Sat.Dec 04, 2021 - Fri.Dec 10, 2021

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Three Myths About Renewable Energy and the Grid, Debunked

Yale E360

Renewable energy skeptics argue that because of their variability, wind and solar cannot be the foundation of a dependable electricity grid. But the expansion of renewables and new methods of energy management and storage can lead to a grid that is reliable and clean. Read more on E360 ?.

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HotSpots H2O: Ongoing Madagascar Famine Is Driven By Poverty, Not Climate Change

Circle of Blue

A new study shows the vulnerability of the world’s poorest nations even without climate breakdown, its authors say. Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world, chronically battles food insecurity. Image © Heinonlein / Wikimedia Commons. Madagascar is in the grip of a deadly famine. For months, international’s organizations have blamed the calamity on climate change.

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Ask a Scientist: How to Get a Charge out of Your EV

Union of Concerned Scientists

We recently received a query from a UCS member from Toledo, Ohio, who is thinking about buying an EV. “I currently own a hybrid (Prius),” Debbie P. wrote, “and would consider getting an EV for my next vehicle, but am concerned about sufficient access to charging places when traveling and also about how long it takes to charge such a vehicle.” I turned to Samantha Houston, a UCS senior vehicles analyst, to address Debbie P.’s question.

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It’s Time to Repeal the Clean Power Plan

Legal Planet

The Clean Power Plan (CPP) was the Obama Administration’s signature climate effort. This 2015 regulation aimed to move state power grids away from coal and toward renewable energy. It immediately became ensnared in litigation and never went into effect. It’s now considered irrelevant for all practical purposes. Yet the Supreme Court is now set to address numerous challenges to this zombie regulation.

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Implementing D.E.J.I. Strategies in Energy, Environment, and Transportation

Speaker: Antoine M. Thompson, Executive Director of the Greater Washington Region Clean Cities Coalition

Diversity, Equity, Justice, and Inclusion (DEJI) policies, programs, and initiatives are critically important as we move forward with public and private sector climate and sustainability goals and plans. Underserved and socially, economically, and racially disadvantaged communities bear the burden of pollution, higher energy costs, limited resources, and limited investments in the clean energy and transportation sectors.

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Embracing a Wetter Future, the Dutch Turn to Floating Homes

Yale E360

Faced with worsening floods and a shortage of housing, the Netherlands is seeing growing interest in floating homes. These floating communities are inspiring more ambitious Dutch-led projects in flood-prone nations as far-flung as French Polynesia and the Maldives. Read more on E360 ?.

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As West Withers Corporations Consolidate Land and Water Rights

Circle of Blue

This piece is part of a collaboration that includes the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), California Health Report, Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism, Circle of Blue, Colorado Public Radio, Columbia Insight, The Counter, High Country News, New Mexico In Depth and SJV Water. The project was made possible by a grant from the Water Foundation with additional support from INN.

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The Latest Chapter in Los Angeles’ Century-Long Water War With the Eastern Sierra’s People & Environment

Legal Planet

Credit: Inyo-Mono County Agriculture Commissioner. There LADWP goes again. Recently the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power announced it was walking away from its longstanding obligation to provide Mono County residents and the environment with a tiny fraction of the water it transports from Mono County to LADWP’s urban customers in Los Angeles.

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Tropical Forests Grow Back Quickly on Abandoned Land, Study Finds

Yale E360

In recent decades, cattle grazing has accounted for around two-thirds of deforestation in Brazil, with ranchers clearing forest to create pastures. Halting climate change demands not only stopping deforestation, but reversing it, for instance, by turning pastures back into woodlands. A new study of secondary forests in Central and South America and West Africa offers some hope, finding that forests are able to regrow quickly on abandoned lands.

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What’s Up With Water – December 6, 2021

Circle of Blue

Transcript. In Uganda, national regulators are cracking down on the illegal destruction of wetlands in an attempt to reduce flood risk in the east African country. In September, the new head of the National Environment Authority indefinitely suspended new construction projects in wetlands. He also began prosecuting truck drivers who fill in wetlands to create new land for development.

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Oil Execs Spout Disinformation at House Climate Disinformation Hearing

Union of Concerned Scientists

The fact that they were testifying under oath didn't seem to matter.

