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21 OCT 09
Peak Water in Yemen SAVE
PEOPLE
"Yemen is set to be the first country in the world to run out of water, providing a taste of the conflict and mass movement of populations that may spread across the world if population growth outstrips natural resources." [Times]TAGS
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19 OCT 09
Where Land Slides, Trying to Learn Why SAVE
PEOPLE
"Given that it was denuded by a wildfire just four months before, Mission Canyon is a likely place for a landslide — in this case, more properly called a mudslide, or, even more properly, a debris flow. In Southern California and other parts of the West, where the wildfires of spring and summer are followed by the rains of fall and winter, slides are the almost inevitable result." [NYT]TAGS
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08 OCT 09
Water Conflict Chronology SAVE
PEOPLE
"In an ongoing effort to understand the connections between water resources, water systems, and international security and conflict, the Pacific Institute initiated a project in the late 1980s to track and categorize events related to water and conflict."TAGS
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07 OCT 09
Carolyn Steel: How food shapes our cities SAVE
PEOPLE
"Every day, in a city the size of London, 30 million meals are served. But where does all the food come from? Architect Carolyn Steel discusses the daily miracle of feeding a city, and shows how ancient food routes shaped the modern world." [TED.com]TAGS
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06 OCT 09
Urban Sports Take German Cities by Storm SAVE
PEOPLE
"Whether it's bike polo, urban golf or scaling public buildings, interesting new urban sports are leaving a distinctive mark on German cityscapes. The metropolitan antics add a twist to traditional sports -- and may be cropping up on stretch of tarmac near you soon." [Spiegel]TAGS
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02 OCT 09
Aquacalypse Now SAVE
PEOPLE
"[I]t is not just the future of the fishing industry that is at stake, but also the continued health of the world’s largest ecosystem. While the climate crisis gathers front-page attention on a regular basis, people--even those who profess great environmental consciousness--continue to eat fish as if it were a sustainable practice. But eating a tuna roll at a sushi restaurant should be considered no more environmentally benign than driving a Hummer or harpooning a manatee." [The New Republic]TAGS
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Artificial Auroras SAVE
PEOPLE
"The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), near Gakona, Alaska, has spent nearly two decades using radio waves to probe Earth's magnetic field and ionosphere. One of the most obvious results of the experiments is that they can create lights in the sky that are similar to auroras, the glowing curtains of light that naturally appear in the polar skies when electrons and other charged particles pour down from Earth's protective magnetosphere into the upper atmosphere." [Nature News]TAGS
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Smuggling Europe’s Waste to Poorer Countries SAVE
PEOPLE
"Rotterdam, the busiest port in Europe, has unwittingly become Europe’s main external garbage chute, a gateway for trash bound for places like China, Indonesia, India and Africa. There, electronic waste and construction debris containing toxic chemicals are often dismantled by children at great cost to their health. Other garbage that is supposed to be recycled according to European law may be simply burned or left to rot, polluting air and water and releasing the heat-trapping gases linked to global warming." [NYT]TAGS
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28 SEP 09
In a Parched Los Angeles, the Streets Suddenly Run Wet SAVE
"To the threat of quakes, wildfire and mudslides that give Los Angeles an air of impending collapse, add a multitude of recent damaging water main breaks that have buckled streets, flooded businesses, exasperated residents, blocked traffic and perplexed engineers." [NYT]TAGS
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21 SEP 09
Where will synthetic biology lead us? SAVE
PEOPLE
Scientists "see cells as hardware, and genetic code as the software required to make them run. Synthetic biologists are convinced that, with enough knowledge, they will be able to write programs to control those genetic components, programs that would let them not only alter nature but guide human evolution as well." [New Yorker]TAGS