Sea level rise: It’s worse than we thought

by Tom on July 2, 2009

The small helicopter he’s riding in is slaloming between towering cliffs of ice – the sheer sides of gigantic icebergs that had calved off Greenland’s Jakobshavn glacier.

Jakobshavn has doubled its speed in the past 15 years, draining increasing amounts of ice from the Greenland ice sheet into the ocean, and Holland, an oceanographer at New York University, has been trying to find out why.
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The 10 lottery winners who blew it all

by Tom on July 1, 2009

So you think winning the lottery won’t change your life,think again it maybe better not too.
Nearly one-third of multi-million pound lottery winners become bankrupt in just a few short years of their big win, according to research conducted in America.

So you think winning the lottery won’t change your life, think again it maybe better not too.

Nearly one-third of multi-million pound lottery winners become bankrupt in just a few short years of their big win, according to research conducted in America.

timesbusiness

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Consumers don’t buy water for health reasons

by Tom on June 26, 2009

Instead, taste, convenience and cost were more important in study participants’ decisions to buy or not to buy, the researchers report in the online journal BMC Public Health.
Background
There has been a consistent rise in bottled water consumption over the last decade. Little is known about the health beliefs held by the general public about bottled water as this issue is not addressed by the existing quantitative literature. The purpose of this study was to improve understanding of the public’s health beliefs concerning bottled mineral water, and the extent to which these beliefs and other views they hold, influence drinking habits.
SOURCE: BMC Public Health, online June 19, 2009.

bottled-water Instead, taste, convenience and cost were more important in study participants’ decisions to buy or not to buy, the researchers report in the online journal BMC Public Health.

Background

There has been a consistent rise in bottled water consumption over the last decade. Little is known about the health beliefs held by the general public about bottled water as this issue is not addressed by the existing quantitative literature. The purpose of this study was to improve understanding of the public’s health beliefs concerning bottled mineral water, and the extent to which these beliefs and other views they hold, influence drinking habits.

SOURCE: BMC Public Health, online June 19, 2009.

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Neda

by Tom on June 22, 2009

250px-neda_non_graphic

A reluctant martyr for the cause of freedom, a life extinguished by a regime unable to recognise its own end

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Connecting to Centre – Advanced Practise

by Tom on June 18, 2009

Connecting to Centre

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Whole-cooked carrots “better for fighting cancer

by Tom on June 18, 2009

The anti-cancer properties of carrots are enhanced 25 percent if they are cooked whole rather than chopped up beforehand, a study has found.
Brandt, along with colleagues at the University of Denmark, discovered the health benefits of the anti-cancer substance falcarinol in carrots four years ago.
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE55G2BD20090617
The anti-cancer properties of carrots are enhanced 25 percent if they are cooked whole rather than chopped up beforehand, a study has found.
Brandt, along with colleagues at the University of Denmark, discovered the health benefits of the anti-cancer substance falcarinol in carrots four years ago.

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A cheap fix for Global Warming “the Blade Runner scenario”

