Significant increases in annual temperatures are having a devastating affect on glaciers in the mountainous regions of south-western China, potentially affecting natural habitats, tourism and wider economic development.

In a study published today, 25 October 2011, in IOP Publishing's Environmental Research Letters, scientists examined data from 111 weather stations across south-western China and have shown that temperature patterns were consistent with warming, at a statistically significant level, between 1961 and 2008.

Of the 111 stations examined, 77 per cent displayed statistically significant increases in annual temperature.

Collating a broad range of research on glaciers during this time period, the researchers, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, identified three characteristics that were consistent with the increasing trend in temperature; drastic retreats were observed in the glacial regions, along with large losses of mass and an increase in the area of glacial lakes.

In the Pengqu basin of the Himalayas, for example, the 999 glaciers had a combined area loss of 131 km2 between 1970 and 2001, whilst the Yalong glacier in the Gangrigabu Mountains retreated over 1500 meters from 1980 to 2001.

The implications of these changes are far more serious than simply altering the landscape; glaciers are an integral part of thousands of ecosystems and play a crucial role in sustaining human populations.

Continued widespread melting of glaciers, caused by increasing temperatures, could potentially lead to floods, mudflows and rock falls, affecting traffic, tourism and wider economic development.

South-western China has 23,488 glaciers, covering an area of 29,523 km2 across the Himalayas and the Nyainqntanglha, Tanggula and Hengduan mountains.

As well as temperature, the researchers also investigated precipitation; however the results were less marked. Annual increasing precipitation is consistent with climate change and was observed in 53 per cent of the stations. A decrease in annual precipitation can also influence glacial retreat and this was observed in central regions of the Himalayas.

The lead author of this study, Dr Zongxing Li, said, "I think glacial loss is caused mainly by rises in temperature, especially in the high altitude regions. From the 14 weather stations above 4000 m, there was an annual mean temperature increase of 1.73 °C from 1961 to 2008.

"It is imperative we determine the relationship between climate change and glacier variations, particularly the role of precipitation, as the consequences of glacial retreat are far reaching."


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1. Students of English

People on the street will sometimes strike up conversation in order, so they will tell you, to practice their English. However, caution is necessary as increasingly these approaches are lead-ins to scams. These so-called “language students” will often suggest entering a nearby café or bar at which you will naturally offer to buy them a drink. The students take generous advantage of your offer and then depart leaving you with a wildly inflated bill for thousands of renminbi. Of course, the bar owner is in on the deal.

2. Queuing

The Chinese don’t do queues. They prefer to push and shove. Anyone who politely waits their turn at the ticket office is likely to be stood there all day.

3. Taking Offense at Spitting

Although there is always a crack-down in the run-up to major international events, such as the 2008 Olympics, and despite the best attempts of public educators, spitting remains a fact of Chinese life on the streets, buses and trains. It is not just an old man thing either; it is not uncommon to observe a pretty young woman break off mid-conversation to loudly expel a gob of saliva.

4. Rush Hour

Beijing’s traffic is horrendous and if you aren’t careful you could spend half your visit sat in a taxi, gridlocked in a sea of other vehicles. Rush hour seems to last nearly all day, but the roads are noticeably worse on week days before 10am and between around 5pm and 8pm. You should avoid traveling at these times if at all possible.

5. Art Students

Around Wangfujing Dajie, Liulichang, Tian’an Men Square and the Forbidden City, be wary of “art students” who in the guise of fund-raising will pressure you to visit an exhibition where you can buy amateur and hugely overpriced art.

6. Guides

At many of Beijing’s sights, but particularly at the Forbidden Palace and Temple of Heaven, so-called guides wait around the ticket offices to offer their services. Decline. They usually know little more than the bare facts, which are often recited with a dubious propagandist slant.

7. Visiting Sights on National Holidays

The biggest tourists in China are the Chinese themselves. On public holidays out-of-towners swarm into Beijing for a spot of sightseeing. It becomes impossible to move in the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, or in any of the parks.

8. Sweet and Sour Chicken

China’s is one of the world’s great cuisines. Chinese food is astonishing in its variety, and there is nowhere better to experience this than Beijing. The city boasts restaurants specializing in most, if not all, the country’s many regional cuisines. Ordering the few Cantonese-originating dishes that have come to represent Chinese cooking to the rest of the world would really be a wasted opportunity.

9. Public Toilets

In general, public toilets are hole-in-the-ground types and are usually extremely malodorous. You will need to bring your own tissue paper as it is seldom available. Take advantage of the facilities in top-end hotels and restaurants.

10. Taking a Taxi without the Right Change

Beijing taxi drivers hardly ever seem to carry any change, so make sure you always have a good stash of ¥5, ¥10, and ¥20 notes to hand.

traveldk.com

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Farmers in eastern China have been left perplexed after their watermelons began to explode one by one.


An investigation by state media found farms in Jiangsu province were losing acres of fruit because of the problem.

The overuse of a chemical that helps fruit grow faster was blamed in one report by China Central Television.

But agriculture experts were unable to explain why chemical-free melons were exploding. They cited the weather and abnormal size of the melon as factors.

China Central Television said farmers were overspraying their crops with the growth promoter, hoping they could get their fruit to market ahead of the peak season and increase their profits.
Chemical-free

According to the Xinhua news agency, 20 farmers in a village in Jiangsu province planted imported seeds from Japan, with 10 households saying their watermelons began exploding last month.

Farmer Liu Mingsuo told Xinhua that more than two-thirds of his crop had blown up.

He said he had used chemicals to boost their growth on 6 May, and the following day more than 180 melons exploded. Mr Liu was reported to be the only farmer from the 10 households who used chemicals.

