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Extra letters added to bug genetic code

BBC - Wed, 2017-01-25 03:58
Scientists have created bacteria that thrive using an expanded "genetic alphabet".
Categories: Around The Web

Resurrection of Keystone and DAPL cements America's climate antagonism

The Guardian - Wed, 2017-01-25 03:33

Contrary to all evidence, the new US president will ignore climate change science and proceed with aggressive pro-oil and gas policies

If there were any lingering doubts over Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for shoving the US back into the smoggy embrace of fossil fuels, his decision to revive the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines banishes them utterly.

Trump has thrown down the most provocative gauntlet possible to the environmental movement, which now sees its worst fears crystalizing within a few days of the inauguration. Those Trump Tower chats with Al Gore about climate change – and Ivanka Trump’s apparent concern over the issue – now vanish over the horizon. This will be an aggressively pro-oil and gas administration, even if that means boiling the planet.

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Categories: Around The Web

Five in final stretch of Moon race

BBC - Wed, 2017-01-25 02:45
The Google-sponsored race to put a privately funded spacecraft on the Moon has just five teams left in the competition.
Categories: Around The Web

'Warrior of high status' was buried at Scottish Viking site

BBC - Tue, 2017-01-24 22:44
The excavation of a rare, intact Viking boat burial in western Scotland has been set out in detail for the first time.
Categories: Around The Web

Why a protest camp in Florida is being called the next Standing Rock

The Guardian - Tue, 2017-01-24 22:30

At first glance the quiet town of Live Oak seems an unlikely venue for a stand against Big Energy. But in recent weeks it’s become a centre of opposition

A north Florida river that attracted the state’s first tourists a century before Walt Disney’s famous cartoon mouse is emerging at the centre of a fight against a contentious 515-mile natural gas pipeline that many are calling America’s next Standing Rock.

One section of the so-called Sabal Trail pipeline is being laid beneath the crystal waters of the Suwannee river, whose pure mineral springs were once fabled to cure anything from marital strife to gout.

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Categories: Around The Web

Study: real facts can beat 'alternative facts' if boosted by inoculation | Dana Nuccitelli

The Guardian - Tue, 2017-01-24 21:00

In our current “post-truth” climate, inoculation may provide the key to making facts matter again

It’s fitting that as Donald Trump continues to flirt with anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, inoculation may provide the key to effectively debunking this sort of misinformation.

That’s the finding of a new study published in Global Challenges by Sander van der Linden, Anthony Leiserowitz, Seth Rosenthal, and Edward Maibach. The paper tested what’s known as “inoculation theory,” explained in the video below by John Cook, who’s also published research on the subject. The video is a lecture from the Denial101x free online course, which itself is structured based on inoculation theory:

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What if we gave universal income to people in biodiversity hotpots?

The Guardian - Tue, 2017-01-24 18:55

Writer and professor, Ashley Dawson, argues in his new book that capitalism is behind our current mass extinction crisis. But installing universal guaranteed income in biodiversity hotspots may be one remedy.

Human nature isn’t driving mass extinction – as some have argued – but our acceptance of capitalism is, according to English Professor Ashley Dawson with the City University of New York.

In his recent, slim, eye-opening book, Extinction: A Radical History, Dawson lays out the case that our current global economic system is pushing the Earth ever closer to a mass extinction event – one not seen since a rogue comet ended the reign of the dinosaurs. But he also argues there are potential solutions, including giving a universal guaranteed income to populations living in or near biodiversity hotspots to counter poaching, deforestation, and other harmful activities.

