The Microbes That Clean Up Contaminated Mine Sites

One Yukon scientist is working on a homegrown solution to the heavy metals left behind by mining operations.

12/14/2015  - Pacific Standard

The Yukon Territory was built on gold. Founded when tens of thousands of prospectors flooded north during the great Klondike Gold Rush of 1898, the Yukon's economy continues to rely, more than a century later, on mining for gold and other metals. That comes with some rewards: In the wake of the 2008 crash, while much of the world struggled, the Yukon's economy boomed, as the skyrocketing price of gold had triggered a second gold rush. But it also comes with risks: the uncertainties of a boom-bust cycle, and the potential for environmental disasters left behind after the mines close.

That's where Dr. Amelie Janin comes in. Janin, the industrial research chair at the Yukon Research Centre, is working on homegrown, sustainable ways for mining companies to clean up their messes—specifically, methods to ensure that the heavy metals liberated during the mining process aren't allowed to contaminate the territory's water, plants, and wildlife.

Currently, the majority of mines use a chemical treatment to neutralize the heavy metals left behind by mining operations. It's a reliable process: "We know it really well, we can control it, and we know it works," Janin says. "But it's not necessarily very sustainable." Since 2012, she's been working on a biological alternative, replicating Mother Nature's own cleaning systems: "We want to try to reproduce the mechanisms that are occurring naturally in the Yukon and use them to our advantage."

"We want to try to reproduce the mechanisms that are occurring naturally in the Yukon and use them to our advantage."

To accomplish this feat, Janin's created what she calls "bio-reactors." After gathering sediment from local creeks, which contains the microbes that she needs to use as cleaners, and mixing the sediment with gravel, sand, and other materials—maybe wood chips or biochar—in a sealed tube, Janin runs contaminated mine water through the tube. From here, the microbes simply go to work. Various bacteria have different roles in the process: One of them transforms the sulfate that's naturally present in the mine water into sulfide. "And then the sulfide is very, very reactive," Janin explains. "It reacts with the [heavy metals] right away, and then it precipitates the metal. So the metal is solid, instead of being dissolved in the water and transported by the water." The gravel and other solid particles in the tube act as a filter, trapping the now-solid metals in place.

This is a process that's also been used and experimented with in southern Canada and the United States, but Janin's work has a decidedly northern twist: She's tried the process at colder temperatures too. In addition to testing her bio-reactors at room temperature in her lab, she's also conducted trial runs inside a fridge, at 37 and 43 degrees Fahrenheit. She's found that some versions of her bio-reactors still perform well at colder temperatures, while others were negatively affected.

Janin's bio-reactors are impressively efficient: She's managed to cleanse more than 99 percent of copper, more than 99 percent of zinc, and between 94 and 95 percent of arsenic from the contaminated water she's working with so far. That level of efficiency would leave the water on shuttered mine sites virtually unscathed. The next step, then, is to scale the procedure up, from the lab to a full-blown mine site. She's working with several mining companies in the Yukon, including one that runs an operating mine and one that's tasked with cleaning up and refurbishing an old mine site. She's moved up to working with 50-gallon barrels in one pilot project, and has her eye on larger-scale bio-reactors that have been built elsewhere as models.

"A wetland is another biological system that treats water," Janin says, "and it's based on the same microbes as the bio-reactor." The key difference, though, is that wetlands are filled with plants—not just gravel and wood chips. That means there's a theoretical risk of the heavy metals being absorbed by the flora, and Janin wants to ensure that she knows where, exactly, the metals are going as they're filtered.

Please read more from Source:

 Pacific Standard

Florida kicks 9,000 chronically ill, disabled kids out of healthcare system

An investigation by the Miami Herald has uncovered how the state gutted its Children's Medical Services, a program designed to help chronically ill and disabled poor children. So kids are getting dropped:

Miami Herald - The Miami Herald obtained thousands of pages of health department documents under the state's public records law, including nearly 800 emails and hundreds of memos and reports that detailed the state's plan to "restructure" CMS. They show that the elimination of children from CMS was the result of a plan to slash spending on sick kids at a time when Florida had a $635.4 million surplus. For the legislative session that begins next month, Gov. Rick Scott has proposed $1 billion in new tax cuts. The spending plan would eliminate an additional 718 health department positions....