Wang Dehong, who has been farming watermelons for 20 years, couldn't understand why his fruit also exploded as he had not used any chemicals.

Agricultural experts investigating the incident were unable to offer an explanation.

China has approved the usage of the growth chemical under certain quotas. So far, tests show the chemical is safe, Xinhua reported.

However, as the public is increasingly concerned about food safety, experts say a quality tracking system should be introduced, detailing every stage along the food chain, to inform the public fully, and ensure food safety.


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Hollywood giant Disney will launch a probe into unlicensed performers dressing as its most famous characters to extort cash from tourists outside the Bird's Nest stadium.


China Daily reporters contacted the company on Wednesday after witnessing two people in Mickey and Minnie Mouse costumes posing with visitors and then demanding 10 yuan.

"This is a very big deal. We'll send people to Beijing immediately to see what's going on," said Huang Chen at Disney's Shanghai headquarters. Staff based in its capital office said they had no knowledge of the performers.

As many as eight people are working in the area, with three roaming the square between the National Stadium and the Water Cube dressed as Fu Wa, the 2008 Olympics mascots. Some claim to be disabled to pressure tourists into paying up.

"I was furious. I thought he worked for the Olympic Park and that the photos were free," said Zhang Ping, a daytripper from the suburbs, who was conned by a Fu Wa. "He waited until after we took the pictures to ask for money."

Nearby, four students posed with "Mickey". As they attempted to leave, a woman who gave her name as Yan rushed up to them to say: "Mickey is my friend. She has nothing to do with those Fu Wa. It's her own act and she just wants to make some money."

Yan, who works at a licensed photo booth on the Olympic Park, said there are eight regular performers, some deaf mutes, who arrived from Hebei province and further northeast. However, when the students walked away without handing over cash, Yan and "Mickey" could clearly be heard talking before they set off in chase of the group."What a fraud. She used gestures that suggested she couldn't speak and later ran after me demanding money," said Wang Chen, one of the four, who studies in Hebei. "I paid her 10 yuan just to get rid of her."

A security guard on patrol close to the scene said it was "none of his business" when METRO reported the swindle. He directed reporters to a two-story management office, where reception staff refused to comment. Calls to the park's general enquiries hotline went unanswered on Wednesday.

Urban management officers, better known as chengguan, are common sights on the square, although they admitted it is hard to clamp down on the fakers.

"We see them all the time, but unless we actually witness them asking or taking money from a tourist, all we can do is order them to leave the park," said an officer who did not want to be identified. "They always come back."

Word of the con artists has already spread to the capital's travel agencies. Zhou Ting, who works at a tourist office next to the Bird's Nest, said guides are told to warn visitors about the cartoon characters to prevent them from being targeted.

"We all know they have nothing to do with the Olympic Park management or Disney," she added.

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The potato’s stereotype as a fattening food for health-conscious folks to avoid is getting another revision today as scientists report that just a couple servings of spuds a day reduces blood pressure almost as much as oatmeal without causing weight gain. Scientists reported on the research, done on a group of overweight people with high blood pressure, at the 242nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), being held here this week.



But don’t reach for the catsup, vinegar or mayonnaise. The research was not done with French fries, America’s favorite potato, but with potatoes cooked without oil in a microwave oven. Although researchers used purple potatoes, they believe that red-skin potatoes and white potatoes may have similar effects.

“The potato, more than perhaps any other vegetable, has an undeserved bad reputation that has led many health-conscious people to ban them from their diet,” said Joe Vinson, Ph.D., who headed the research. “Mention ‘potato’ and people think ‘fattening, high-carbs, empty calories’. In reality, when prepared without frying and served without butter, margarine or sour cream, one potato has only 110 calories and dozens of healthful phytochemicals and vitamins. We hope our research helps to remake the potato’s popular nutritional image.”

In the new study, 18 patients who were primarily overweight/obese with high blood pressure ate 6-8 purple potatoes (each about the size of a golf ball) with skins twice daily for a month. They used purple potatoes because the pigment, or coloring material, in fruits and vegetables is especially rich in beneficial phytochemicals. Scientists monitored the patients’ blood pressure, both systolic (the higher number in a blood pressure reading like 120/80) and diastolic. The average diastolic blood pressure dropped by 4.3 percent and the systolic pressure decreased by 3.5 percent, said Vinson, who is with the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania and has done extensive research on healthful components in foods. The majority of subjects took anti-hypertensive drugs and still had a reduction in blood pressure. None of the study participants gained weight.

Vinson said that other studies have identified substances in potatoes with effects in the body similar to those of the well-known ACE-inhibitor medications, a mainstay for treating high blood pressure. Other phytochemicals in potatoes occur in amounts that rival broccoli, spinach and Brussels sprouts, and also may be involved, Vinson added.

Unfortunately for French fry and potato chip fans, those high cooking temperatures seem to destroy most of the healthy substances in a potato, leaving mainly starch, fat and minerals. Potatoes in the study were simply microwaved, which Vinson said seems to be the best way to preserve nutrients.

The purple potatoes used in the study are becoming more widely available in supermarkets and especially in specialty food stores and farmers’ markets. Vinson said that he strongly suspects a future study using white potatoes, now in the planning stages, will produce similar results. Funding for the study came from the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) State Cooperative Potato Research Program.

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With almost 100 million people in developing countries exposed to dangerously high levels of arsenic in their drinking water, and unable to afford complex purification technology, scientists today described a simple, inexpensive method for removing arsenic based on chopped up pieces of ordinary plastic beverage bottles coated with a nutrient found in many foods and dietary supplements.

