Category Archives: Science

Science and environment news

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US celebrates New Year eve amidst blizzard

The tornadoes following the Christmas blizzard in USA have completely spoiled people’s mood for festivity in the Midwest and northern belt. There were several people reported with injuries in the snowstorm and a woman died in Missouri.

The National weather Service’s warning for watch period expecting a Tornado in Mississippi and Alabama is over now, however Missouri, Arkansas and Illinois witnessed many thunderstorms throughout Friday. Two people were found dead in Missouri and three in Arkansas due to storms. So far, blizzard has taken 7 lives in different part of the United States.

Jay Nixon, governor of Missouri checked the area himself and visited victims. He expressed his gratitude to warning system for making people prepare for the storm in advance and saving lives.

Rolla town of Missouri received maximum damage due to blizzard affecting 18000 people living here. However, the residents cooperated with each other in the hours of emergency, the governor stated.

Further warning was issued expecting a snowstorm on Saturday in South Dakota.

In south Dakota, the capital city—Pierre, snowstorm brought a cover of  13 inches snow leading to a temperature around  minus 5 degrees.

Midwest and Chicago had a mild temperature on Saturday in comparison to other parts of Midwest.

The experts stated that the violent storms originated from the clash between warm wind and cold air in the Midwest.

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Tornado leaves Cincinnati destroyed with jam roads, power cuts and roofless houses

The National Weather Service has stated that there might be a dangerous storm that had worn out entire Cincinnati, Arkansas. The storm spread in seconds over the entire area and caused the death of 3 people also rooted out many homes, and buildings.

Many house lost there roofs due to high speed winds. And power lines were also cut off. There has been a feeding center set up by the American Red Cross in church in Cincinnati. More than 20,000 people had to live without electricity during the blizzard. All power poles were crashed in the stormy winds.

There is an immediate need of electricians and reconstruction work to repair for the damages. People hope power supplies will be resumed by today. An old age couple was found dead in Washington County in their home.

Around five people were critically injured as they were trapped under fallen roofs and walls.

Business was hampered severely in Arkansas with cancellation of flights. Many airports remained closed throughout the storms. There also a lot of debris fallen on the runways on the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport which needed to be cleared off before resuming the flights.

There was immediate action from the emergency department started in Madison County. Two mobile homes were damaged here and many trees felt down.

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Texas appeals against federal Gov’s authority to issue Greenhouse-Gas permits

Texas is filing an appeal challenging over the greenhouse-gas rules of the federal administration of the United States. The appeal will question US President Obama’s authority over granting permission to different states regarding green house emission.

A federal appeals court of New Orleans has rejected Texas’s request for not allowing the central administration to issue greenhouse-gas permits as the states wants an autonomy in this matter. The state’s new appeal has been made in the wake of its rejected plea.

The Environmental Protection Agency of the United States started granting permission on green house emission considering the fact that Texas officials were not ready to issue the permits.

Texas appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit citing the EPA’s actions as a violation of the Clean Air Act. The state called agency’s actions as an intrusion in the legal rights of Texas.

Texas has always opposed the environmental agency’s rules on greenhouse gas emission that oblige all units of oil refiners, power plants and other industries to reduce their greenhouse gas emission under permissible limits and obtain a compulsory permit for that prior to any construction or modification for their infrastructures.

The new rule implemented by the US Environmental Protection Agency will be effective from Jan. 2.

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Snowfall, storm spoil holiday plans in California

snow covered California

Many flights were cancelled in Southern California due to snowstorm on Sunday December 26.

A heavy cover of snow could be seen all over buses, trains and buildings, that has disturbed commuting through out California. The after-Christmas sales have been badly hampered due to such a bad weather.

New York and Boston have been covered with around one foot thick snow layer. Experts predicted up to 20 inches of snowfall for Philadelphia.

Flights have been cancelled throughout Northeast and also in Baltimore, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and the Carolinas. New York City alone has witnessed cancellation of 1400flights of different airlines.

Blizzard caused a heavy loss to travel industry by leading to cancellation of travel plans. The United States has been experiencing bad weather conditions in many of states for many weeks. Thousands of travelers have been affected so far and even daily commuting to local destinations is difficult for people.