Nine thousand kids have been dropped since May, even though the state was running a surplus, and possibly to help fund the tax cuts Scott wants. 

Mcr-1, e.coli: New superbug that is resistant to all antibiotics

FOR years experts have warned there would come a day when antibiotics would cease being effective.

And it seems that day could be sooner than first thought after scientists discovered a new superbug that is not just impervious to the last line of defence medication, but has the ability to infect other bacteria.

But instead of destroying its virulent cousins this new strain of e.coli actually strengthens them by giving them the same antibiotic shield.

The unstoppable superbug was first found in China a few weeks ago.

Chinese and British scientists identified the first strain in a pig, then in raw pork meat and then in a small number of people.

Experts, while worried about the potential effect this discovery would have, hoped it would remain in China.

But this week those hopes were dashed when researchers in Denmark revealed they had found a similar strain in poultry from Germany as well as in a Danish man who had never travelled outside the country.

The superbug has also been found in Malaysia.

Further tests carried out on food samples from 2012-2014 by the Technical University of Denmark's National Food Institute in Søborg and the State Serum Institute in Copenhagen, found the deadly mutation was present.

This sparked calls from the head of NFI's genomic epidemiology group, Frank Aarestrup, for other universities with similar databases to carry out testing, online health magazine STAT reported.

What makes this strain different from other e.coli is that it carries a gene named mcr-1.

It is thought this gene is what gives the strain its super-strength and the ability to infect other bacteria.

A poultry farm in Hefei, eastern China's Anhui province is being inspected after the discovery of a deadly and fast-spreading bacteria resistant to last-line antibiotics. Picture: AFPSource:AFP

Dr Sanjaya Senanayake from ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment told news.com.au the Danish discovery was a real worry.

"It was a problem when we heard they were found in China a couple of weeks ago but one had hoped that it would just be in China and wouldn't spread too quickly but they have now found it in Denmark," he said. "These are very bad superbugs to have."

He explained while the risk to Australia was not as serious as other parts of the world, the rate at which the bacteria can spread, and how easily, could be devastating.

"We in Australia are a lot better off than other countries in terms of dealing with resistant bacteria but we are starting to see them come here," Dr Senanayake said. "The issue of course is Australians travel and when people travel and visit other countries, they drink the water, eat food, walk around and you pick up the local bacteria.

"A number of studies have shown that travellers going to countries that have resistant bacteria in them will often come back with those resistant bacteria sitting in their bowels. If it doesn't cause an infection then it's OK and usually after a few months they lose that bacteria. But if it does it can cause serious problems."

Please continue reading from: 
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/scientists-have-found-a-new-strain-of-bacteria-that-is-resistant-to-all-antibiotics/news-story/f643ea45c989c63365c0e50ea4a5f3e0
----
Shared via my feedly reader

Wind Power History: Marcellus Jacobs Interview

Marcellus Jacobs posing with a model of one of his durable, fault-tolerant wind power generators. 


PHOTO: MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

On June 2nd and 3rd, 1973 a Wind Energy Conversion Workshop was held in Washington, D.C. The gathering was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and implemented by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  

Well sir...conferences and symposiums and workshops and all the other fancy meetings held to "study" a problem are all right, I suppose. But a fellow sometimes wonders if they're worth the trouble it takes to organize them.  

This particular assembly was no exception. For, we're told, after nearly two days of absorbing reports and addresses from people who've experimented with and used wind power...many of the "experts" and "engineers" there still didn't have what you could call a grasp of the energy source's potential. "You mean you really run all your lights and appliances and a typewriter and stereo and TV on electricity produced by a wind plant? You mean you're doing that right now?" one incredulous engineer asked Henry Clews.

"I mean, if this thing actually works we should find out if it's practical enough to put into production."  

