Environment

What percentage of plants are toxic?

Some one asked me this question and I said all. All plants have some level of secondary metabolites which are at a very low level of toxicity. Some plants have these substances at sub-optimal and some have at super-optimal level. All substances are utilize ...

Blog Post - Ashwani Kumar - Oct 7 2010 - 11:38pm

Research Thoughts: Bees, ethics, and citizen science

Under the science/environment topic, one tidbit of hot news this past week was a paper linking a synergestic effect between a fungus and a virus and the death of honeybee hives.  What was not reported is that the paper's lead author, Dr. Jerry Bromens ...

Blog Post - Mel. White - Oct 10 2010 - 5:04pm

Will Jaipur survive another 50 years?

Will Jaipur live for another 50 years or not? There are some reasons to be looked into the matter why Jaipur may not survive another 50 years. 1. Greed of builders to make buildings and selling them at high price irrespective of water level, fluoride conte ...

Blog Post - Ashwani Kumar - Oct 12 2010 - 5:59am

A solution for vulture conservation

The remaining vulture population in the North West Rajasthan range suffers an increased vulnerability due to: •Isolated subpopulations •Very large foraging areas (local and non-local threats) •Very low effective population sizes •Presumably very few geneti ...

Blog Post - Dr. Dau Lal Bohra - Oct 20 2010 - 4:16pm

Aquamation: Even Greener Than Cremation?

If you're like me, not only do you want to be buried, you want to be buried with your treasure in a vast underground labyrinth dug from the stone, behind a series of traps and secret doors, and your treasure will be in the very last room with my undea ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Oct 26 2010 - 9:38pm

Climate Effects Of Nuclear Weapons (Draft)

International Environmental law and Nuclear Winter Nearly thirty years after its introduction in the 1980s, the Nuclear Winter hypothesis has gained additional quantitative confirmation, providing a robust argument for the illegality of nuclear weapons und ...

Article - Ed Chen - Nov 3 2010 - 9:04pm

Synthetic Biology: Living Buildings May Help Fight Global Warming

One solution to reducing the environmental footprint of buildings is to create 'living' materials using synthetic biology and cover them with it.  Those materials  could eventually produce water in desert environments or harvest sunlight to produ ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 5 2010 - 10:06am

Environmental Disasters- Soil Takes Decades To Fully Recover

With the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the toxic mud spill in Hungary, the big question is how long will recovery take?   Unfortunately, yet at least scientifically apt, is that there are previous disasters to help answer those questions. ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 7 2010 - 2:01pm

A Tax Holiday For Carbon Neutral Goods

In the past, support for environmental initiatives in the United States has been embraced by those on both sides of the aisle. Democrats have also made leaps and bounds in environmental protection laws including their staunch defense of the EPA.  Republica ...

Article - Ed Chen - Nov 11 2010 - 10:48am

A Solution To The AGW Controversy

I was at a film festival when it just hit me...  When I was a younger version, making movies was one of my fantasies. It seemed like it would be a fascinating lifestyle to tell interesting stories in creative ways. I still love movies (thus the festival) ...

Blog Post - John Droz - Nov 20 2010 - 10:00am