An official from Los Angeles airport reported that fights of Delta airline heading toward Kennedy were cancelled while American Airlines stopped all 15 flights for Boston, New York, and Washington. Weather forecasters have issued a warning for the Northeast and New York for another snowstorm and a further reduction in visibility respectively.

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Unique Occurrence of Winter Solstice with Lunar Eclipse in 2010

Lunar Eclipse as predicted in December

There will be unique phenomena in the space this year as winter solstice will correspond with a full lunar eclipse.

The occurrence of winter solstice with lunar eclipse will be for the first time in last 456 years.

As NASA reports, this will be first time since 1955 when winter solstice, which is the shortest day in a year will coincide with a lunar eclipse.

Another lunar eclipse had occurred this year on 26 June. Many astrologers and scientist are regarding this incident very special. Many ancient cultures considered winter solstice as a time of revitalization. Many Greco-Roman customs and rituals were performed on occurrence of winter solstice, as it was considered an auspicious day.

Shane Hawkins a university professor in Greek and Roman studies at Carleton University in Ottawa stated that astrologically a solstice in winter is considered a time for rebirth because sunlight reverts back from this point of time and days starts becoming larger every day. People might feel overwhelmed with excitement if the coincidence of winter solstice and lunar eclipse really occurs on December 21.

People in North and South America will be able to see the lunar eclipse post midnight on Tuesday. The eclipse will be visible till 5:30 am. It will be visible in Europe too but for  a very short while.

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US calls on agencies to ensure scientific integrity

US President obama talking about scientific memo

Science and Technology advisor of US President Obama delivers a memorandum to federal science agencies so that they can guarantee integration among different research institutes and technology firms for national development.

Al Teich, the director of science policy at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) revealed that the memo carries instructions in this direction and offers guidance for different scientific agencies for their further actions.

This comes after the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, John Holdren, sent out the guidelines basing on a March 2009 memo bearing intentions of Obama with regard to scientific policy. In the memo, Obama had emphasized on building people’s trust in science, which could be achieved through scientific integrity. He had stressed the need for basing his administration’s approach to science policy on scientific integrity.

Guidelines

The White House announced Friday that the new memo provides further guidance to the heads of federal scientific departments and research agencies. Holdren gave department heads 120 days to implement the memo recommendations.

Some of the important topics covered are:

Scientific integrity in government – Guidelines to keep communication open among federal scientists and the public and making data accessible online.

Public communications –The memo directs agencies to establish systems to resolve issues in connection with proceeding with or refusing media interviews.

Federal advisory committees (FAC) – The responsibility of providing scientific advice for policy decisions lies with the Federal Advisory Committees or FACs. The procedures of recruiting committee members should be transparent.

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North Korea’s nuclear program more advanced than Iran: US

N Korea's nuclear program

Washington: The US intelligence department in an important revelation has said that North Korea has more advanced nuclear technology compared to Iran. North Korea’s new nuclear plant to enrich nuclear fuel technology is so much advanced that the countries working on this technology may take more than two decades to match the advancement.

According to intelligence officials. After assessing North Korea’s advancement on the nuclear front, US and South Korean officials have viewed that the new nuclear plant could not have been so enriched without sophisticated networking of certain factors and a full-fledged uranium enrichment plant, elsewhere in the country.

The nuclear capability of North Korea has come as a surprise to many since the country has been facing economic sanctions and a ban on sea and air shipments, executed in the Bush era and made stricter after the UN Security Council resolution passed last year in the aftermath of second nuclear test by North Korea.

The recent intelligence reports have been a cause of concern for the US administration especially when its officials are making an all-out effort to devise a common strategy with China and other Asian countries to contain North Korea’s nuclear advancements.

Gary Samore, chief nuclear adviser in the Obama administration, has conceded for the first time that North Korea’s nuclear program is much more ahead than Iran, which is currently struggling to make further advancement.

Amidst the talk of more sanctions on North Korea, Chinese officials have made a point in which they argued that further sanctions can be counterproductive as largely failed in the past.