The report was part of the 242nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), a major scientific meeting with 7,500 technical papers, being held here this week.

“Dealing with arsenic contamination of drinking water in the developing world requires simple technology based on locally available materials,” said study leader Tsanangurayi Tongesayi, Ph.D., professor of analytical and environmental chemistry at Monmouth University, West Long Branch, N.J. “Our process uses pieces of plastic water, soda pop and other beverage bottles. Coat the pieces with cysteine — that’s an amino acid found in dietary supplements and foods — and stir the plastic in arsenic-contaminated water. This works like a magnet. The cysteine binds up the arsenic. Remove the plastic and you have drinkable water.”

Tongesayi described laboratory tests of the plastic bottle arsenic removal method on water containing 20 parts per billion (ppb) of arsenic, which is two times the safe standard set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water. It produced drinkable water with 0.2 ppb of arsenic that more than meets the federal standard.

The technology is so straight-forward that people without technical skills can use it, Tongesayi said, citing that as one of its advantages over some of the existing arsenic-removal technologies. It can use discarded plastic bottles available locally, and the application of cysteine does not require complicated technology. Tongesayi is seeking funding or a commercial partner, which he said is the key to moving the arsenic-removing process into use in a relatively short time. The technology also has the potential for removing other potentially toxic heavy metals from drinking water.

Odorless, tasteless and colorless, arsenic enters drinking water supplies from natural deposits in soil and rock that occur in some parts of the world, including parts of the United States, and from agricultural and industrial sources. Symptoms of arsenic poisoning include thickening and discoloration of the skin; stomach pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea; vision loss; and numbness in hands and feet. Arsenic also has been linked to cancer of the bladder, lungs, skin, kidney, nasal passages, liver and prostate.

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A new site being explored by the Mars rover Opportunity has yielded soil samples unlike any examined before on the red planet and that appear more favourable for life.



Opportunity, the indefatigable robot that has been exploring Mars for seven and a half years, arrived three weeks ago at the edge of a 13.6 mile wide crater named Endeavour and has been sending back images of the surrounding environment.

The first rock it examined was a flat-topped object about the size of a foot stool that apparently was cast up by an impact that left an impression the size of a tennis court on the rim of the crater.

Called Tisdale 2, the rock "is different from any rock we've ever seen on Mars," said Steve Squyres, a Cornell University scientist who is the principal investigator for Opportunity.

"It has a composition similar to some volcanic rocks, but there's much more zinc and bromine than we've typically seen," he said at a news conference.

The observations and measurements taken by the American Martian orbiters leads scientists to believe that the rocks on the rim of the crater contain clay minerals that form in wet conditions and which are less acidic and possibly more favourable for life, they said.
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A bench around the edge of the crater resembles sedimentary rock that has been cut and filled with veins of material possibly left there by water, said Ray Arvidson, another member of the team who is from Washington University in St Louis, Missouri.

During the past two weeks, researchers have used an instrument attached to Opportunity's robot arm to identify the elements that make up the rock.

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A new paper published in the journal Science reveals the discovery of a primitive woolly rhino fossil in the Himalayas, which suggests some giant mammals first evolved in present-day Tibet before the beginning of the Ice Age. The extinction of Ice Age giants such as woolly mammoths and rhinos, giant sloths, and saber-tooth cats has been widely studied, but much less is known about where these giants came from, and how they acquired their adaptations for living in a cold environment.


A team of geologists and paleontologists led by Xiaoming Wang from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM) and Qiang Li of Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, uncovered a complete skull and lower jaw of a new species of woolly rhino (Coelodonta thibetana) in 2007, at the foothills of the Himalayas in southwestern Tibetan Plateau.

"Cold places, such as Tibet, Arctic, and Antarctic, are where the most unexpected discoveries will be made in the future -- these are the remaining frontiers that are still largely unexplored," said the NHM's Dr. Wang.

There are dual connections between the new paper and the Natural History Family of Museums (including the Natural History Museum and the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits). Dr. Wang contributed to NHM's Age of Mammals exhibition, which depicts the creation of the Himalayan Mountains and Tibetan Plateau, and subsequent climactic changes of the Pleistocene Ice Age. Additionally, the largest Ice Age megafauna collection in the world is excavated, researched, and displayed at the Page Museum.

The new rhino is 3.6 million years old (middle Pliocene), much older and more primitive than its Ice Age (Pleistocene) descendants in the mammoth steppes across much of Europe and Asia. The extinct animal had developed special adaptations for sweeping snow using its flattened horn to reveal vegetation, a useful behavior for survival in the harsh Tibetan climate. These rhinos lived at a time when global climate was much warmer and the northern continents were free of the massive ice sheets seen in the Ice Age later.

The rhino accustomed itself to cold conditions in high elevations and became pre-adapted for the future Ice Age climate. When the Ice Age eventually arrived around 2.6 million years ago, the new paper posits, the cold-loving rhinos simply descended from the high mountains and began to expand throughout northern Asia and Europe.

In addition to the new woolly rhino, the paleontologist team also uncovered extinct species of three-toed horse (Hipparion), Tibetan bharal (Pseudois, also known as blue sheep), chiru (Pantholops, also known as Tibetan antelope), snow leopard (Uncia), badger (Meles), as well as 23 other kinds of mammals.

The team's new fossil assemblage from Tibet offers new insights into the origin of the cold-adapted Pleistocene megafauna, which has usually been sought either in the arctic tundra or in the cold steppes elsewhere. This new evidence offers an alternative scenario: the harsh winters of the rising Tibetan Plateau may have provided the initial step towards cold-adaptation for several subsequently successful members of the late Pleistocene mammoth fauna in Europe, Asia, and to a lesser extent, North America. The Tibetan Plateau may have been another cradle of the Ice Age giants.