It was then that an authoritative-looking 70-year-old gentleman rose to his feet and educated the audience about wind power history. He said, in effect: "Why, you young whippersnapper. You're trying to reinvent the wheel. Not only will wind plants work...not only can they be put into production...and not only can they be manufactured and sold profitably...but I personally built and marketed approximately 50 million dollars worth of the units from the early 30's to the mid-50's. We were already in full swing before you were born."  

Now I hasten to add that genial, polite Marcellus Jacobs didn't address the young and well-meaning (but somewhat ignorant) engineer quite so abruptly. Mr. Jacobs did, however, leave no doubt that wind plants could be made to work. And he should know: Marcellus Jacobs is the man who almost single-handedly invented the first practical wind-powered electrical generating system. He's the man who originated nearly all the noteworthy advances in the field from 1930 to 1956. And he's the man who dominated this specialized mini-industry until the day he decided to move on to other interests.  

Marcellus Jacobs hasn't manufactured a wind plant since 1956...but people who know still fight to find one of his old second or third hand units. Why? Well, Admiral Byrd set up one of the Jacobs systems at the South Pole in 1933. On June 17, 1955, Richard E. Byrd, Jr., wrote a letter to Mr. Jacobs in which he said:  

I thought it might interest you to know that the wind generator installed (by my father)...at the original Little America, was still intact this year after almost a quarter of a century...The blades were still turning in the breeze (and) show little signs of weathering. Much of the paint is intact.

Marcellus Jacobs, in short, designed good wind plants. He built 'em good too...and he built 'em to last.  

Mr. Jacobs now lives and works on other environmentally oriented projects in Florida and Steve Weichelt recently visited him there. During the course of their conversation, Steve asked Jacobs to describe the development of his plants and to comment on the future he sees for wind power.  

Please continue reading from: 

MOTHER EARTH NEWS
http://www.motherearthnews.com/renewable-energy/wind-power-history-zmaz73ndzraw.aspx
----
Shared via my feedly reader

World's 15 Biggest Ships Create More Pollution Than All The Cars In The World

Jeremy Helms: Says James Corbett, professor of marine policy at the University of Delaware: "Ship pollution affects the health of communities in coastal and inland regions around the world, yet pollution from ships remains one of the least regulated parts of our global transportation system." It sounds serious, but how bad could it be? Staggeringly, if a report by the UK's Guardian newspaper is to be believed. According to their story, just one of the world's largest container ships can emit about as much pollution as 50 million cars. Further, the 15 largest ships in the world emit as much nitrogen oxide and sulphur oxide as the world's 760 million cars.

The problem isn't necessarily with the ships' 109,000-horsepower engines that endlessly spin away 24 hours a day, 280 days a year. In fact, these powerplants are some of the most fuel efficient units in the world. The real issue lies with the heavy fuel oil the ships run on and the almost complete lack of regulations applied to the giant exhaust stacks of these container ships.

The good news is that pressure is building from various governments around the world, including the United States, which just recently introduced legislation to keep these ships at least 230 miles away from U.S. coastlines. Similar measures are likely to follow in other countries like the United Kingdom. [via]

Author Jeremy Helms

View more articles by Jeremy Helms.

Please continue reading from: 

http://www.industrytap.com/worlds-15-biggest-ships-create-more-pollution-than-all-the-cars-in-the-world/
----
Shared via my feedly reader

The House Just Voted to Ban Those Tiny Pieces of Plastic in Your Toothpaste | Mother Jones

A sample of microbeads collected in Lake Erie 5 Gyres Institute

Yesterday, the US House of Representatives voted to phase out microbeads, the little pieces of plastic that act as exfoliants in personal-care products ranging fromface wash to toothpaste. The bill, which was introduced last year by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), would ban the use of synthetic microplastics in cosmetics by 2018. Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.) introduced companion legislation in May.

Environmental advocates have expressed concern for years over the beads, which are so small that they aren't caught in water treatment plants. There are roughly 300,000 microbeads in a single tube of face wash; by some estimates, Americans dump roughly 300 tons of the beads per year into US waterways. The microplastics, which serve as a sponge for toxins, are frequently confused by fish as food and make their way up the food chain—they've turned up in tuna and swordfish.

