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Archive for August, 2011

Research Finds Average TV Viewing Cuts Nearly 5 Years from Life Span

August 16, 2011 Comments off

Grant Lawrence–Bodhi Thunder

A child watching TV.…Based on these figures, and expected deaths from all causes, the authors calculated that an individual who spends a lifetime average of six hours a day watching TV can expect to live just under five fewer years than someone who does not watch TV….

Daily TV quota of 6 hours could shorten life expectancy by 5 years

Television viewing time and reduced life expectancy: A life table analysis

Source: Eureka Alert

Watching TV for an average of six hours a day could shorten the viewer’s life expectancy by almost five years, indicates research published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

The impact rivals that of Read more…

Categories: health Tags: ,

Fukushima: Pacific Ocean radiation over 3,000 times normal

August 16, 2011 2 comments

agoracosmopolitan

Japan’s nuclear accident has caused radiation levels in the Pacfic Ocean to rise over 3,000 times normal.  Say what?

Top scientists in the field of Marine Chemistry, have done the testing and research and the result is not good. Fukushima’s poison  radiated water spewn into the pacific ocean will cause Read more…

New York breaks city’s rainfall record with nearly eight inches soaking city

August 16, 2011 Comments off

nydailynews

Staten Island was hit hard by the record rainfall on Sunday.

Nicholas Fevelo for News

Staten Island was hit hard by the record rainfall on Sunday.

New York broke an all-time record for a one-day rainfall Sunday as up to 8 inches of water soaked the city, snarling trains and flooding roadways.

By 9 p.m., 7.7 inches of rain had fallen at Kennedy Airport.

It was the most recorded there in a single day since the National Weather Service began keeping records 116 years ago.

The heavy tropical rain is expected to continue Monday, and a flash flood warning is in effect until 9 p.m.

The normal rainfall for all of August in New York is 4 inches – which means the city was socked with two months worth of rain in a single day.

“This is what you would expect in a major hurricane,” said Steve Wistar, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather.

Kennedy Airport’s old one-day rainfall record, 6.3 inches, set on June 30, 1984, fell by noon.
Central Park, where the city’s official rainfall total is recorded, saw Read more…

Twenty Percent of All Mammals at Risk of Extinction

August 16, 2011 Comments off

discovery

elephantElephants are among the mammals nearing extinction according to a new report.
Chris Jackson/Getty Images

At least twenty percent of all known mammals are nearing extinction, with large species at greatest risk, according to a recent assessment of the conservation status of 5,487 mammals.

Expanding agriculture and hunting are the primary extinction drivers, according to the findings, published in the latest Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. That means humans causing the most severe mammal extinction period in history.

“The example I often tend to bring up is Tasmanian Devil, familiar to many from the Looney Tunes cartoons, because it’s an example of how a species that is common, or at least not uncommon, can suddenly, through the emergence of a novel threat, be plunged into a steep decline,” lead author Michael Hoffmann told Discovery News, explaining that a relatively Read more…

10 Signs That Economic Riots And Civil Unrest Inside The United States Are Now More Likely Than Ever

August 16, 2011 Comments off

theeconomiccollapseblog

You should let the video footage of the wild violence that just took place in London burn into your memory because the same things are going to be happening all over the United States as the economy continues to crumble.  We have raised an entire generation of young people with an “entitlement mentality”, but now the economy is producing very few good jobs that will actually enable our young people to work for what they feel they are entitled to.  If you are under 30 in America today, things look really bleak.  The vast majority of the good jobs are held by people that are older, and they aren’t about to give them up if they can help it.  It is easy for the rest of us to tell young Americans to “take whatever they can”, but the reality is that there is intense competition for even the most basic jobs.  For instance, McDonald’s recently held a “National Hiring Day” during which a million Americans applied for jobs.  Only 6.2% of the applicants were hired.  In the old days you could Read more…

Rupture of Shell pipeline causes ‘substantial’ spill

August 16, 2011 Comments off

irishtimes

The Gannet Alpha platform in the North Sea (AFP/Shell/File, Ken Taylor)

Royal Dutch Shell’s ruptured North Sea pipeline has caused a “substantial” spill, with oil still leaking into the sea, the British government and the company has said.