"This discovery clarifies the origin of the woolly rhinoceros -- and perhaps much of the now extinct, cold-adapted, Pleistocene Eurasian megafauna -- as the high-altitude environments of the Zanda Basin of the primordial Pliocene Himalayas," said H. Richard Lane of the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Earth Sciences.

Financial support for this research is provided by Chinese National Natural Science Foundation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Geographic Society, and National Science Foundation of the United States.


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The country's environmental watchdog will suspend reviews of all new industrial projects in Qujing, Southwest China's Yunnan province, until the city cleans up its toxic chromium slag and remedies polluted soils, a senior official said on Thursday.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection is also preparing to launch a nationwide campaign to target illegal dumping and stockpiling of hazardous waste before the end of this year, according to Zhang Lijun, deputy minister of environmental protection.

Enterprises involved in the production of chromium and polycrystalline silicon, and in the disposal of sewage sludge and electronic waste will be placed under special scrutiny, he added.

Under Chinese law, all industrial projects must undergo environmental reviews before being approved for construction. The regional ban for Qujing, which will put a brake on its economic expansion, came as a punishment after a local chemical plant illegally dumped more than 5,000 tons of highly toxic waste in June.

The dumping contaminated nearby water sources, caused the deaths of livestock and threatened the safety of drinking water for cities downstream.

"This is not an isolated case. It reflects a widespread oversight on the treatment and disposal of hazardous waste in the country," said Zhang.

The large amounts of toxic industrial waste are polluting soils and water sources, and posing threats to public health, he said.

The latest national pollution census, in 2007, showed the country produced 45.74 million tons of hazardous waste that year. During the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), the amount is expected to increase at an annual rate of 5 to 7 percent, as the country's demand for industrial materials will continue to grow, Zhang said.

"However, every year, only about 8 million tons receive proper treatment, less than 20 percent of the total amount," he said.

Zhang cited limited treatment capacity, the high cost of proper disposal and slack supervision by environmental authorities as causes of the failure to control the use of dangerous chemicals.

The ministry set the end of 2012 as a deadline for all chromium plants to properly treat all of their stockpiled slag. Toxic waste produced after 2006 has to be cleared up by the end of this year. Those who fail to meet the deadlines will be ordered to halt production.

An independent investigation by environmental organization Greenpeace shows that there are still more than 140,000 tons of chromium slag stockpiled at Yunnan Luliang Chemical Industry, the polluting company in Qujing.

Tests showed that the groundwater near the plant has an extremely high concentration of carcinogenic xxxivalent chromium. Nearby villagers have complained about a higher than normal rate of cancer in their communities.

Some environmentalists welcomed the ministry's move.

Ma Tianjie, a toxics campaigner from Greenpeace, said: "The timetable to properly dispose of stockpiled toxic waste is very important. But it is also essential for the ministry to disclose relevant information so the public can participate in the supervision."

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With a war chest of $94 million, Zhang Yimou's latest project "Heroes of Nanjing" is the most expensive movie ever made in China and marks a bold attempt by the leading Chinese helmer to transform the biz here, bringing in Hollywood star Christian Bale and aiming to appeal to both overseas and domestic auds.

Zhang Yimou made his name internationally in the West's arthouses as the banned helmer of "Raise the Red Lantern" and "Red Sorghum," but was rehabilitated after making "Hero" and "The House of Flying Daggers," and stage-managing the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

His attention in recent projects has been focused on the domestic market but "Heroes" is a sign of new international focus.

His long-term producer and partner Zhang Weiping is confident that "Heroes" could do better B.O. abroad than the helmer's last big overseas hit at the box office, "Hero," which took over $100 million internationally.

"Western audiences loved "Hero" but while they liked the look of the picture, they had a difficult time getting into the historical Chinese epic theme. So we decided to look for a story with an international core," the New Picture Film Co. prexy said in an interview with Variety.

The subject they settled on is the "Rape of Nanking," the massacre that followed the invasion of China's wartime capital, now called Nanjing, on Dec. 13, 1937.

The Chinese say that over a six-week period, more than 300,000 Chinese were killed, one third of the city's buildings were burned and more than 20,000 women were raped, although some Japanese historians insist the number was much lower.

There have been several projects looking at this event in recent years, including Chinese helmer Lu Chuan's "City of Life and Death" and Florian Gallenberger's Sino-German co-production "John Rabe."

Pic is an adaptation of the book "Jinling" by Yan Geling.

"We thought we had found the story. This was in 2006. But the novel itself is not a film script, it needed major surgery to introduce more film elements. We started to work on the script and it took us three years to accomplish," said Zhang.

"Heroes of Nanjing" is Zhang's biggest-budget film in 16 years in the business, he said, with a budget of 600 million yuan ($93 million), but it's also his first time to work with a major Hollywood star.

"Inviting Bale to be in the film is mainly targeted at the foreign audience, although he is getting more and more famous in China. He's the first Hollywood superstar to act in a Chinese movie," said Zhang.

The negotiation process was a steep learning curve for the Chinese filmmakers, who are used to doing things quickly and on terms that suit them rather than the stars.

"It took two years as we had to follow Hollywood rules, such as not negotiating with other stars at the same time. If each one needs 3-4 months to consider the script, it's already a long time. They are all professional actors, they have very high standards with the script," he said.

Bale took five months to read and evaluate the script.