Several states have enacted microbead bans, starting with Illinois in 2014. California passed the strictest legislation yet in October this year, banning both synthetic and biodegradable plastics. (Many experts argue that there is no such thing as plastic that can biodegrade in ocean conditions.) If it becomes law, the national legislation, which only focuses on synthetic plastics, would supersede these state bans.

Here are a few products with and without the plastic beads. If you're curious about a product you use, look for polyethylene on the ingredient list.

Please continue reading from:  Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2015/12/house-just-voted-ban-those-tiny-piecse-plastic-your-toothpaste
----
Shared via my feedly reader

87% of Earth's population lives where the air is toxic

TreeHugger

Air pollution in China is getting a lot of press in recent times, especially with sad milestones like the first-ever smog 'Red Alert' in Beijing, but breathing clean air isn't just a dream for the Chinese. A new study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology confirms, once again, sadly, that exposure to ambient air pollution is a global health crisis.

The researchers looked at areas where concentrations of tiny particulate matter in the air (PM2.5) exceeds limits set by the World Health Organization (WHO). By overlaying these areas (which you can see on the map below) with population density maps, they found that 87% of the world's population lived in areas where the air is worse than what should be permitted according to WHO guidelines (using 2013 data, as it takes a while to gather global stats). China and India are in particularly bad shape, 0.4% of people in China and 0.01% in India living in areas meeting WHO levels.

ACS/Promo image

Between 1990 and 2013, global population-weighted PM2.5 increased by 20.4%. In other words, the average person on Earth in 2013 was exposed to 1/5 more PM2.5 than in 1990. This was mostly driven by pollution increases in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China.

But averages can be misleading, like with the man who drowned crossing a river that was just 3 feet deep on average... In richer countries, decreases in population-weighted concentrations of PM2.5 could be found. As you can see on the map, most of North-America isn't doing too bad on PM2.5 (though that doesn't mean that there's not air pollution or that things can't be even better.

The researchers also look at population-weighted concentrations of ozone pollution: Between 1990 and 2013, there was a global increase of 8.9%, with increases in most countries, except for some modest reductions in North America, parts of Europe, and several countries in Southeast Asia.

Here are some highlights from the findings:

"The highest concentrations of PM2.5 were evident in northern Africa and the Middle East due to emissions of windblown mineral dust; and in South and East Asia—especially in northern India and eastern China—due to combustion emissions from multiple sources including household solid fuel use, coal fired power plant emissions, landscape fires, industrial and transportation-related emissions."

"35% of global population resided in areas with concentrations above the WHO Interim Target 1 of 35 μg/m3 annual average PM2.5 with nearly all of the most extreme (>65 μg/m3) concentrations experienced by populations in China and India."

"Large relative increases [in estimated PM2.5 concentrations] were apparent in Western Canada, parts of South America, the Middle East, India and China. Somewhat similar patterns were also evident for ozone."

Wikimedia/Public Domain

Via Environmental Science & Technology, GCG

President Signs Surface Transportation Bill into Law; Includes Permit Streamlining

On Dec. 4, President Obama signed into law H.R. 22, the "Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act," which included the Senate version of a bill streamlining environmental reviews and speeding permitting of major construction projects in the final conference report to the highway funding legislation. On Dec. 3, Congress passed the bill which, for the first time since passage of a 1969 federal law requiring environmental reviews of major infrastructure projects needing federal permits, will impose a structure on the management, coordination, timing and transparency of the environmental review process for these projects. Its coverage is very broad, including infrastructure, energy, and aviation, broadband and manufacturing projects.

Read on at:

http://www.paint.org/president-signs-surface-transportation-bill-into-law-includes-permit-streamlining/

"Nuclear Nightmare on the Great Lakes" Old, Historically troubled nuclear plant gets 20-year extension through 2037

THE BLADE — The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a 20-year extension to FirstEnergy Corp.'s Davis-Besse nuclear plant on Tuesday, ending more than five years of review for what the agency itself has described numerous times as a plant with a unique and troubled history.

The extension allows Davis-Besse to continue operating through April 22, 2037. The plant's original 40-year license expires April 22, 2017.

