The presidential panel, which Obama will establish with an executive order, will be similar to previous commissions that looked into the 1986 space shuttle Challenger explosion and the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979, the official said. Current government employees and elected officials will not be eligible to serve on the commission. The group will investigate a range of issues related to the spill and its aftermath, including rig safety and regulatory regimes on the local, state and federal levels, said the official, who requested anonymity. ‘The commission will take into account the investigations under way concerning the causes of the spill,’ he said. The Gulf spill began after an April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 workers. It threatens to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska as the worst U.S. ecological disaster. The new commission will help Obama prove he is showing leadership on an issue that has dominated public attention and raised questions about oil companies’ safety practices and loose government oversight. It comes as the president is trying to advance legislation to overhaul U.S. energy policy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A formal announcement […]
Oil Spill Florida Keys: Scientists Think Oil Has Entered Loop Current And Poses Grave Threat To Reef
NEW ORLEANS — Delicate coral reefs already have been tainted by plumes of crude oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, including a sensitive area that federal officials had tried to protect from drilling and other dangers. And marine scientists are worried even more of the deep-sea reefs could be damaged as the thick goo creeps into two powerful Gulf currents. The oil has seeped into areas that are essential to underwater life, and the reefs tend to be an indicator for sea health: when creatures in the reefs thrive, so do other marine life. The loop current could carry oil from the spill east and spread it about 450 miles to the Florida Keys, while the Louisiana coastal current could move the oil as far west as central Texas. The depth of the gushing leaks and the use of more than 580,000 gallons of chemicals to disperse the oil, including unprecedented injections deep in the sea, have helped keep the crude beneath the sea surface. Officials report that more than 390,000 gallons of chemicals are stockpiled. Marine scientists say diffusing and sinking the oil helps protect the surface species and the Gulf Coast shoreline but increases […]
A burger and fries are not only bad for the waistline, they might also exacerbate asthma, a new study suggests. Patients with asthma who ate a high-fat meal had increased inflammation in their airways soon afterward, and did not respond as well to treatment as those who ate a low-fat meal, the researchers found. The results provide more evidence that environmental factors, such as diet, can influence the development of asthma, which has increased dramatically in recent years in westernized countries where high-fat diets are common. In 2007, about 34.1 million Americans had asthma, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. From 1980 through 1994, the prevalence of asthma increased 75 percent. While the results are preliminary, they suggest cutting down on fat might be one way to help control asthma. ‘If these results can be confirmed by further research, this suggests that strategies aimed at reducing dietary fat intake may be useful in managing asthma,’ study researcher Lisa Wood, of the University of Newcastle, told LiveScience in an e-mail. The results will be presented at this year’s American Thoracic Society’s International Conference, held May 14-19 in New Orleans. Asthma is […]
LONDON — Experts who studied almost 13,000 cell phone users over 10 years, hoping to find out whether the mobile devices cause brain tumours, said on Sunday their research gave no clear answer. A study by the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the largest ever to look at possible links between mobile phones and brain cancer, threw up inconclusive results but researchers said suggestions of a possible link demanded deeper examination. ‘The results really don’t allow us to conclude that there is any risk associated with mobile phone use, but… it is also premature to say that there is no risk associated with it,’ the IARC’s director Christopher Wild told Reuters. The results of the study have been keenly awaited by mobile phone companies and by campaign groups who have raised concerns about whether mobile phones cause brain tumours. Years of research have failed to establish a connection. The British-based GSM Association, which represents international cell phone firms, said IARC’s findings echoed ‘the large body of existing research and many expert reviews that consistently conclude that there is no established health risk’. The Australian-based Mobile Manufacturers Forum also […]
Apple quit his part-time gig as director of interactive media for the Web site Nerve.com in New York and began recruiting. It wasn’t hard to find people eager to join. Employment in New York’s publishing sector shrank by a tenth last year, leaving behind a mass of glum, jobless writers. The good news, though, was that one of the very forces that was sapping industry profits - the Web’s demolition of barriers to entry - also made it quite simple and cheap for anyone to become a journalism entrepreneur. Using open-source software, which Apple hired programmers to customize, The Faster Times could get up and running for less than $20,000. Before the site went live last summer, Apple and a group of editors held marathon meetings at a Brooklyn coffee shop with free wireless Internet. In one sense, The Faster Times was supposed to be a traditional publication, staffed by trained journalists covering a wide range of beats and guided by a coherent editorial mission. Where Apple’s model departed from convention, as a matter of necessity, was in the area of compensation. He couldn’t afford to offer salaries and benefits, or even flat freelance fees, so instead he promised […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