"He is so busy, his schedule is fully booked, and he can make money everywhere he wants. He really has no need to come to China, to do a Chinese film with us. But he loved the story, and he also gave us a lot of suggestions on the script, which inspired us a lot," said Zhang.

The level of cooperation between Bale and Zhang Yimou was amazing, he said, and the helmer has paid strong tributes to Bale's professionalism.

"Our actors really need to learn from those Hollywood actors. There are a lot of things to learn," said Zhang.

New Picture Film is the sole producer, which Zhang said would keep the production efficient.

He turned away investors looking for a piece of the pic - the booming Chinese economy means the market is awash with capital seeking likely projects to invest in - and opted to borrow money from the Bank of China and Minsheng Bank, and use some internal funding too.

"We wanted to make our film in a pure way, standing back to back and confident. If there are other partners, it is less efficient and harder to make decisions," said Zhang.

"I didn't consider using foreign investment. I did several co-productions before like "Hero" and "Curse of the Golden Flower" and I knew a bit about the foreign market, but I didn't think using

foreign funds would help guarantee the movie's distribution abroad," said Zhang.

"The power is in the hands of the audience, not the distributors. They decide whether they want to pay to see your film in the cinema, they are the decision makers," he said.

International sales excluding North America, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong, will be handled by FilmNation.

"I will make a decision at the Toronto Film Festival about the North American distribution, there's been a lot of interest, including from Universal and Fox, and I hope the film can get released in the US at Christmas and in China on Dec. 16," said Zhang.

By
Clifford Coonan

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Shaoshan, a small town in the mountains of Hunan province, is the heart of red tourism in China. As the birthplace of Chairman Mao, it attracts millions of tourists a year, all eager to see the farmhouse where the Great Helmsman spent his childhood. But the local government isn't satisfied. Earlier this month, they announced plans to create an enormous outdoor show about Mao Zedong's life and career. To stage the epic, they're hoping to hire no other than Hollywood heavyweight James Cameron. "We are absolutely serious," says local official Xiong Xingbao. "It is important that we stick to high standards by hiring the best people out there."

Whether or not they actually net the Titanic and Avatar director, the project shows the scale and ambition behind China's push to revitalize red tourism. For years, the industry has been dominated by sleepy tours of leaders' homes and historical sites. That's changing. Chongqing's Hongyan village, where hundreds of communists were rounded up and killed by Chiang Kai-shek's forces in the late 1940s, is a prime example. Tourists now swarm the village's museums, where the local government recently staged a play about its historical events. Along the trail of the Long March, tourists take classes on making straw shoes, the ad hoc footwear the communist soldiers famously wore during the epic 1930s walk. The government in Sichuan province also recently announced a plan to spend $375 million on building nine highways connecting the region's major red-tourism attractions. (See photos of the making of modern China.)

Red tourism is a big business. Between 2004 and '10, a total of 1.35 billion people have gone on red tours, an average year-on-year increase of 20%. According to the country's state-run news agency, Xinhua, China's revenue in red tourism totaled $20.3 billion in 2010.

However, the red-tourism market depends heavily on government-sponsored group tours, says Wu Chengzhong, associate professor of public administration at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. For example, Xibaipo village, which is located 170 miles to the southwest of Beijing and briefly served as the Chinese Communist Party's headquarters in the late 1940s, would have been an unlikely tourist destination if it hadn't been for government-sponsored red tourism. "For most people, it's not exactly a tough call between vacationing on the beach and visiting some run-down buildings in the middle of nowhere," Wu says. (See photos of China celebrating 90 years of communism.)

Selling the idea of red tourism to an increasingly affluent population will take some tinkering. "Entertainment is definitely necessary in attracting more individual tourists," says Wu, adding that the Mao show in Shaoshan may be a sensible step in the right direction. The goal, he says, is to offer people a chance to learn while they enjoy themselves. "We want them to come back from a trip and reflect on their own lives and think, What have I learned that will help make me a better person?"

In Shaoshan, where plans for the Mao epic are underway, Xiong and his colleagues are thinking about how best to pitch the project to Cameron. "Right now, our idea is still a little unclear," says Xiong, adding that although the idea of a live performance came up two years ago, it was suspended because of funding shortage at the time. Now, having landed investment from a private, Beijing-based company, the idea has resurfaced. Says he: "There is no doubt that it's a long shot, but we are willing to try our best."

By JESSIE JIANG / BEIJING | Time.com

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The Solar Powered Optical Sculptures Park opens on Aug 29, 2011, displaying more than 100 optical sculptures in Shandong province's Dezhou city. [Photo/CFP]

The Solar Powered Optical Sculptures Park opened Monday, displaying more than 100 optical sculptures in China Solar Valley in Shandong province's Dezhou city. The park tops the world in the variety and amount of solar powered optical sculptures.




An optical sculpture on display at the Solar Powered Optical Sculptures Park, which opened on Aug 29, 2011, in China Solar Valley in Shandong province's Dezhou city. [Photo/CFP]

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Although parents are likely feeling reassured by the first media headlines about a new Swiss study of brain tumor risk in children using cell phones, the findings are actually quite troubling, according to a review by Environmental Working Group.

The recently published CEFALO research is a retrospective case-control study that analyzed cell phone use as a potential risk factor among children and adolescents who were diagnosed with brain tumors. The study included 352 patients ages 7-to-19 in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland. Only 5 percent of the children and xxxxagers in the study had used cell phones for longer than 5 years.

When results for all durations of cell phone use were pooled together, researchers did not see a statistically significant elevation of brain tumor risk. However, this broad aggregation of the results masks important signals in the underlying data.