by Tom on June 17, 2009

Factories on the ground would pump 10 kilos of sulfur dioxide up through those hoses every second.
Within a few years we could cool the Earth to temperatures not regularly seen since James Watt’s steam engine belched its first smoky plume in the late 18th century.
Stephen Salter, a Scottish engineer, has mocked up a strategy that would cool the planet by painting the skies above the oceans white.
Of all the ideas circulating for blocking solar heat, however, sulfur-aerosol injection—the Blade Runner scenario—may actually be the least mad.
When Mount Tambora erupted in Indonesia in 1815 and spewed sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, farmers in New England recorded a summer so chilly that their fields frosted over in July. The Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines in 1991 cooled global temperatures by about half a degree Celsius for the next few years.
A sulfur-aerosol project could produce a Pinatubo of sulfur dioxide every four years.
But a geo-engineering strategy like sulfur aerosol “changes everything,” he says.
The monsoons rely on temperature differences between the Asian landmass and the ocean, and sulfur aerosols could diminish those differences substantially.
In Greek legend, Dionysius II, the ruler of Syracuse, used a single hair to suspend a sword over Damocles’ head, ostensibly to show him how precarious the life of a powerful ruler can be. According to Pierrehumbert, sulfur aerosols would cool the planet, but we’d risk calamity the moment we stopped pumping: the aerosols would rain down and years’ worth of accumulated carbon would make temperatures surge.
He notes that sulfur-aerosol injection, like many geo-engineering ideas, would be easy to implement.
Dyson’s early geo-engineering vision addressed a central, and still daunting, problem: neither sulfur-aerosol injection nor an armada of cloud whiteners nor an array of space-shades would do much to reduce carbon-dioxide levels.
Already, on the oceans’ surface, clouds of blooming plankton ingest amounts of carbon dioxide comparable to those taken in by trees.
In the 1980s, the oceanographer John Martin hypothesized that large amounts of oceanic iron may have produced giant plankton blooms in the past, and therefore chilled the atmosphere by removing carbon dioxide.
Paul Crutzen, who earned his Nobel Prize by figuring out how human activity punched a hole in the ozone layer, has for years urged research on sulfur-aerosol solutions, bringing vast credibility to geo-engineering as a result.
“Geo-engineering needs some government funding, but the most disastrous thing that could happen would be for Barack Obama to stand up tomorrow and announce the creation of a geo-engineering task force with hundreds of millions in funds,” says David Keith.
For a fraction of its GDP, Bangladesh could refreeze the ice caps using sulfur aerosols (though, in a typical trade-off, this might affect its monsoons).
If refreezing them would save the lives of millions of Bangladeshis, who could blame their government for acting?
In practice, that would likely mean industrialized governments’ regulating geo-engineering directly, in a way that lets them monopolize the technology and prevent others from deploying it, through diplomatic and military means, or perhaps by just bribing Bangladesh not to puff out its own aerosols.
Perhaps we could start with a few puffs of sulfur in the atmosphere to buy time, then forests of plankton in the ocean, and then genetically engineered carbon-hungry trees.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/climate-engineering

Factories on the ground would pump 10 kilos of sulfur dioxide up through those hoses every second.

Within a few years we could cool the Earth to temperatures not regularly seen since James Watt’s steam engine belched its first smoky plume in the late 18th century.

Stephen Salter, a Scottish engineer, has mocked up a strategy that would cool the planet by painting the skies above the oceans white.

Of all the ideas circulating for blocking solar heat, however, sulfur-aerosol injection—the Blade Runner scenario—may actually be the least mad.

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Men planning for financial security in retirement but not for happiness

by Tom on June 16, 2009

Published in the Journal of Psychology and Aging, the survey suggests men could find retirement lonely and isolating unless they build social and leisure networks before they leave the workforce, says the report’s co-author, UNSW psychologist, Dr Joanne Earl. The report’s findings are based on a survey of 377 men and women aged 50-66 years.
“If the men we surveyed are representative, Australia’s male Baby Boomers could be in for a tough time during retirement,” says Dr Earl. “There is a strong emphasis in society to plan and save money for retirement but I think the bigger questions are: ‘What am I saving for?

Published in the Journal of Psychology and Aging, the survey suggests men could find retirement lonely and isolating unless they build social and leisure networks before they leave the workforce, says the report’s co-author, UNSW psychologist, Dr Joanne Earl. The report’s findings are based on a survey of 377 men and women aged 50-66 years.

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Diet low in fat and red meat and high in fruit and veg helps prevent prostate cancer

by Tom on June 16, 2009

Robert W.-L. Ma and K. Chapman conducted an evidence-based review of dietary recommendations in the prevention of prostate cancer as well as in the management of patients with prostate cancer.
The researchers found that a diet low in fat, high in vegetables and fruit, and avoiding high energy intake, excessive meat, and excessive dairy products and calcium intake may be helpful in preventing prostate cancer, and for patients diagnosed with prostate cancer.
“Although not conclusive, results suggest that general dietary modification has a beneficial effect on the prevention of prostate cancer,” the authors conclude.
news-medical.net

Robert W.-L. Ma and K. Chapman conducted an evidence-based review of dietary recommendations in the prevention of prostate cancer as well as in the management of patients with prostate cancer.

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Hormone therapy may confer more aggressive properties to prostate tumours

by Tom on June 16, 2009

Hormone therapy is often given to patients with advanced prostate cancer.
The results show that patients who have been given hormone therapy have higher levels of the proteins that enable the cancer cells to move through the body and attach to other organs.
One of these proteins is known as “N-cadherin”, and this protein is present in higher levels in patients who have been given hormone therapy.
“We don’t have any good treatment alternatives in cases where the tumour returns after hormone therapy, and this means that it is particularly important to study how such tumours are controlled and how they behave.
news-medical.net

Hormone therapy is often given to patients with advanced prostate cancer.

The results show that patients who have been given hormone therapy have higher levels of the proteins that enable the cancer cells to move through the body and attach to other organs.

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