Everything at the Membrane Domain
Researchers at Standford University have invented a small battery that is flexible and can be recharged in one minute.
“Our battery has everything else you’d dream that a battery should have: inexpensive electrodes, good safety, high-speed charging, flexibility and long cycle life. I see this as a new battery in its early days. It’s quite exciting,” Hongjie Dai, a chemistry professor at Stanford said.
In a twist of religious irony, the Dalai Lama says he may not reincarnate. For the last 600 years, the Dalai Lama has been reincarnated. The Dalai Lama has been in exile from the Chinese occupied Tibet. Now the atheist Chinese government is insisting that the Dalai Lama be born again.
“China follows a policy of freedom of religion and belief, and this naturally includes having to respect and protect the ways of passing on Tibetan Buddhism,” said Mr Hua of China’s Foreign Ministry.
“The title of Dalai Lama is conferred by the central government, which has hundreds of years of history. The 14th Dalai Lama has ulterior motives, and is seeking to distort and negate history, which is damaging to the normal order of Tibetan Buddhism.”
The Weather Underground reports Antarctica hit a record high temperature. Antarctica may have experienced its warmest day ever recorded on Tuesday, with the temperature reading of 63.5°F, reports The Weather Underground.
Tuesday’s record high temperature follows another high reading of 63.3°F set just the day before. Until this week’s heat wave, the highest-known recorded temperature on the continent was 62.6°F back in 1976.
The Antarctic Peninsula where the readings were made “is one of the fastest warming spots on Earth,” reports The Weather Undergound. The website cites studies from 2012 that show the world is warming at a quickening pace.
Five nations and territories have tied or hit all-time high temperature records so far this year.
Wildfires in Chile are threatening the Monkey Puzzle trees (Araucaria araucana) some of which are over a thousand years old. Chile has been in an 8 year drought that is largely blamed on global warming.
“Faced with this critical situation, there is no choice but to assume that the lack of water resources is a reality that is here to stay and that puts at risk the development of important regions of our country” President Bachelet said.
The BBC reports, “Scientists in Chile say they are expecting rainfall to drop significantly by 2050 as the country is increasingly affected by climate change. ”
IARC, the France-based cancer research arm of the World Health Organization, has issued a report finding that Roundup is a probable carcinogen. Though, Monsanto continues to defend the chemical.
“We question the quality of the assessment,” Philip Miller, Monsanto vice president of global regulatory affairs, said. “The WHO has something to explain.”
Glyphosate is the main ingredient in Roundup.
In a unique statement, the ranking weather official for China has come out publicly about global warming. The BBC reports:
Climate change could have a “huge impact” on China, reducing crop yields and harming the environment, the country’s top weather scientist has warned, in a rare official admission. Zheng Guogang told Xinhua news agency that climate change could be a “serious threat” to big infrastructure projects.
He said temperature rises in China were already higher than global averages.
China, the world’s biggest polluter, has said its emissions of gases that cause climate change will peak by 2030. However, the country has not set a specific target for cutting emissions of the gases, mainly carbon dioxide.
‘Emphasise climate security’
Mr Zheng, the head of China’s meteorological administration, said warming temperatures exposed his country to a growing “risk of climate change and climate disasters”. He said temperature rises in China had already been higher than the global average for the past century.
These are rare admissions from a Chinese official, BBC Asia analyst Michael Bristow says. China’s leaders have acknowledged the damage from global warming but they usually do not lay out the full scale of the problems.
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps;
for he is the only animal that is struck with the
difference between what things are and what they ought to be.
— William Hazlitt
If A equals success, then the formula is A = X + Y + Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.
— Albert Einstein
CALIFORNIA — Jay Famiglietti, a senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California said, “As our ‘wet’ season draws to a close, it is clear that the paltry rain and snowfall have done almost nothing to alleviate epic drought conditions. January was the driest in California since record-keeping began in 1895. Groundwater and snowpack levels are at all-time lows. We’re not just up a creek without a paddle in California, we’re losing the creek too.
As difficult as it may be to face, the simple fact is that California is running out of water — and the problem started before our current drought. NASA data reveal that total water storage in California has been in steady decline since at least 2002, when satellite-based monitoring began, although groundwater depletion has been going on since the early 20th century.
Right now the state has only about one year of water supply left in its reservoirs, and our strategic backup supply, groundwater, is rapidly disappearing. California has no contingency plan for a persistent drought like this one (let alone a 20-plus-year mega-drought), except, apparently, staying in emergency mode and praying for rain.”
On March 10, 1945, the United States sent 334 B-29 bombers to raid Japan with 279 of the planes dropping 1,665 tons of bombs on Tokyo. Approximately 15.8 square miles of the city was destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died.
Operation Meetinghouse — “The bombs were mostly the 500-pound E-46 cluster bombs which released 38 napalm-carrying M-69 incendiary bomblets at an altitude of 2,000–2,500 ft. The M-69s punched through thin roofing material or landed on the ground; in either case they ignited 3–5 seconds later, throwing out a jet of flaming napalm globs.” (Wikipedia)
