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Environment - Vyoos

Yasi, the mother of all storms

February 2nd 2011 02:48

: Vyoos news

Cyclones Yasi, left, and Tracey.

The "mother of all storms" is heading towards north-eastern Australia. It is, according to the Queensland Bureau of meteorology, "likely to be more life threatening than any experienced during recent generations".

The cyclone has been named Yasi, by Fijian authorities, who got the right to name it because they were its first victims. If it had been born in Australian waters, it would have been given a female name starting with B. The name Bitch has been suggested.

Yasi is packing winds of more than 320 km/h (200 mph). Hold on to your roof.

Australians still shudder at the mention of Cyclone Tracey. We got to name that one. In return, she flattened the city of Darwin on Christmas Eve, 1974.

Now we really have something to shudder about. The graphic above shows Tracey, on the right. Yes, Yasi is a giant. It's due to smash into north-eastern Queensland in the next few hours.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Australia, Environment

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For the term of their natural, windowless, lives

January 18th 2011 05:02

: Vyoos news

Living to be 34,000 years old would have some advantages (you'd have a lot of chances at the lottery), but there are some serious drawbacks too.

For a start, you would have to be a bacterium, which means that you would be limited, even if you did win the lottery, in what you could buy and enjoy.

Secondly, it's a long time to have a lousy view.

The 34,000-year-olds are a family of microbes were found by a research team digging in salt crystals at the bottom of Death Valley in California. The ancients were found living inside tiny, fluid-filled chambers within the crystals.

Brian Schubert, who made the discovery, described the find as a "very big surprise".

"They're alive," he said, "but they're not using any energy to swim around, they're not reproducing, they're not doing anything at all except maintaining themselves."

Long-term maintenance, but not much to look at and even less to do.

The story of the microbes has just been published in GSA Today, the publication of the Geological Society of America.

story: dailymail.co.uk; image: agry.purdue.edu

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Environment, North America, US, Odd Spot, Science

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Sweet smell of failure

November 18th 2010 10:00

: Vyoos news

The technological progress we are making as a result of the efforts of scientists, inventors and innovators is not a smooth curve. Often, it's more like two steps forward, one step back.

Take for example, the stunning breakthrough a few years back when scientists announced the end of foot odour problems due to the invention of the odourless sock.

Through a high-tech combination of silver and other stuff, here at last was relief for long-suffering partners and family members of people whose feet stink. Socks shot back to the top of the Christmas popularity list.

Alas, all good things ....

The news today is that smell-kill socks have been found to be more trouble than they are worth in terms of the environment. We are talking here of the global environment rather than the domestic one.

The bad news comes in a report from Friends of the Earth which says non-pong socks, and the nanotechnology with which they are made, have two serious environmental drawbacks.

Firstly, the nano-silver and other nanotechnological components found in the socks take a rather large amount of energy to produce. Secondly, when the socks are washed, traces of these components journey with the dirty water to waste water treatment plants, and there cause havoc in terms of greenhouse gas production.

US scientists have shown that the bacteria in waste water treatment plants release up to four times the typical level of nitrous oxide when exposed to the nano-silver used in the socks.

Friends of the Earth suggested that, for the time being, we may have to do without the high-tech non-pong socks and spend a little more time doing laundry.

news.com.au

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Environment, Technology

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Should we abolish daylight saving?

April 4th 2010 20:28

VYOOS EDITORIAL
The debate about daylight saving seems to reappear every six months. Go figure

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Environment, Science, Vyoos Editorial

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Holy cow, the world is saved

June 24th 2009 03:09

Global warming will be the death of us all, a slow and painful death caused by the terminal boredom evoked by politicians disagreeing on the fine print of carbon emissions trading.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Environment

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Would Christ have wept?

March 22nd 2009 20:48

The spectacled eider duck

Mary Colwell is a Catholic lay activist and environmentalist. About 15 years ago she went deep into the Arctic to film the spectacled eider duck, a rare species which lives all year round above the Arctic Circle. While other birds fly south for winter, it spends the dark months, as Colwell describes it, "sitting in the middle of the frozen Baring Sea".

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Animals, Environment, Religion

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We support emissions trading! Whatever that means

July 30th 2008 09:39

Picture: graphico.free.fr/hfr/pollution.jpg

According to two recent polls, most Australians favour an emissions trading scheme, but at the same time most don't know what it means.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Australia/NZ/Pacific, Australia, Environment

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Changing Fortune 500

July 12th 2008 10:21

Goodbye Nike, hello China

Hello China indeed. Our heading summarises the 2008 Fortune 500 list, released last Thursday. The iconic sports shoe maker and eight other American companies fell off the list of the world's top 500 companies measured by revenue, cutting the American presence from 162 in 2007 to 153

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Asia, China, Economics, Environment

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Panda tale of survival

July 7th 2008 03:03

Proud mother: Chinese earthquake survivor Guo Guo carries in her mouth one of two giant panda cubs born on July 6

Picture: Xinhua

The first giant panda cubs to be born in captivity in the world so far this year were delivered safely yesterday (Sunday, July 6) in Ya'an City, Sichuan Province, China. The birth of the twins, a happy enough event in its own right, is in fact the end of a dramatic story which could have been tragic.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Asia, China, Environment, Happy Spot

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G8 chatfest under way

July 7th 2008 00:38

Protestors welcome the G8 leaders to this year's meeting

Picture: Reuters

And here is the main news item being reported around the world three days from now: G8 leaders have just concluded a landmark meeting in Japan by signing a series of initiatives which are being hailed as a breakthrough in international willingness to confront climate change.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Asia, Japan, Environment, Leadership

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