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Fire brigade help Yorkshire Wildlife Park give polar bear dental check-up

BBC - Tue, 2017-01-24 18:13
South Yorkshire Fire Brigade were called in to assist in giving a polar bear a dental check-up.
Categories: Around The Web

Barnaby Joyce on the future of the Trans-Pacific Partnership

ABC Environment - Tue, 2017-01-24 17:06
US President Donald Trump has withdrawn from the TPP, so what's the future for the world's largest trade deal?
Categories: Around The Web

Rare bat born by C-section in San Diego Zoo

BBC - Tue, 2017-01-24 16:12
A Rodrigues fruit bat has been born by C-section at San Diego Zoo.
Categories: Around The Web

Birdlife thrives amid the dogwalkers

The Guardian - Tue, 2017-01-24 15:30

Tyne Green, Hexham: Through binoculars, it feels as if I’m watching a wildlife documentary in this country park, minutes from town

The sun comes out as I near Tyne Green, saturating everything in olive-gold light; the trees on the bank, the arches under Hexham Bridge, the billowing plumes of steam from the chipboard factory. As I slow down, I become aware of Sunday morning sounds. Bells are being rung in the abbey on the hill. A women’s eight slices upriver with a rhythmical dipping of oars. Chattering mallards are grouped hopefully by the waterside steps. A double note from a train, traffic on the dual carriageway, the muffled flow of the weir.

Minutes from town, this linear park is busy with dog walkers, runners and golfers thwacking balls among undulating grassy tumps. On the river alongside, parallel lives are lived on the safety of the water or within its thick fringe of willows. A goosander scratches its cheek with an orange-red foot, before taking off, straight as an arrow to skim the surface. A cormorant holds its head up, watchful as a cobra. A shaggily white-chested heron stands motionless by a the calm of an inlet.

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Categories: Around The Web

Major retailer ERM chooses penalty price over contracting new wind and solar

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2017-01-24 14:11
Major retailer ERM becomes first to choose paying penalty price over investing in new wind and solar, taking advantage of extensive tax losses.
Categories: Around The Web

New data shows heat wave’s impact on Electricity bills

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2017-01-24 13:57
Total electricity usage in NSW increased by 7.5 per cent1 in January compared to the same period last year, driven largely by householders efforts to combat the extreme heatwave.
Categories: Around The Web

China completes 200 MW solar facility on top of fish farm

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2017-01-24 13:41
The Hangzhou-based company invested approximately 1.8 billion yuan ($262.6 million) in the project, which spans about 299.5 hectares.
Categories: Around The Web

Coalition government is missing the point on energy security

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2017-01-24 13:20
Hearing Josh Frydenberg putting forward a call for coal that seems to echo the Abbott rhetoric of a few short years ago will do nothing for energy investment. It's surprising that the political instinct is so poor.
Categories: Around The Web

A forensic look at Queensland’s mid-summer electricity price surge

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2017-01-24 12:59
A closer look at the extraordinary price volatility that marked "sizzling Saturday" in Queensland and sent electricity prices soaring.
Categories: Around The Web

Fossils of huge 'wolf-sized' otter unearthed in China

ABC Science - Tue, 2017-01-24 12:33
GIANT OTTER: Scientists have unearthed fossils of an intriguingly large otter as big as a wolf that frolicked in rivers and lakes in a lush, warm and humid wetlands region in south-western China about 6.2 million years ago.
Categories: Around The Web

World Wetlands Day 2 February 2017

Department of the Environment - Tue, 2017-01-24 12:17
“Wetlands for disaster risk reduction” is this year’s theme – get Wetlands Australia e-magazine and the latest wetlands fact sheet, enter a photo competition or make an origami frog.
Categories: Around The Web

California isn’t backing down on ambitious climate goal, despite Trump reversal

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2017-01-24 12:11
California shows it isn’t messing around when it comes to climate action, even in the face of federal rollbacks.
Categories: Around The Web

Hopes of saving orange-bellied parrots hang on foster baby

ABC Science - Tue, 2017-01-24 11:59
SAVING PLAN: The first captive-bred orange-bellied parrot to have survived its first week in the nest of an adoptive mother in the wild in a world-first fostering trial as a strategy to boost the endangered species.
Categories: Around The Web

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