Can Carbon Dioxide Be A Good Thing?

Too much carbon dioxide can be a bad thing, but sometimes it can have a positive effect on plants and trees. The more carbon emissions we dump into the air, the faster forests and plants grow.This new revelation is the result of research done by the North American carbon program. 

Scott Denning, Ph.D., a physicist from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, explains the North American Carbon Program, "We are measuring CO₂ in the  atmosphere at dozens of places every hour around the United States and Canada."

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Study Links Fresh Mars Gullies to Carbon Dioxide

Researchers have tracked changes in gullies on faces of sand dunes in seven locations on southern Mars. The periods when changes occurred, as determined by comparisons of before-and-after images, overlapped in all cases with the known winter build-up of carbon-dioxide frost on the dunes. Before-and-after pairs that covered periods only in spring, summer and autumn showed no new activity in those seasons.

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Top 10 Exceptional Lakes In The World

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India to flag off first scientific expedition to South Pole

During their 40-day journey, the scientists will conduct experiments, gather atmospheric data and collect ice cores from the frozen continent in their bid to understand the changes in the environment over past 1,000 years.Besides Ravindra, Ajay Dhar, Javed Beg, Thamban Meloth, Asit Swain, Pradip Malhotra, Krishnamurthy and Surat Singh will be part of the team.

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One-horned rhino killed in Kaziranga park

An endangered one-horned rhino was killed and its horn gouged out by poacher gangs at the famed Kaziranga National Park in Assam, India.
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India will facilitate global plan to save animals and plants

The Oct 18-29 UN biodiversity summit  appointed India as one of the facilitators in an attempt to reach a global deal that aims to halt the loss of plants, animals and their habitats by 2020.

The summit of 192 countries and the European Union (EU) here has been stuck over three points - what percentage of the earth’s land and seas should be set aside for conservation; how much should rich countries pay poor countries for this; how much should pharmaceutical and cosmetics firms pay when they use the traditional knowledge of medicinal plants. The third point is about the debate known as access and benefit sharing (ABS).

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New Carbon Maps to curb climate change and boost biodiversity

New Country Maps Pinpoint Places Where Investments in Carbon Can Contribute to Community Livelihoods and Wider Conservation Goals..

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Arctic Continues to Warm at Unprecedented Rate

The Arctic region, also called the "planet's refrigerator," continues to heat up, affecting local populations and ecosystems as well as weather patterns in the most populated parts of the Northern Hemisphere, according to a team of 69 international scientists.

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Freshwater losses pose risks for food, health

Damage to rivers, wetlands and lakes threatens to destabilize the diversity of freshwater fish species, posing risks for food security, incomes and nutrition, a Rivers and lakes are the source of 13 million metric tonnes of fish annually, which in turn provide employment to 60 million people, the study by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the World Fish Center showed.

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Singapore presses Indonesia to Contain forest fires

Singapore on Thursday urged Indonesia to take action on forest fires on Sumatra island as air pollution reached health-threatening levels in the neighbouring city-state.

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Warmer Arctic probably permanent

The signs of climate change were all over the Arctic this year -- warmer air, less sea ice, melting glaciers -- which probably means this weather-making region will not return to its former, colder state, scientists reported.

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GIS for welfare and poverty eradication in Malaysia

Under the Rural Development Master Plan (RDMP), Malaysia’s Rural and Regional Development Ministry updated database of the villages as it was suggested by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. The plan aims to eradicate poverty as well as look after the welfare of the rural dwellers, said Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal, Rural and Regional Development Minister, Malaysia.

Mohd Shafie said that the GIS database contained information on the area such as the number of population, number of houses, roads as well as educational facilities and hospitals. Further, he added, "The master plan can address the issues which we are trying to resolve such as the duplication of functions and responsibilities because at times the distribution of food and aid was carried out by various ministries such as the Health Ministry and the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry whereas such a massive requirement was a waste."

According to Mohd Shafie, the master plan could be taken as a guide in all plans to be implemented by all ministries and agencies involved in rural development at the national and local levels.

