Environment

Who on Earth would not like a concrete subject? The Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSH) at MIT studies fundamentals to improve on concrete use. CSH also stands for calcium silicate hydrate, the binder phase of concrete. The Great Dome at MIT, shown below in an architectural draft, contains a "cement liner" on sandstone overlay. This image shows, at the top right corner, the CSH model that was proposed by A realistic molecular model of cement hydrates in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on September 22. Submitted by…

"Climate forcing due to aerosol changes is a wild card," concluded James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Reto Ruedy, Andrew Lacis, and Valdar Oinas in Global warming in the twenty-first century: An alternative scenario. "Current trends, even the sign of the effect, are uncertain. Unless climate forcings by all aerosols are precisely monitored, it will be difficult to define optimum policies."* Hansen  and colleagues expected that aerosols will "have to be monitored globally, thus by satellite, because of their heterogeneity." Although most of the aerosol emissions occur over…

Genetically modified foods (GM foods or GMF) offer a way to quickly improve crop characteristics such as yield, pest resistance, or herbicide tolerance, often to a degree not possible with traditional methods. Further, GM crops can be manipulated to produce completely artificial substances, from the precursors to plastics to consumable vaccines. Although different classes of vectors are distinguishable on the basis of the mainframe genetic material, practically all of them are chimeric, being composed of genetic material originating from the genetic parasites of many different species of…

Critics of global warming will note that if the people behind the Kyoto protocol can't even get basic accounting correct there may be plenty of errors in simulations but science is about convergence over time.  And owning up to little mistakes and fixing them. An international team has found a critical error in the accounting method used to measure compliance with carbon limits and the flaw, which centers on the measurement of CO2 emissions from the use of bioenergy, could undermine greenhouse gas reduction goals if not addressed. Current carbon accounting, used in the Kyoto Protocol and…

GM potential crops in world production and trade To analyze the effect of consumer attitudes on trade patterns, we begin with a description of trade patterns in GM-potential crops. Data for production, consumption, and trade are from version four of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) database, which is estimated for 1995 ([McDougall et al., 1998]). The main crops that have been genetically modified to date are soybeans and maize. The sectoral aggregation of this database therefore comprises a cereal grains sector (which includes maize but not wheat and rice) and an oilseeds sector (…

If you ask any one how to define peace the openions may differ but in my openion handing over the same kind of world that we inherited from our parents to our children is peace. Keeping war away is a sign of peace its not destination of peace. Equitable distribution of natural resources and their utilization can pave the way for peace as man made boundaries of the nations and human perceptions of greatness lead to the path of human destruction. Peace is made in the minds of man . If you change the minds of man and thinking process towards mutual respect and honour for rich and poor have not…

Hey!!Today is a new day

Pick your favorite environmental concern, or better yet, tally them up together: pollution, habitat destruction, overfishing, climate change. No matter how bleak the picture, there are some creatures (besides humans) who seem able to conform, adapt, even thrive. Even if we're in the middle of an anthropogenic mass extinction, it doesn't mean the world is going to turn into a lifeless rock. Instead, we're tumbling towards what David Quammen calls the Planet of Weeds. Organisms that are extremely good at surviving and adapting to new environments are called weedy species, and they tend to share…

When thinking about burial, most people think of caskets or cremation. But there are two options that, while seeming a bit odd at first, could be considered part of the green revolution: "beetleized" and "promession." From an ecology point of view, it makes a lot of sense - the circle of life and all that. Or, as written in Genesis: "By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." To be "beetleized" It starts with a beetle with an odd job - it buries the dead. The sexton beetle, also…

There is a subset of people in the environmental conservation movement who hate their fellow man - they like nature but don't think anyone outside of their companies should enjoy it, they should just pay companies to raise money for advocacy.Fortunately, most recognize that hunters, hikers and fishers care in a much different way than people raising money.  They're true friends of the environment because they want their kids to enjoy it also so they tend to become supporters of environmental and conservation groups whereas casual visitors do not. But not all outdoors enthusiasts support…