Notably, the researchers defined as “regular users” “all subjects who had an average of at least one call per week for at least 6 months.” As nearly every cell phone user would affirm, one call a week is an extraordinarily low, and hardly typical, frequency of use.

The underlying data reveals troublesome and provocative trends. The study found an elevated risk of brain tumors among children who had used cell phones longer than 2.8 years. Even more worrisome, when the scientists analyzed much more reliable cell phone use data obtained from the cell phone companies themselves, they saw a “statistically significant trend of increasing risk with increasing time since first subscription…”

“Given that in studies of adult cell phone users a statistically significant increase in cancer risk was observed only in those that looked at exposure periods of longer than 10 years, EWG finds it very troublesome that some elevation of risks for children and xxxxagers was observed from as little as three years” in the latest research, said EWG senior scientist Olga Naidenko, Ph.D. “These results should be of great interest to parents who want to take a precautionary approach to their children’s cell phone use.”

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One of nature’s most perfect foods may be even better for us than previously thought.

While eggs are well known to be an excellent source of proteins, lipids, vitamins and minerals, researchers at the University of Alberta recently discovered they also contain antioxidant properties, which helps in the prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Jianping Wu, Andreas Schieber and graduate students Chamila Nimalaratne and Daise Lopes-Lutz of the U of A Department of Agricultural Food and Nutritional Science examined egg yolks produced by hens fed typical diets of either primarily wheat or corn. They found the yolks contained two amino acids, tryptophan and tyrosine, which have high antioxidant properties.

After analyzing the properties, the researchers determined that two egg yolks in their raw state have almost twice as many antioxidant properties as an apple and about the same as half a serving (25 grams) of cranberries.

However, when the eggs were fried or boiled, antioxidant properties were reduced by about half, and a little more than half if the eggs were cooked in a microwave.

“It’s a big reduction but it still leaves eggs equal to apples in their antioxidant value,” said Wu.

The findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Food Chemistry.

The discovery of these two amino acids, while important, may only signify the beginning of finding antioxidant properties in egg yolks, said Wu, an associate professor of agricultural, food and nutritional science.

“Ultimately, we’re trying to map antioxidants in egg yolks so we have to look at all of the properties in the yolks that could contain antioxidants, as well as how the eggs are ingested,” said Wu, adding that he and his team will examine the other type of antioxidant already known to be in eggs, carotenoids, the yellow pigment in egg yolk, as well as peptides.

In previous research, Wu found that egg proteins were converted by enzymes in the stomach and small intestines and produced peptides that act the same way as ACE inhibitors, prescriptions drugs that are used to lower high blood pressure.

That finding defied common wisdom and contradicted the public perception that eggs increased high blood pressure because of their high cholesterol content. Additional research by Wu suggests the peptides can be formulated to help prevent and treat hypertension.

Wu is convinced the peptides also have some antioxidant properties, which leads him to suggest that when he completes the next step in his research, the result will likely be that eggs have more antioxidant properties than we currently know.

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Authorities in Beijing have halted the sale of 31 brands of bottled water after they failed safety tests, the government reported, in the latest such scare to hit China.

Random market inspections found bacteria colonies in the water, the Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce said on its website, citing a joint study with the capital's product quality bureau.

"In order to prevent these substandard products from entering the distribution chain, the product quality bureau has taken measures to halt sales," the administration said in a statement Wednesday.

Tests on one brand of bottled water -- Yiqun -- found that bacteria levels were 9,000 times above safety standards, while those in Tianxing Special Water were 560 times higher, a report in the state-run Beijing Times said.

The tests were carried out on large barrels of water and did not include the smaller bottles of water normally bought in supermarkets, the report said.

Drinking the tainted water could lead to bouts of diarrhoea, dizziness and vomiting, it added.

Part of the problems stemmed from quality controls at factories, including the failure to clean and sterilise water pipes and replace and disinfect filters, the paper said.

China is regularly hit by food scares. In 2008, authorities found that milk tainted with melamine killed at least six babies and left more than 300,000 sick with kidney stones, in a scandal that caused huge outrage.

Tainted pork, toxic milk, dyed buns, melons laden with chemicals and others have also surfaced in recent months, highlighting a lack of oversight in China's huge food industry.

In May, China's top court ordered capital punishment for food safety crimes that result in fatalities, as the government metes out harsher penalties amid rising social discontent over tainted foodstuffs.


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More than 10 million tourists have hopped on trains on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway to visit north China's Tibet Autonomous Region since it went into operation on July 1, 2006, local authorities said Thursday.

Over 6 million people visited Tibet in 2010 alone, demonstrating the railway's ability to boost tourism in Tibet, said Wang Songping, deputy chief of the region's tourism bureau.

Forty-two percent of tourists traveling to Tibet in 2010 chose to use the railway, while in 2006, only 26 percent chose to do so, Wang said to Xinhua news agency on Thursday.

Some tourists chose to take the train because of its status as the world's "highest" railway, with the railway's Tanggula Pass located at an elevation of 5,027 meters above sea level, Wang said.

The railway, with a total length of 1,956 km, currently starts in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa and ends in the city of Xining in north China's Qinghai Province.

The railway will be expanded under China's 12th Five-Year Plan, Wang said, adding that its expansion will help it to play an even bigger role in promoting local tourism.

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The largest solar power plant ever built in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region went into service on Wednesday. The plant is expected to help ease the region's recurring power shortages.

The 30-megawatt (MW) power plant project is located in Xigaze Prefecture, about 3 km northwest of Tibet's second-largest city of Xigaze.

