and then one day they discovered their own women and so children were born.
    Now no one attack me on this, because it is only something I read.

    That’s a great article about the use of drugs for depression.And i belong to the group that says that if people need drugs for depression and they can help make their lives livable, then they should have them.

    shadows

  2. Toxicity of ozone
    I followed the links on the ABC science website to an article on the environmental dangers of ethanol, and I came upon a statement which has bothered me for a long time.

    From the ABC ethanol article:

    Together these produce photochemical smog, or ground level ozone, the cause of the “brown haze” that sometimes shrouds Australia’s most populous city Sydney.

    Is ozone really toxic? There is conflicting research as indicated by the following:

    … “The Toxicity of Ozone” by Clark E. Thorp, Chairman, Dept. of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering of the Armour Research Foundation of Illinois Institute of Technology, published in INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE and SURGERY, Feb. 1950, Vol. 19, and No. 2. In this report he showed that electrically produced ozone from air was indeed highly toxic; while ozone produced in the same way, but with pure oxygen instead of air, had no reasonable toxicity. The key difference between these two ozones is that the ozone derived from air contained high amounts of nitrogen oxides, while the pure oxygen derived ozone contained only ozone. However, no explanation was given about the reasons for toxicity of the ozone with nitrogen oxides.

    The MERCK INDEX des­cribes nitrogen dioxide as a reddish—brown gas; irritating odor; and a deadly poison!

    Nitrogen dioxide is also a water soluble gas that will combine easily with water to form nitric acid (HNO3)…. Nitric acid is a powerful oxidizer and destructor of animal protein.

    In conclusion, research evidence of my own and others suggests that there is a popular misnomer of definition in the common usage of the word, “ozone”, and automatically equating it to the word, “toxic”. I further suggest that ozone toxicity be defined and accounted for by its co-constituent presence of acid forming nitrogen dioxide. This is to say, that within reasonable limits of con­centration, ozone is not the toxic agent!

    http://www.oxygenmedicine.com/ozonetoxicity.html

    1. Little John
      What I find amazing is the lack of attention towards Prime Minister John Howard’s call for ethanol-based fuels. NOTHING from the Left media, not a single thing. Are they too afraid to actually AGREE with Howard? I’m not afraid, I think it’s a step in the right direction turning towards ethanol-based fuels. It’s not THE answer, but it’s an answer, and every little bit helps.

      I feel a bit weird doing this, but I applaud Howard regarding his call for ethanol-based fuels. Despite strong protests from the fossil fuel companies (especially oil), Howard has dismissed their protests and insists it’s the right way to go. At long last, some strong sensible leadership.

      How long will it last …?

      1. Ethanol & biofuels
        Rico: “NOTHING from the Left media…”

        Who is this “left media”?

        Concerns that the health and environmental impacts of biofuels haven’t been properly examined have arisen following a recent Australian government report and a pledge to promote their use.

        … not everyone agrees that biofuels are the hoped-for magic bullet as an alternative to fossil fuels.

        One of them, environmental engineer and pollution expert Dr Robert Niven of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, says his research shows ethanol may increase groundwater contamination and photochemical smog.

        Niven says the report glosses over the environmental consequences of ethanol.

        He says ethanol can increase corrosion of underground petrol storage tanks, leading to increased leakage.

        And once a leak has occurred the ethanol prevents biodegradation of the petroleum because the microbes that normally attack the petrol go for the ethanol instead.

        “These effects work against the ability of the natural environment to restore itself,” he says.

        Niven also says ethanol produces higher volatile emissions through evaporation and more nitrogen oxide emissions compared with fossil fuels.

        CSIRO Low Emissions Transport leader Dr David Lamb says ethanol may help society “escape from the tyranny of oil”, but its benefits in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in particular carbon dioxide (CO2), are small in the scheme of things.

        “We measure the CO2 used in fertilising the crop, plus transportation, plus machinery, plus when you burn it in the car,” says.

        “We add that up and offset it against the CO2 absorbed by the sugar cane when it’s growing and the answer is it’s a little bit favourable.”

        And while he says he hasn’t seen anything to suggest ethanol increases particulates in exhaust more tests are needed.

        http://abc.net.au/science/news/enviro/EnviroRepublish_1468698.htm

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