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Shaping a Resilient Future: Climate Impact on Vulnerable Populations

Speaker: Laurie Schoeman Director, Climate & Sustainability, Capital

As households and communities across the nation face challenges such as hurricanes, wildfires, drought, extreme heat and cold, and thawing permafrost and flooding, we are increasingly searching for ways to mitigate and prevent climate impacts. During this event, national climate and housing expert Laurie Schoeman will discuss topics including: The two paths for climate action: decarbonization and adaptation.

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Guest Contributor Sharaban Tahura Zaman: COP26 outcome on Carbon Markets: Takeaways for the Global South

Legal Planet

SEC Armadillo, Glasgow. By Finlay McWalter at English Wikipedia. – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons., CC BY-SA 3.0, [link]. As a government delegate, I have been involved in the UN climate negotiation process since 2017 to uphold Bangladesh’s and the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group’s position. After an unsuccessful COP in Madrid (2019), as a Bangladeshi citizen (a country often referred to as “ground zero” for its climate vulnerability) I had to wait another

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Sensing gravity, the quantum way

Physics World

Much of quantum technology is linked to computing. It is easy to imagine how a better, more powerful computer, capable of solving complex problems, could be useful. But what is a computer, after all, if not a data-processing machine. Computers, quantum or otherwise, transform data into information, which is then used to steer scientific, medical, industrial processes.

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The Amazon is turning into savannah – we have 5 years to save it

New Scientist

We have been hearing warnings about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest for decades, but experts say a catastrophic tipping point is now just over the horizon. Are they right? And if so, what can we do to pull things back?

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Clean Energy 2021 Year in Review: Midwest Progress

Union of Concerned Scientists

Legislative and policy victories in Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota bode well for the future.

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Sustainability at Retail

Sustainability impacts every nation, company, and person around the world. So much so that, in 2015, the United Nations (UN) issued a call for action by all countries to work toward sustainable development. In response to this and as part of a global Sustainability at Retail initiative, Shop! worked collaboratively with its global affiliates to address these critical issues in this white paper.

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Twenty years of tallgrass prairie restoration in northern Illinois, USA

The Applied Ecologist

Elizabeth Bach and Bill Kleiman share their latest findings from monitoring long-term ecosystem restoration on The Nature Conservancy’s Nachusa Grassland preserve. The challenges facing our planet can feel overwhelming and paralyzing. Climate is changing, biodiversity is declining, people are struggling to be in community with one another. However, there are signs of hope.

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How physics can help COVID-proof everyday life

Physics World

The emergence of a new variant of the coronavirus has put a constellation of researchers – virologists, immunologists and epidemiologists chief among them – in the hot seat as political leaders and public health experts seek answers to questions about how transmissible it is and whether it erodes pre-existing immunity. But while attention for the moment is on the life sciences, physicists also have a role to play in stopping the virus that causes COVID-19.

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Every coastline needs a local hero 

Frontiers

Author: Thimedi Hetti. In the world of marine science, Dr. Asha de Vos rarely needs an introduction. The Sri Lankan marine biologist and ocean educator is best known for her pioneering work on blue whales and for founding the non-profit Oceanswell , Sri Lanka’s first marine conservation research and education organization. Its flagship project, the Sri Lankan Blue Whale Project , is the longest running blue whale project in the northern Indian ocean.

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DeepMind experiment shows AI must grow smarter, not just bigger

New Scientist

The dominant approach to building more advanced artificial intelligences is simply to scale up their computing power, but AI firm DeepMind says we are reaching a point of diminishing returns

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In a First, Physicists Glimpse a Quantum Ghost

Scientific American

After a decade of work, researchers have achieved the first ever experimental reconstruction of a quantum wave function. -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com.

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‘Janus textile’ could keep you warm and cool you down

Physics World

Researchers in Belgium have unveiled the design for a fabric that could keep a person warm when worn one way, while cooling them down if worn inside out. Through simulations, Muluneh Abebe and colleagues at the University of Mons showed how the infrared-emitting properties of their “Janus textile” could allow it to be comfortably worn across a temperature range of 13°C.

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The West Sizzled in a November Heat Wave and Snow Drought

Inside Climate News

A regional warming and drying trend continues to intensify concerns about water and energy security. By Bob Berwyn GOLDEN, Colorado—Even as one of Denver’s longest snow droughts on record—232 days—was forecast to end on Friday, nerves in the Mile High City were frayed after a summer of climate extremes, and a heat wave that has stretched into late autumn. .