The department of energy and climate change said yesterday that “estimates are that the spill could be of several hundred tonnes”.

A spill on that scale would be the worst in the North Sea since 2000, when more than 500 tonnes was spilt, according to data supplied by the department.

Shell said about 216 tonnes of oil, equivalent to 1,300 barrels, had leaked into the North Sea in a “significant spill”.

“Work continues to stop the oil remaining in the flowline from leaking,” the company said in a separate statement. “We estimate the current rate of leakage is Read more…

Categories: Oil Spill Tags: , , ,

Gadhafi fires first scud missile

August 16, 2011 Comments off

ap

WASHINGTON (AP) — Libyan government forces tapped into their stores of Scud missiles this weekend, firing one for the first time in this year’s conflict with rebels, but hurting no one, U.S. defense officials said Monday.

The missile launch was detected by U.S. forces shortly after midnight Sunday and the Scud landed in the desert about 50 miles outside Brega, said one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.

Rebel and regime forces have battled over the strategic port city of Brega throughout the conflict, and control has swung back and forth between the two sides.

The strike comes as rebel forces continue to advance, working in recent days to block key supply routes around Tripoli. The Obama administration said Monday that it is encouraged by recent rebel progress, but stopped short of predicting victory for the opposition forces after months of inconclusive battles.

According to the military, the Scud missile was launched from Read more…

Scientists, telescope hunt massive hidden object in space

August 15, 2011 Comments off

cnn

Some scientists think a brown dwarf or gas giant bigger than Jupiter could be at the outer reaches of the solar system. In this image showing relative size, the white object at the upper left edge represents the sun.

You know how you sometimes can sense that something is present even though you can’t see it? Well, astronomers are getting that feeling about a giant, hidden object in space.

And when we say giant, we mean GIANT.

Evidence is mounting that either a brown dwarf star or a gas giant planet is lurking at the outermost reaches of our solar system, far beyond Pluto. The theoretical object, dubbed Tyche, is estimated to be four times the size of Jupiter and 15,000 times farther from the sun than Earth, according to Read more…

North Korea’s New Friend?

August 15, 2011 Comments off

Diplomat

A rare visit by a North Korean official to Cambodia raises the faint prospect of more engagement with Southeast Asia. But ties with Phnom Penh are complicated.

The North Korean mission to Cambodia sits on a major thoroughfare in the capital Phnom Penh, in the shadow of a lavish mansion belonging to the country’s Prime Minister Hun Sen. There are usually few signs of life behind the tinted windows of the pale pink embassy building, which only rarely admits visitors. Last month, however, the mission hosted a delegationfrom Pyongyang led by North Korean Deputy Trade Minister Ri Myong San. The official visit was relatively innocuous – Ri spoke with Cambodian officials about the expansion of economic ties – but the rare public appearance of a North Korean official underscored the curious friendship between Cambodia and the reclusive communist regime.The unique relationship between the two countries dates back to 1965, when Indonesian President Sukarno introduced North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung to Cambodia’s mercurial Prince Norodom Sihanouk at a non-aligned summit in Jakarta. At first glance, the Read more…

North Korea poised for nuclear weapon test next year

August 15, 2011 Comments off

theaustralian

NORTH Korea will conduct another nuclear weapons test within 12 months, according to senior US sources with access to Washington’s intelligence assessments.

This will bring much closer the day when North Korean nuclear weapons could threaten Australia. And it could trigger explosive reactions in northeast Asia.

The senior US sources believe the test could come sooner rather than later, although next year is regarded as the most likely.

“2012 is an auspicious year from the North Korean point of view,” said one senior American.

“It’s an election year in the US and an election year in in South Korea. And the North Koreans have publicly declared their desire to be a fully functional nuclear weapons state by 2012.”

For most of the past decade, sources say, North Korea has been systematically involved in nuclear proliferation.

At a meeting in 2003, senior North Koreans told representatives of the Read more…