WASHINGTON — Americans are getting heavier than ever, with more than 26 percent of the population now fully obese, the U.S. government reported on Wednesday. Despite warnings that the population must stop layering on the fat and frightening statistics that show two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, the weight trend continues, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. ‘The proportion of U.S. adults who are obese increased to 26.1 percent in 2008 compared to 25.6 percent in 2007,’ the CDC said in a statement. ‘If this trend continues we will likely see increases in healthcare costs for obesity-related diseases,’ said the CDC’s Liping Pan, who headed the study. ‘Obesity is a major risk factor for many chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes,’ the CDC’s Dr. William Dietz added in a statement. ‘As obesity increases among all age groups, we are seeing chronic diseases in much younger adults compared to a few decades ago. ‘For example, we now see young adults who suffer from heart disease risk factors and other conditions such as type 2 diabetes that were unheard of in the past.’ The agency used its Behavioral Risk Factor […]
Traditionally, the tropics are defined as ‘the equatorial band circling the Earth between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. But according to two climate researchers at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, that definition will need to be revised: Over the past 25 or 30 years, the tropics have expanded between 186 and 311 miles (300 to 500 km) beyond that. That expansion has also pushed the subtropics into temperature areas, notes Prof. Steve Turton: Such areas include heavily-populated regions of southern Australia, southern Africa, the southern Europe-Mediterranean-Middle East region, the south-western United States, northern Mexico, and southern South America. All of (them) are predicted to experience severe drying. If the dry subtropics expand into these regions, the consequences could be devastating for water resources, natural ecosystems and agriculture, with potentially cascading environmental, social and health implications. These changes – which were observed from weather balloons, satellite imagery, sea surface temperatures and climate models as well as by reviewing numerous studies – are expected to impact ‘everything from farming and healthcare to viticulture and tourism, Turton says. One big effect will be more drought […]
In a sign of the difficulties facing the development of wind energy, the legendary Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens is suspending plans to build the world’s largest wind farm. Over the near term, Mr. Pickens instead plans to build three or four smaller wind farms, at a cost of some $2 billion. He said that he was unsure whether he would ever revive the giant wind project in the Texas Panhandle that has been on the drawing board for years. ‘I think at this point anything’s possible, he said in an interview. Mr. Pickens cited several factors that caused him to alter his plans, including lack of transmission lines and a fall-off in the price of natural gas, with which wind competes as a power source. The project was also hurt by the financial turmoil that has stymied activity across the once-popular renewable energy industry. ‘Everything kind of slowed us down, Mr. Pickens said. Mr. Pickens’s struggles are symptomatic of a broader reversal of fortune for wind developers. This year, Emerging Energy Research, a consulting firm, expects a drop of nearly 25 percent in the amount of new wind power installed compared with last year. Two […]
The U.S. government issued final guidelines Monday describing which embryonic stem cell lines will be eligible for government funding, effectively expanding the universe of stem cells that can be used for research. Going forward, researchers will have to demonstrate that embryonic stem cells used in research were obtained from fertility clinic embryos that otherwise would have been discarded. Also, the stem cells must come with the informed consent of the parents or mother. But stem cells developed earlier will not require such precise documentation, representing a departure from draft guidelines issued in April by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. According to published reports, earlier stem cell lines must meet the ‘spirit’ of the new guidelines, if not the ‘letter,’ to qualify for taxpayer-supported funding. The crucial test, The New York Times reported, is whether the embryos used to create the older stem cell lines were created for reproductive purposes and whether donors freely consented to their use in research procedures. At a news conference Monday, Dr. Raynard S. Kington, acting director of the NIH, noted that some researchers had used videos instead of written forms in the past and that such a minor difference in […]
Is China planning not just the world’s biggest wind farm-but also the cheapest? Xinhua news service reported yesterday that China will break ground this month on the ‘Three Gorges of Wind Power in the northwest part of the country. The wind farm will start out big, with plans for 5 gigawatts in 2010, before growing truly gigantic, with plans for 20 gigawatts in 2020. Context: T. Boone Pickens’ massive but stalled Texas wind farm aims for 4 gigawatts. And there’s more: China has another half-dozen mammoth wind farms in the works, each on a similar scale. According to Xinhua, the project’s total cost will exceed $17.6 billion. What’s less clear is whether that refers to the 20 gigawatts on the drawing board, or the 40 gigawatts that could theoretically be installed. Either way, when you crunch the numbers, China’s new clean-energy poster child looks stunningly cheap: less than $1 million per megawatt. That’s three times cheaper than Mr. Pickens’ proposed U.S. wind farm. Why’s that? Well, the cost of a wind farm is largely determined by the cost of the wind turbines. Chinese-made machines are cheaper than those made by European and U.S. rivals. And these […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