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Omicron variant may make Christmas party infection risk much higher

New Scientist

A series of extraordinary superspreader events at festive celebrations across Europe suggests the omicron coronavirus variant dramatically increases the risk of being infected at social events

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What Bird Is the Partridge in a Pear Tree?

Cool Green Science

What kind of bird is the partridge in the pear tree? That answer is less straightforward than you think. The post What Bird Is the Partridge in a Pear Tree? appeared first on Cool Green Science.

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Intense radiation pressure enables selective acceleration of carbon ion beams

Physics World

Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast ( QUB ) have developed a novel tool that uses a combination of high-power lasers and selective ion acceleration to investigate the biology of potential future radiotherapy regimes. The QUB team used lasers in the Gemini laser facility at Rutherford Appleton Laboratories, UK to focus an extremely intense, ultrashort 40 fs laser pulse onto ultrathin carbon foil targets – instantly ionizing and transforming them into a plasma of protons, carbon ions

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Top 21 Frontiers ebook releases from 2021

Frontiers

Download the top ebook releases from the past year including special issues on the methods for synaptic interrogation , recent discoveries in cannabinoid therapeutics , new perspectives on the evolution of monogamy , the implications of heart rate variability on health and well-being, the welfare of coral reefs in the age of human activity and many more!

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Watch a robot playing table tennis after just 90 minutes of training

New Scientist

A robot arm controlled by an algorithm can play table tennis against human players after a short training session using both a virtual and real table tennis table

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Meet the Prehistoric Animals that Ruled the Ocean

Ocean Conservancy

When we think about the age of the dinosaurs, we often forget about what was swimming in the ocean during that period. At the end of Jurassic World , the Mosasaurus is nearly forgotten until it terrifyingly jumps out of the water scaring those on land. Global sea levels were high during the Mesozoic period in which dinosaurs ruled the earth. While the animals that delighted our childhood like the Stegosaurus or the Tyrannosaurus rex roamed the land, the sea was also teeming with cool and unusual

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Could curved X-ray detectors herald the next evolution in medical imaging?

Physics World

Digital flat-panel detectors are central to today’s clinical X-ray imaging systems. But flat detectors are ill-matched to the complex 3D shape of a human body. A better option could be to use curved detectors, which could minimize distortion around image edges and reduce vignetting compared with their planar counterparts. Efforts to produce flexible detectors, however, have so far been unsuccessful, due to the stiff and brittle nature of the underlying inorganic (mainly silicon-based) semiconduc

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Lending for Livestock, Credit for Crops: Notice Requirements for Sale of Collateral

National Law Center

Many agricultural producers borrow money to successfully run their operations. Typically, the lender requires the borrower to give a security interest. The post Lending for Livestock, Credit for Crops: Notice Requirements for Sale of Collateral appeared first on National Agricultural Law Center.

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Omicron looks set to cause a huge wave of covid-19 around the world

New Scientist

It remains unclear whether the omicron coronavirus variant causes less severe disease, but even if this is true, hospitals could still be overwhelmed by the sheer number of cases

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Leaving thermal coal behind, one?victory?at a?time?

Eco Justice

Last month at the COP26 summit in Scotland, the world was confronted with the stark reality that not enough is being done to curb the climate emergency. We need to. Read more. The post Leaving thermal coal behind, one?victory?at a?time? appeared first on Ecojustice.

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Carbon nanotubes help space-bound electronics resist radiation damage

Physics World

As space missions venture ever further afield, spacecraft will inevitably be exposed to greater amounts of cosmic radiation that can damage or even destroy their onboard electronics. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the US Air Force Research Laboratories have now shown that adding carbon nanotubes to transistors and circuits could render these devices resistant to higher amounts of radiation than is possible with standard silicon-based electronics.

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U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm tours PRI carbon management projects

Environmental News Bits

On Dec. 9, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm toured several U of I sustainable energy projects, including PRI’s carbon capture efforts at Abbott Power Plant. During the visit she also heard about PRI’s extensive work in carbon sequestration. Read more about PRI’s carbon management and sustainable energy research.

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London cat 'serial killer' was just foxes, DNA analysis confirms

New Scientist

The discovery of over 300 mutilated cat carcasses in London led to media reports that a serial killer was roaming the streets, but now DNA analysis has confirmed that scavenging foxes were responsible

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