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Wind Power Without Blades

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China electric vehicles output to hit 1 million

China's output of electric vehicles is expected to reach 1 million units by 2020, the official Xinhua news agency said on Saturday, citing a senior government official.

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U.S. to Try Afghan peace with Agricultural Recovery

As the United States struggles to end the longest war in its history in Afghanistan, agriculture is becoming a crucial part of its long-term strategy.

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Mekong countries should delay dam projects for decade

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Greenpeace flagship 'denied entry to Indonesia'

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NASA launches Environment monitoring system in Nepal

Charles F. Bolden, the Administrator of NASA, launched SERVIR HIMALA, a state-of-the-art earth monitoring system in Kathmandu, Nepal. It integrates satellite and other geospatial data to address pressing environmental and climate change issues affecting the planet.

Initiated by NASA and USAID, SERVIR has been recognised by the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) as an early achiever of the GEO vision. SERVER works to bring people and their environment into harmony, said Bolden, who was in Kathmandu to address a symposium on the theme, ''Earth Observation: Bridging the Data Gap for Adaptation to Climate Change in the Hindu-Kush”

"SERVIR includes three regional centres which are working together to address pressing environmental issues affecting our planet," he said. "The first is in Central America, and the Caribbean, based in Panama; the second is in East Africa and is based in Kenya; and now the third is in the Himalayan region, based in Nepal."

SERVIR Himala has already been helping map the recent flooding in Pakistan through USAID support and NASA satellite data, he said.

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Will India have it's own OS?

 Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), is working on creating a futuristic computing system, including India's own operating system. Two software engineering centres are being set up for this purpose in Bangalore and New Delhi and 25 scientists at each of these centres are working towards it. "We do not have our own operating system. Today, various bodies, including banks and defence establishments, need security. Having our own operating system will help us prevent hacking of our systems," said V.K. Saraswat, Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister and DRDO Director-General.

Indian Institute of Technology Madras and the Centre for Development of Telematics, besides universities and industries are in touch for the fulfillment of the project. Citing security reasons, he refused to provide details of organisations involved in the project. The new operating system would also have commercial use. Saraswat also said that it was fairly a costly affair, without elaborating on the timeframe.

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Goal set for capping emissions from international aviation

The International Civil Aviation Organization has set a goal of capping emissions from international aviation beginning in 2020 while gradually improving fuel efficiency.

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Haze on Saturn's Moon Titan May Hold Ingredients for Life

 In an experiment exploring the chemical processes that might be going on in the hazy atmosphere enshrouding Saturn's largest moon, a University of Arizona-led team of scientists discovered a variety of complex organic molecules -- including amino acids and nucleotide bases, the most important ingredients of life on Earth.

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Powerful Supercomputer Peers Into the Origin of Life

Supercomputer simulations at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory are helping scientists unravel how nucleic acids could have contributed to the origins of life.

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Genetically Altered Trees, Plants Help Counter Global Warming

Forests of genetically altered trees and other plants could sequester several billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year and so help ameliorate global warming, according to estimates published in the October issue of BioScience. The study, by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, outlines a variety of strategies for augmenting the processes that plants use to sequester carbon dioxide from the air and convert it into long-lived forms of carbon, first in vegetation and ultimately in soil.

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Surprising Changes at Solar Boundary

When NASA launched the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) on October 19, 2008, space physicists held their collective breath for never-before-seen views of a collision zone far beyond the planets, roughly 10 billion miles away. That's where the solar wind, an outward rush of charged particles and magnetic fields continuously spewed by the Sun, runs into the flow of particles and fields that permeates interstellar space in our neighborhood of the Milky Way galaxy.

Now scientists have finished assembling a second complete sweep around the sky, and IBEX has delivered an unexpected result: the map has changed significantly. 

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Indonesia’s Unique Climate Experiment

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Now Walk Around the Beautiful Antarctica with Google Maps

Google Street View cameras have mapped a miniscule patch of land in Antarctica that is inhabited by penguins and this imagery is now live on Google Maps for all to explore.

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TOP 10 MOST EXTREME POLAR EXPEDITIONS

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U.S. oil spill waters contain carcinogens

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