.... Davis-Besse is the nation's 81st nuclear plant to receive a 20-year operating extension from the NRC. The agency has not rejected any of the applications.

Sam Belcher, FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. president and chief nuclear officer, said Tuesday the company is committed to operating a safe plant.

He conceded the application, filed on Aug. 30, 2010, took "a little bit longer" than expected. The time for most other applications has been two to three years.

"But I think the rigor and thoroughness of the NRC is important," he said. "We had a couple of issues that took a little longer to understand the full ramifications."

....Harold Denton, a former NRC engineer who took control of the chaotic Three Mile Island scene under orders from then-president Jimmy Carter, told a meeting of nuclear executives in 2004 that Davis-Besse has had the second and third-worst brushes with disaster.

Davis-Besse's low point was the near-rupture of the plant's original reactor head in the spring of 2002.

A coalition of anti-nuclear groups opposed to the extension called the NRC's decision an example of the agency's systematic "rubber stamp" for license extensions.

"Davis-Besse is a contrivance of regulatory neglect and corporate welfare. Without the existence of both, it would be a fading road bump in the transition to a full-employment, safe energy future," according to Terry Lodge, a Toledo attorney representing Beyond Nuclear, Citizens Environmental Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Ohio Green Party.

The groups said they are seeking to invalidate license extensions through a lawsuit Beyond Nuclear has filed in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington challenging the lack of a national repository for spent reactor fuel.

Please read full at: THE BLADE

Chemical flavorings found in e-cigarettes linked to lung disease | Harvard Gazette

Diacetal, a flavoring chemical linked to cases of severe respiratory disease, was found in more than 75 percent of flavored electronic cigarettes and refill liquids tested by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Two other related, potentially harmful compounds were also found in many of the tested flavors, which included varieties with potential appeal to young people such as cotton candy, "Fruit Squirts," and cupcake.

The study was published online today in Environmental Health Perspectives.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the flavoring industry have warned workers about diacetyl because of the association between inhaling the chemical and the debilitating respiratory disease bronchiolitis obliterans, colloquially known as "popcorn lung" because it first appeared in workers who inhaled artificial butter flavor in microwave popcorn processing facilities.

"Recognition of the hazards associated with inhaling flavoring chemicals started with 'popcorn lung' over a decade ago. However, diacetyl and other related flavoring chemicals are used in many other flavors beyond butter-flavored popcorn, including fruit flavors, alcohol flavors, and, we learned in our study, candy-flavored e-cigarettes," said lead author Joseph Allen, assistant professor of exposure assessment sciences.

There are currently more than 7,000 varieties of flavored e-cigarettes and e-juice (nicotine-containing liquid that is used in refillable devices) on the market. Although the popularity and use of e-cigarettes continues to increase, there is a lack of data on their potential health effects. E-cigarettes are not currently regulated, although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a proposed rule to include e-cigarettes under its authority to regulate certain tobacco and nicotine-containing products.

Allen and colleagues tested 51 types of flavored e-cigarettes and liquids sold by leading brands for the presence of diacetyl, acetoin, and 2,3-pentanedione, two related flavoring compounds that the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association lists as "high priority," i.e., they may pose a respiratory hazard in the workplace. Each e-cigarette was inserted into a sealed chamber attached to a lab-built device that drew air through the e-cigarette for eight seconds at a time with a resting period of 15 or 30 second between each draw. The air stream was then analyzed.

Please continue reading from:  Harvard Gazette
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/12/popcorn-lung-seen-in-e-cigarette-smokers/?
----
Shared via my feedly reader

FREE Webinar tomorrow: Can energy use data reduce electricity costs and environmental impacts?

I wanted to remind you that the University of Minnesota's Institute on Environment is hosting this seminar (also streaming online) TOMORROW at noon CST.

Instructions for joining the seminar online:

-- Join the event ten minutes early at https://umn.webex.com

-- The event ID number is 749 731 945

The seminar will be recorded and archived for later viewing at http://environment.umn.edu/frontiers-in-the-environment/.

