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Toroid

Founding Member
Hawaii banned certain types of sunscreens to protect coral reefs.
Hawaii becomes 1st state to ban sunscreens deemed harmful to coral reefs
Hawaii just became the first state to ban certain sunscreens as a measure to protect the state's essential coral reefs.

Hawaii Gov. David Ige signed a bill on Tuesday, July 3, banning the sale of sunscreens containing two chemicals, oxybenzone and octinoxate, believed to harm coral reefs and other marine ecosystems.

State lawmakers passed the legislation in early May. Senate Bill 2571 prohibits the sale and distribution of non-prescribed sunscreens on the islands that contain oxybenzone or octinoxate, which can be deadly for coral larvae.

The ban will not be applied to medically prescribed sunscreens or makeup that contain oxybenzone or octinoxate.

“This bill is a small first step worldwide to really caring about our corals and our reefs in a way that no one else anywhere in the world has done,” he said during the bill signing.

The law makes Hawaii the first U.S. state to enact legislation designed to protect marine ecosystems by banning such sunscreens. The prohibition takes effect on Jan. 1, 2021.

“We are blessed in Hawaii to be home of some of the most beautiful natural resources on the planet, but our natural environment is fragile, and our own interaction with the Earth can have everlasting impacts,” Ige said.

Several democrats in the state’s legislature offered strong support.

Healthy reefs are a fundamental part of a larger ecosystem, and it is important to the health of our planet, Sen. Roz Baker said in a statement.

"Governor, by signing this measure, you are presenting our community with a unique moment in time to protect our coral reefs," Baker said.

Rep. Chris Lee emphasized the importance of such environmental measures in a statement on Tuesday.

“In my lifetime, our planet has lost about half its coral reefs,” Lee said. “We’ve got to take action to make sure we can protect the other half as best we can because we know that time is against us.”

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Sen. Mike Gabbard said when lawmakers passed the measure that Hawaii is “on the cutting edge.”

“When you think about it, our island paradise, surrounded by coral reefs, is the perfect place to set the gold standard for the world to follow,” Gabbard told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “This will make a huge difference in protecting our coral reefs, marine life and human health.”

Coral reefs have numerous benefits for the state, such as protecting the coastline, harboring marine life and serving as key tourist attractions for the state.

However, the ban drew opposition from many when it was proposed, largely from sunscreen manufacturers and medical groups.

The chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate are used in more than 3,500 of the world's most popular sunscreen products, including Hawaiian Tropic, Coppertone and Banana Boat.

The Washington Post reported in early May that many organizations made public statements in opposition to the ban.

The Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA) released a statement in response to the Hawaii sunscreen ban in May, stating that it would severely compromise the safety and welfare of millions of Hawaii residents and tourists by banning at least 70 percent of the sunscreens on the market today.

Mineral sunscreens that use zinc oxide or titanium dioxide to physically block the sun's rays are still allowed.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Well Boys & Gals it seems we have another pair in Britian who are in the hospital suffering from posion (nerve agent) although it does appear this was an accident, essentially being in the wrong place at the wrong time and not a possible assassination attempt. Small consolation to them

Wiltshire pair poisoned by Novichok nerve agent

Wiltshire pair poisoned by Novichok nerve agent

I read about this, is it not being investigated as to the source of this nerve agent?...I mean this stuff shouldn't just be out randomly in public for a wrong place at wrong time scenario...

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nivek

As Above So Below
Seems to me the tubes containing the bacteria should have been in a sealed case during transport...


Two Maryland hospitals evacuated after a tube of tuberculosis was opened in a hallway - possibly exposing scores of patients to the disease

'There was a small tube that contained a frozen sample, and it was dropped and the lid came off while the sample was still frozen inside,' Dr Landon King, executive vice dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, told WBALTV.

Employees who were in the area have been isolated and are being evaluated.