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Internet giant Yahoo mulls cutting 600 to 700 jobs

Carol Bartz, Yahoo CEO

San Francisco : Yahoo Inc, the struggling web portal, will cut 600 to 700 jobs in the latest shake-up amidst company’s unsatisfactory growth results.

Yahoo! has not made any formal announcement regarding the layoffs, but a source familiar to the company’s policies has revealed that the employees could be notified about the decision within couple of days.

If Yahoo! cuts jobs then it will be 5 percent of its total work force which stands on 14,100 employees. At the same time, it will be Yahoo’s fourth biggest jobs cut since 2007. It should be noted that the last two layoffs took place under Yahoo’s current CEO Carol Bartz, a Silicon Valley veteran.

Bartz was hired two years back despite having no background of internet and advertising, which happens to be Yahoo’s main source of revenue generation.  The planned job cuts are going to be implemented in the company’s US products group, which has been under revamping process since the arrival of Blake Irving, ex-Microsoft executive, to run the business last yearHowever, the decision may not be a shocker for many since the report on layoffs was published last month on some technology blogs.

The company’s fragile growth rate, sluggish stock prices, and internal organizational turmoil have raised a question over the company’s current CEO’s capability to manage the functions. Rumors are going around that Bartz might be forced to leave the organization even before her term expires as a CEO in January 2013.

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US says Cancun Summit a ‘significant step forward’

Cancun Climate Change Summit

The United States has termed the conference on climate change in Cancun as ‘significant’ and promised to work with international community to remain focused on the environmental challenges in the coming days.

US president Obama hailed Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderon for showing exceptional leadership and chairing the Cancun conference to a successful outcome on the foundation laid down at Copenhagen last year. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the conference reached to a significant point under the United Nations framework and from here lot of meaningful results could be achieved. Ms Clinton further said that the United States along with its friend nations would make all efforts to tackle the climate change and other environment-related issues.

She expressed utter satisfaction over the progress made at Cancun conference and said that the outcome would take forward the core elements raised in the Copenhagen Accord, such as creating a new Green Climate Fund, Working on a culture of transparency, creating a framework to reduce deforestation, establishing a technology mechanism, seeking international cooperation and many others.

The United States has been working with its global partners to move forward and sort out all differences since the Copenhagen summit took place last year, she reiterated.

“The United States joined other countries at Cancun for a fresh round of discussions focused at mobilizing common efforts to meet the shared objective. So now that we have reached an important milestone, time has come to enlarge our vision and work together to meet the challenges that come our way,” Ms Clinton Said.

The Cancun Summit has been able to reach a ‘compromise’ to organize a $100 billion ‘Green Fund’ to fight global warming. There was, however, no agreement regarding the Kyoto Protocol on carbon emissions cuts beyond 2012. The development made at Cancun will be followed up in the next round of talks to be held next year.

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WikiLeaks supporters launch cyber war against hackers

The cyber war among WikiLeaks supporters and opponents is accelerating

A cyber war has begun among followers of WikiLeak and its opponents. All the forums, social networks and chatrooms are bombarded with messages calling for supporting or banning WikiLeaks continuously and many sites are choked or crashed due to heavy traffic.

United Nations have raised hands over blocking WikiLeaks sources of funding and bank accounts describing it as an action to deprive WikiLeaks from the fundamental right of freedom of expression.

Navi Pillai, UN human right official expressed her surprise over online reactions to the WikiLeaks episode.

A 16 year old boy, supporting WikiLeaks, has been arrested as a suspect of digital attacks in Netherlands.

WikiLeaks supporters have started a campaign throughout the world protesting against suppression by government officials and threaten to sue the financial firms suspending WikiLeaks accounts.

The Germany-based Wau Holland Foundation is protesting Paypal’s step to suspend WikiLeaks accounts through which the company received most of its donations.

WikiLeaks financial representative said the company was preparing to file cases against US credit card companies and denied the allegations against WikiLeaks.

UN human rights official Pillay stated that WikiLeaks’s actions involving disclosure of confidential documents should be seen as a legal issue and resolved through a judicial process in stead of suppression.