Here's the abstract:

As state and local governments and electricity users attempt to improve the efficiency of their buildings, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and realize the promises of improved demand-side management of energy resources, the need for electricity and other energy-related data becomes ever more pressing. Yet current law allows companies to keep a significant amount of energy use data confidential. In this talk we will draw lessons from the more sophisticated legal frameworks governing health care, education and environmental emissions data that balance public policy needs for data evaluation with privacy interests. A review of the law in these fields shows that the privacy and confidentiality interests in energy consumption data may be overstated and, in any event, can be adequately addressed in most instances by aggregating the data, using historic rather than current data, or developing contracts and other agreements to ensure security where access to individualized data is needed.

Please Support Removing Billions of Landfill Plastic - Sign Petition @change

With Americans eating about 1.5 billion pounds of potato chips each year, think about how many chip bags that would be! When we, a group four of ten-year olds, realized that, we knew we needed to act, some way or another.

Now, before you lose your faith in your favorite chips, there is solution. The chip bags that we use now are excellent moisture barriers, which is why the chips stay fresh and crisp. The plastic bags used to hold cereal also keeps out moisture. The only difference between the two is that one is much easier to recycle than the other, so why not use the plastic bag that is used for cereal for chips as well?

This is why we really need you to support our petition. With your help, we can convince the CEOs of PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, the owners of many chip brands, to use the recyclable plastic material instead of the aluminum and plastic mess they use right now.

Please sign this petition and do your part on helping to keep this world as beautiful as it can possibly be for future generations. We can survive without potato chips if we have to, but we cannot survive without Earth.

Sign Here

https://www.change.org/p/coca-cola-stop-contributing-to-landfills-help-us-save-the-world-one-chip-bag-at-a-time

India Uses Plastic Waste In New Road Construction

 Indian roads will have some plastic waste in them, as the country's Supreme Court has ordered such recycling of this waste stream

The post India Uses Plastic Waste In New Road Construction appeared first on Sustainablog.

Beijing issues first ever air pollution 'RED ALERT' with smog at 40x safe levels

TreeHugger: Airpocalypse

China is going through a severe pollution crisis, kind of like what many other countries went through decades ago when they first industrialized, but made worse by the much population density in the region. As we've written about recently, air pollution kills an average of 4000 people every day in China, 17% of all China's deaths.

While there's been some signs that China might be reaching a turning point -environmental issues are the #1 cause of social unrest and some political leaders arestarting to take some steps to deal with pollution - the country is far from out of the woods. A reminder of that comes this week from the nation's capital, Beijing: For the first time ever, the city has issued a 'Red Alert' on air pollution, forcing a variety of measures to try to bring air quality back to a less toxic level.

Berkeley Earth/Screen capture

The alert will begin at 7 AM on Tuesday and force millions of vehicles off the roads, force factories and construction projects to temporarily shut down, and schools and nurseries are also asked to close. This measures are welcome and should probably have started last week when pollution levels reached 40x what is considered 'safe' by the World Health Organization.

"It is history – this is a precedent set," said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public an Environmental Affairs in Beijing. "This is extremely important to stop children from being exposed to such a high level of pollution."

GP/Screen capture

This massive episode of smog is expected to choke the city at least until Thursday, when rain is expected to clear things somewhat.

Flickr/CC BY 3.0

Please continue reading from:  Guardian

Bye, bye, bananas

In the mid 1900s, the most popular banana in the world—a sweet, creamy variety called Gros Michel grown in Latin America—all but disappeared from the planet. At the time, it was the only banana in the world that could be exported. But a fungus, known as Panama Disease, which first appeared in Australia in the late 1800s, changed that after jumping continents. The disease debilitated the plants that bore the fruit. The damage was so great and swift that in a matter of only a few decades the Gros Michel nearly went extinct.

Now, half a century later, a new strain of the disease is threatening the existence of the Cavendish, the banana that replaced the Gros Michel as the world's top banana export, representing 99 percent of the market, along with a number of banana varieties produced and eaten locally around the world.

And there is no known way to stop it—or even contain it.