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nivek

As Above So Below
Bananas are on the brink of EXTINCTION as devastating tropical disease spreads across crops worldwide, researchers warn

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  • Panama disease is a fungus that affects the roots of Cavendish banana plants
  • Cavendish bananas are the species of the fruit which is eaten worldwide
  • The disease is currently found in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Australia
  • South America is the biggest supplier of commercially-grown bananas
  • Should Panama disease reach there, Cavendish banana could go extinct
  • Scientists hope to save the fruit by creating a hybrid with a rare Madagascan banana, where there are only five plants left in the world
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nivek

As Above So Below
U.S. National Guard members trying to explain to Sen. Warren that an Apache helicopter isn't a real American Indian either...:Whistle:

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Toroid

Founding Member
A four mile section of Greenland's Helheim Glacier broke off over the course of 90 minutes on 06/22.
https://earther.com/scientists-just-filmed-an-enormous-iceberg-breaking-off-1827455930
Iceberg calving events are among the more epic spectacles on the planet. But rarely have humans been lucky enough to see them happen in real time, much less capture one on camera.

A team of New York University (NYU) researchers has now done just that, capturing video footage of a four-mile long iceberg snapping off east Greenland’s Helheim Glacier. The footage is a stark illustration of one of the most important processes reshaping Earth’s coastlines today and in the futuGreenland’s outlet glaciers are like frozen rivers, flowing to sea from the island’s interior. As ice enters the ocean, it raises sea levels, a process that is expected to quicken as Greenland warms. In recent decades, the ice island’s “big three” outlet glaciers—Helheim, Jakobshavn, and Kangerdlussuaq—have sped up substantially, a phenomenon scientists believe is linked to climate change.

The new iceberg broke off Helheim over the course of 90 minutes near midnight on June 22. The research team was lucky to bear witness to it while they were out in the field doing routine equipment maintenance. Denise Holland the logistics coordinator for NYU’s Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, told Earther the scientists were just getting ready to go to sleep when the glacier started making a loud, sustained rumbling noise. She immediately got up and set up her video camera.

“It just happened right in front of our eyes,” Holland told Earther. “The amount of ice was astonishing, the noise was astonishing. Nobody was speaking because we were all too hypnotized by this event unfolding.”

An animation created for Earther by Delft University of Technology’s Stef Lhermitte (who called the new NYU video “very spectacular”) uses Sentinel-1 satellite data to offer a different perspective. The breakup of Helheim glacier’s front along an existing weakness in late June is visible about halfway up the image:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tyfSlnMe8E
Published on Jul 6, 2018
A team of NYU scientists has captured on video a four-mile iceberg breaking away from a glacier in eastern Greenland. This phenomenon, known as "calving", is a force behind the rise of global sea water levels.

“Global sea-level rise is both undeniable and consequential,” observes David Holland, a professor at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematics and NYU Abu Dhabi, who led the research team. “By capturing how it unfolds, we can see, first-hand, its breath-taking significance.”

Holland’s research team has studied the waters off the coast of Greenland for more than a decade by measuring subtle changes in water temperature and wave formation.

Video Credit: Denise Holland, Logistics Coordinator/NYU’s Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (Video shot June 22, 2018- Real time length: 30 minutes)
 

Toroid

Founding Member
They found 12 new moons orbiting Jupiter brings the total to 79.
Galileo Would Be Stunned: Jupiter Now Has 79 Moons
More than 400 years after Galileo Galilei discovered the first of Jupiter's moons, astronomers have found a dozen more — including one they've dubbed "oddball" — orbiting the planet. That brings the total number of Jovian moons to 79.

The team of astronomers originally wasn't even looking for the 12 new moons. Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science says he and his colleagues had been trying to track down a giant planet they think may be lurking at the outer reaches of our solar system.

As part of that search, Sheppard was using the 4-meter Víctor Blanco Telescope in Chile in March of last year and realized that Jupiter was right near the part of the sky he wanted to search.

"So we could also search for Jupiter moons while looking for things that are well beyond Pluto," Sheppard says.

One thing that helped was the especially large camera attached to the Blanco telescope. "[That camera] allows us to search the whole area around Jupiter in a very few images," he says.


They quickly hit the jackpot — 12 new moons appeared in the images. As they reported Tuesday in an online notice from International Astronomical Union, all 12 have now been confirmed by other telescopes.

Nine of them are in previously discovered clusters of moons that are in what astronomers call a retrograde orbit. "They're going around the planet in the opposite direction that Jupiter rotates," Sheppard says.