The plant is being built in three phases. The first phase involved the construction of power facilities at a cost of 249 million yuan (about 38.5 million U.S. dollars). These facilities were integrated into the region's local power grid on Wednesday, where they will generate up to 20.23 million kilowatt-hours (kwh) of electricity annually, according to project manager Gao Yuankun.

Gao said the first phase of the project will ease power shortages in the prefecture by supplying electricity for more than 100,000 households.

The project will also save 9,000 metric tons of coal and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 17,800 metric tons annually, he said.

The project, costing 800 million yuan, is solely funded by the Linuo Power Group, a leading provider of solar photovoltaic power generation systems based in east China's Shandong Province.

Tibet has abundant solar energy resources, receiving an average of 3,300 hours of sunlight annually.

Tibet has stepped up its exploration of clean energy resources over the last 60 years in order to protect the region's environment while simultaneously allowing growth and development to take place.

Source: Xinhua

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Birth defects are significantly more common in areas of mountaintop coal mining and are on the rise as the practice becomes more common, according to a study by researchers at Washington State University and West Virginia University.

The researchers, led by Melissa Ahern, health economist and associate professor in WSU’s College of Pharmacy, found 235 birth defects per 10,000 births where mountaintop mining is most common in four central Appalachian states. That’s nearly twice the rate of 144 defects per 10,000 in non-mining areas.

Previous studies have found low birth weights and increased levels of adult disease and death in coal mining areas. This study offers one of the first indications that health problems are disproportionately concentrated specifically in mountaintop mining areas.

The findings “contribute to the growing evidence that mountaintop mining is done at substantial expense to the environment, to local economies and to human health,” the authors conclude in the current issue of the peer-reviewed journal, Environmental Research.



The study is based on an analysis of more than 1.8 million birth records between 1996 and 2003. It compared the incidence of birth defects in mountaintop mining areas, other mining areas and areas without mining.

Mountaintop mining involves using explosives to remove ridges and deposit the rock and soil in nearby valleys. More than 2,700 mountain ridges, as well as thousands of rivers, have been destroyed or altered by the technique in portions of eastern Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, southern West Virginia, and southwestern Virginia. Peer-reviewed research has documented elevated levels of pollutants in these areas, including mercury, lead, and arsenic.

Driven by an increased demand for the fuel, including cleaner low-sulfur coal, this type of mining increased 250 percent between 1985 and 2005.

The study found counties in and near mountaintop mining areas had higher rates of birth defects for five out of six types of birth defects, including circulatory/respiratory , central nervous system, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal, and urogenital defects. These defect rates became more pronounced in the more recent period studied, 2000-2003, suggesting the health effects of mountaintop mining-related air and water contamination may be cumulative.

Residents of the region tend to have less education, less prenatal care, more smoking and more alcohol use during pregnancy. But after controlling for socioeconomic and behavioral risks, the researchers still found residents in mountaintop mining areas had significantly higher rates of birth defects.

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Mountaintop Removal Mining – Fracking Up West Virginia

Rate is greater now than at any time during past 2,100 years

The rate of sea level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years--and has shown a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level.

The findings are published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The research, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), was conducted by Andrew Kemp, Yale University; Benjamin Horton, University of Pennsylvania; Jeffrey Donnelly, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Michael Mann, Pennsylvania State University; Martin Vermeer, Aalto University School of Engineering, Finland; and Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany.

"Having a detailed picture of rates of sea level change over the past two millennia provides an important context for understanding current and potential future changes," says Paul Cutler, program director in NSF's Division of Earth Sciences.

"It's especially valuable for anticipating the evolution of coastal systems," he says, "in which more than half the world's population now lives."

Adds Kemp, "Scenarios of future rise are dependent on understanding the response of sea level to climate changes. Accurate estimates of past sea-level variability provide a context for such projections."

Kemp and colleagues developed the first continuous sea-level reconstruction for the past 2,000 years, and compared variations in global temperature to changes in sea level over that time period.

The team found that sea level was relatively stable from 200 BC to 1,000 AD.

Then in the 11th century, sea level rose by about half a millimeter each year for 400 years, linked with a warm climate period known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly.

Then there was a second period of stable sea level during a cooler period called the Little Ice Age. It persisted until the late 19th century.

Since the late 19th century, sea level has risen by more than 2 millimeters per year on average, the steepest rate for more than 2,100 years.

"Sea-level rise is a potentially disastrous outcome of climate change," says Horton, "as rising temperatures melt land-based ice, and warm ocean waters."

To reconstruct sea level, the scientists used microfossils called foraminifera preserved in sediment cores extracted from coastal salt marshes in North Carolina. The age of the cores was estimated using radiocarbon dating and other techniques.

To test the validity of their approach, the team compared its reconstructions with tide-gauge measurements from North Carolina for the past 80 years, and global tide-gauge records for the past 300 years.

A second reconstruction from Massachusetts confirmed their findings.

The records were corrected for contributions to sea-level rise made by vertical land movements.

The reconstructed changes in sea level over the past millennium are consistent with past global temperatures, the researchers say, and can be determined using a model relating the rate of sea level rise to global temperature.

"Data from the past helped calibrate our model, and will improve sea level rise projections under scenarios of future temperature increases," says Rahmstorf.

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China is not an expensive place to travel as compared to its western counterparts like Europe and North America. But it isn’t Thailand either. As a matter of fact some places in China are very expensive, and it becomes difficult especially if you are there on a China business visa to conduct your business there. Additionally, if you don’t know how to speak the Mandarin, you won’t even know where to get good deals that locals enjoy. So what will you do if you are travelling through China on Chinese visa?