That's the troubling conclusion of a new study published in PLOS Pathogens, which confirmed something many agricultural scientists have feared to be true: that dying banana plants in various parts of the world are suffering from the same exact thing: Tropical Race 4, a more potent mutation of the much feared Panama Disease.

....The reason the original disease and its latest permutation are so threatening to bananas is largely a result of the way in which we have cultivated the fruit. While dozens of different varieties are grown around the world, often in close proximity to one another, commercially produced bananas are all the same (quite literally in fact, because they are effectively clones of each other).

Please read full and follow (By Roberto A. Ferdman is a reporter ) at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/04/the-worlds-most-popular-banana-could-go-extinct/

"Water-in-salt" battery bodes well for greener, safer grid storage

www.gizmag.com

Scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Army Research Laboratory have used high concentrations of salt in water to create safe, green batteries that could find use in anything from large-scale grid storage to spaceships and pacemakers.

Many of today's batteries are designed so that, on first charge, their energy-carrying electrolytes will break down near the negative pole and form a so-called "solid-electrolyte interphase" (SEI) layer that is electrically insulating, but still lets ions through.

The SEI allows the battery to operate at higher voltages and self-discharge more slowly. It is so important that commercial lithium-ion batteries include one, even though this means using a flammable electrolyte in a battery that can (in rare cases) quickly overheat. The safer alternative of a water-based electrolyte has been set aside for commercial applications because it was so far believed that no SEI could form in such a medium.

But now, researchers Chunsheng Wang, Kang Xu and team have for the first time managed to create an SEI in an aqueous cell, in a result that could pave the way for safer and greener batteries.

The scientists started from the idea of a salt water battery but, using carefully selected lithium salts, took the concept to the extreme and built a water-based electrolyte with a salt to water ratio of six to one (hence the "water-in-salt" name). The high concentration of salt, near saturation levels, meant that an SEI could form, raising the maximum voltage for such a battery from 1.23 V to around 3 V.

Wang and team's prototype battery was tested at 2.4V, with an energy density for the full cell of approximately 100 Wh/kg and consistent performance over 1,000 charge/discharge cycles. This is noteworthy because aqueous batteries could previously only achieve high cycling stability at the cost of voltage and energy density.

More research is needed, but the use of a nonflammable electrolyte is likely to reduce manufacturing costs and improve battery recyclability. Potential applications include cheaper and safer grid storage or providing a safer energy source in confined spaces like aboard airplanes, spaceships or submarines.

The advance is further detailed in the journal Science.

Source: University of Maryland

US Coast May Be Under The Threat of Radiation from Fukushima

MIDdayDaily: ​The 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan shook the entire globe, leaving thousands of people without homes and affecting hundreds of people with radiation poisoning. Now, a report from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has claimed that the US coast may be under threat of radiation from Fukushima, the west coast, to be more specific.... http://www.middaydaily.com/us-coast-may-be-under-the-threat-of-radiation-from-fukushima/23592/

The disaster occurred to a massive earthquake which produced a tsunami that hurdled towards the coast of Japan, directly hitting the nuclear power plant of Fukushima. This caused a triple nuclear meltdown, forcing over 160.000 people to immediately vacate the area due to the dangers of radiation poisoning and other radiation based illnesses.

The radiation levels investigated off the San Francisco coastline have a level which has not been seen ever before in that region, alarming scientists across the west coast. The highest radiation quantity found in the over 100 water samples taken by the Woods Hole institute have been found approximately 1.600 miles from the coast, with levels reaching upwards to 50 times their normal scale.

Even though this level is not high enough for the public at large to feel threatened in any way, taking into account that the levels which pose a threat to both human and aquatic life needs to be 500 times higher than the ones currently reached, this urges scientists to carefully monitor the situation at hand.

This specific type of radiation revolves around the isotope Cesium-137 which has an average radioactive life of 30 or so years. This isotope discovery in the waters off the west coast of the US may not pose a severe threat to the nation's citizens, it can even help scientists identify in a much more reliable manner the way in which specific water currents flow. By tracking the isotope through satellites equipped with radiation monitoring technology, they will be able to see the ebb and flow of ocean waters in a direct manner, without the need of an on-site team.