Astronomers think retrograde moons have a different origin story from prograde moons, which travel in the same direction that their planet rotates.

Sheppard says Jupiter's prograde moons probably formed from the same spinning disc of stuff that eventually coalesced to form the planet. By contrast, retrograde moons were probably objects that once were wandering around the solar system and got snared by Jupiter's gravity.

"They didn't form with Jupiter," he says. "We think Jupiter captured them as these objects got too close to Jupiter in the past."

Most of the prograde moons orbit much closer to the planet than the retrograde moons do. But the moon Sheppard and his colleagues call "oddball" is different — instead of orbiting with the other prograde moons, its orbit takes it out as far as the retrograde moons.

The oddball is also the smallest of the moons that Sheppard and his colleagues found, just 1 kilometer across. Sheppard thinks it may be all that's left of a larger moon that crashed into one or more of the retrograde moons sometime in the past.

Sheppard and his colleagues have proposed naming the oddball moon Valetudo, after a minor goddess and great-granddaughter of the Roman god Jupiter. Even though a dozen new moons is a pretty good haul, Sheppard expects that more searching will turn up even more moons. Maybe 100 or more of the really small ones.

And that raises a question: Does an object less than a mile across deserve to be called a moon?

Sheppard agrees it's problematic. "Maybe there will have to be a new definition for the smaller moons. Maybe a dwarf moon for anything that's 1 kilometer in size of smaller," he says.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSGMrzFlSUA

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Wade

Stare..... They are always staring
Can I say right here and now that President Puti--- Trump is a gutless coward. Yes "getting along" with China and Russia would be better but that doesn't mean kissing ass Donny. You might think your opponent has little hands your are metaphorically microscopic. What a weakling and he still has to get Clinton (also a joke) in the bit. Loser . I don't care about Clinton and Obama right now I want to know when are you going to grow a pair.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
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nivek

As Above So Below
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nivek

As Above So Below
How Twitter Became The Number One Social Network For Nudists

As platforms like Facebook and Instagram crack down on explicit content, Twitter has allowed nudity to thrive.

Since Martin Belcher, a 50-year-old customer-services adviser based in the U.K., joined Twitter in 2012, he’s tweeted out thousands of naked photos of himself hiking, gardening, reading, eating, and watering his lawn. His nearly 3,000 followers respond by favoriting, retweeting, and frequently sharing nude photos of their own.

Meanwhile, two of the very things that have made Twitter toxic for many people—its maximalist commitment to free speech and its lack of enforcement of real names—have also, strangely, made it the best place to be a nudist on the internet.

“Twitter is the main community for nudists,” Belcher says. “Most nudists use Twitter as their primary social network because we can post our photos and it’s a gathering place to make friends.” Belcher estimates that tens of thousands of nudists are active on Twitter, if not more.

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nivek

As Above So Below
McDonald's tainted salads have now sickened 163 people in 10 states

The number of people sickened by tainted McDonald's salads has jumped to 163 in 10 states. Three of the victims have been hospitalized. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the problem is caused by the Cyclospora parasite that is transmitted in foods contaminated with fecal matter.

Last week, the number of cases was 61 people in seven states – 29 in Illinois, 16 in Iowa, seven in Missouri, three in Minnesota and two each in Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin. An updated state-by-state breakdown wasn't immediately available.

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Toroid

Founding Member
Scientists create the fastest spinning object ever.
Scientists create the world's fastest spinning object
Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 033603 (2018) - Optically Levitated Nanodumbbell Torsion Balance and GHz Nanomechanical Rotor
cientists have created the fastest spinning man-made object in the world: an incredibly small “dumbbell” that can complete more than 60 billion rotations per second, which is around 100,000 times faster than a high-speed dental drill.

The researchers from Purdue University, Peking University, Tsinghua University, and the Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter in Beijing say that the object will help them to study quantum mechanics—the bizarre physics of the very small—among other applications.

The spinning dumbbell has been described in a study published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

"This study has many applications, including material science," Tongcang Li, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, and electrical and computer engineering, at Purdue University, said in a statement. "We can study the extreme conditions different materials can survive in."
 
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