The radiation from the Fukushima disaster is not the only one who left traces in our close waters. The nuclear experiments carried over twenty years ago have also left bits and piece of the same cesium isotope found currently offshore San Francisco. This helps scientists to better understand the way in which our waters, as well as our whole planet, disposes of such radiation in a much more approachable way.

Even though the US coast may be under threat of radiation from Fukushima, this is not a cause to panic, due to the low levels of radiation reached. But because this actually occurred, the threat of a far off nuclear blast occurring is still present. No matter how far the nuclear incident occurs, it will eventually spread around the globe, with or without any help.

Anti-obesity group with ties to Coca-Cola disbanding; group has promoted drinking soda

Anti-obesity group with ties to Coca-Cola disbanding; group has promoted drinking soda
An anti-obesity group with ties to Coca-Cola is disbanding over scrutiny that the group's views were heavily influenced by the soda manufacturer, reports The Associated Press. The nonprofit organization called the Global Energy Balance Network, which promotes the argument that weight-conscious Americans are overly fixated on how much they eat and drink while not paying enough attention to exercise, "said on its website Monday night that it is 'discontinuing operations due to resource limitations.' The decision was effective immediately."

Global Energy, which in August released a Coke-funded obesity report that said people should keep drinking soda, "had previously said that it received an 'unrestricted gift' from Coke and that the Atlanta-based soft drink giant had 'no input' into its activities," reports AP. Last week AP "reported on emails showing that Coke helped with the selection of the group's leaders, edited its mission statement and suggested content for its website. When contacted about the exchanges, Coke CEO Muhtar Kent said in a statement there wasn't enough transparency regarding the company's involvement."

"The emails obtained by the AP through a records request showed Coke executives and the group's leaders held meetings and conference calls to develop the group's mission," reports AP. "A proposal circulated via email at Coke laid out a vision for a group that would 'quickly establish itself as the place the media goes to for comment on any obesity issue.' It said the group would run a political-style campaign to counter the 'shrill rhetoric' of 'public health extremists.'"

Americans' consuming large quantities of soda has been partially to blame for at least 30 percent of adults in 18 states—many of them rural—being obese. Consumption of full-calorie sodas by the average American has dropped by 25 percent in the past two decades, according to a report. 

Brillouin Energy has 35 page third party verification report that hat the Brillouin Energy HHT™ prototype repeatedly produced lab-scale excess heat from LENR

Brillouin Energy Corp., developer of renewable energy technologies capable of producing commercially useful amounts of thermal energy (heat) based on controlled low energy nuclear reactions ("LENR"), announced today that its Hydrogen Hot Tube™ (HHT™) Boiler System reactor core modules, were the subject of a recently completed independent Technical Validation Report.

The 35-page Report was prepared as technical due diligence by Michael Halem, a third party technical investigator. The Technical Validation Report summarizes the investigation into Brillouin Energy's HHT™ single tube core prototypes at Brillouin's Berkeley laboratory and at its research partner SRI International. The results are drawn from a series of calibrated tests of both systems. Mr. Halem personally designed tests on the HHT™ systems and then directed the technical staff of Brillouin Energy and SRI to execute the test plans. The tests, in which 95 channels of data were recorded and then investigated, included multiple technical changes to validate the thermodynamic results. 

In all cases, the results were consistent: the data demonstrate with very high confidence that the Brillouin Energy HHT™ prototype repeatedly produced lab-scale excess heat from LENR.

"I was given full access to the experiments," said Mr. Halem. "I was able to confirm, with a high degree of confidence, excess energy output above chemical and likely due to a nuclear reaction." The Technical Validation Report affirms that Brillouin Energy's HHT™ technology "is scalable by assembling multiple HHT™ tubes" in a reactor system. The Report was peer reviewed by Mr. Halem's technical colleague, Dr. Antoine Guillemin who holds his Masters in Nuclear Physics and Ph.D. in Building Physics. Brillouin Energy's Technical Validation Report is available upon request to qualified interested parties under a customary non-disclosure agreement.

Read more » at Next Big Future