 One of the important tips while travelling to China on a Chinese visa is that you should consider the fact that there are several peak travel seasons over here, and in case a China business visa holder is planning to travel on a tight budget, he or she should avoid these seasons at all costs. Chinese New Year takes place sometime between late January to late February. During this time entire China is on move. The north of China experiences very cold weather, and because of this cities like Hainan become busy. Prices in Hainan during Chinese New Year can be almost triple the normal rates. Right from the shops to the airlines and hotels – every price shoots up.

 In the Chinese calendar there are two special holidays when every Chinese seeks to be reunited with his or her family, and distances are nothing but your way of looking at them. Due to this, in late September and early October and a few weeks in February, which mark the Lunar New Year, the entire China is on vacation. The transportation is overcrowded, it is almost impossible to get cheap tickets and shops and restaurants are beyond the reach of Chinese visa holder’s pocket.

 
Yet other busy periods are the May Day or the Labor Day around May 1st, July (when summer vacations take place) and then the National Day holiday that is on October 1st. Apart from the expensive hotels and plane tickets, travelling is quite uncomfortable and unpleasant because of hordes of people moving together.

 
When you are travelling on a China business visa, food is one of the factors that can create huge holes in your pocket. This is because it may be possible that you are throwing party for your business associates or celebrating Chinese New Year as a gesture of politeness. Eating out in China especially at the Western restaurants is an expensive affair as compared to the local cuisine. However, a Chinese visa holder will be surprised to find that Chinese food can also be expensive if you eat in tourist places. For example if Chinese visa holder plan to eat at Tiananmen in Beijing will definitely be more expensive than eating a few blocks away or going right down the subway and eating where most of the locals eat. Obviously places that are aimed at tourists will be more expensive.


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(spoken)

The world today is absolutely crackers.
With nuclear bombs to blow us all sky high.
There's fools and idiots sitting on the trigger.
It's depressing, and it's senseless, and that's why...

(singing)
I like chinese,
I like chinese,
They only come up to you knees,
Yet they're always friendly and they're ready to to please.

I like chinese,
I like chinese,
There's nine hundred million of them in the world today,
You'd better learn to like them, that's what I say.

I like chinese,
I like chinese,
They come from a long way overseas,
But they're cute, and they're cuddly, and they're ready to please.

I like chinese food,
The waiters never are rude,
Think the many things they've done to impress,
There's maoism, taoism, I Ching and chess.

I like chinese,
I like chinese,
I like their tiny little trees,
Their zen, their ping-pong, their ying and yang-eze.

I like chinese thought,
The wisdom that Confusious taught,
If Darwin is anything to shout about,
The chinese will survive us all without any doubt.

So, I like chinese,
I like chinese,
They only come up to you knees,
Yet they're wise, and they're witty, and they're ready to please

Wo, I chumba run,
Wo, I chumba run,
Wo, I chumba run,
Ne hamma, Ne hamma, Ne hamma chi chen.

I like chinese,
I like chinese,
They're food is guaranteed to please,
A fourxxxx, a seven, a nine and lychees

I like chinese,
I like chinese,
I like their tiny little trees,
Their zen, their ping-pong, their yin and yang-eze

I like chinese,
I like chinese,
(fade out....)


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Stephen Hawking charmed a group of Chinese students on Wednesday, telling them he liked Chinese culture and women while warning that global warming might turn the Earth into a fiery planet.

Before an audience of 500 at a seminar in Beijing, the wheelchair-bound celebrity cosmologist said, "I like Chinese culture, Chinese food and above all Chinese women. They are beautiful."



The audience of mostly university students and professors and a smattering of journalists applauded.

Asked about the environment, Hawking, who suffers from a degenerative disease and speaks through a computerized voice synthesizer, said he was "very worried about global warming." He said he was afraid that Earth "might end up like Venus, at 250 degrees centigrade and raining sulfuric acid."

An occasional visitor to China, Hawking was in Beijing to attend a conference on string theory, an area of physics that attempts to explain and model the universe.

Hawking has near-superstar status in China, and the Chinese government preaches that scientific prowess is crucial to the country's future power.

"In the world there's only one like him. I very much respect his personality and strong spirit," said Liu Fei, 24-year-old doctoral candidate at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Physics in Beijing.


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Parsley is usually used as a decorative accent to a scrumptious meal, but don’t set it aside just yet.

In a new study, a University of Missouri researcher has found that a compound in parsley and other plant products, including fruits and nuts, can stop certain breast cancer tumor cells from multiplying and growing. The study was published recently in Cancer Prevention Research.

“Six to 10 million women in the United States receive hormone replacement therapy (HRT),” Hyder said. “We know that certain synthetic hormones used in HRT accelerate breast tumor development. In our study, we exposed the rats to one of the chemicals used in the most common HRTs received in the United States – a progestin called medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) – which also happens to be the same synthetic hormone that accelerates breast tumor development.”

When tumor cells develop in the breast in response to MPA, they encourage new blood vessels to form within tumors. The blood vessels then supply needed nutrients for the tumors to grow and multiply. Hyder found that apigenin blocked new blood vessel formation, thereby delaying, and sometimes stopping, the development of the tumors. Hyder also found that the compound reduced the overall number of tumors. However, while apigenin did delay tumor growth, it did not stop the initial formation of cancer cells within the breast.

Apigenin is most prevalent in parsley and celery, but can also be found in apples, oranges, nuts and other plant products. However, apigenin is not absorbed efficiently into the bloodstream, so scientists are unsure of how much can or should be ingested.

“We don’t have specific dosage for humans yet,” Hyder said. “However, it appears that keeping a minimal level of apigenin in the bloodstream is important to delay the onset of breast cancer that progresses in response to progestins such as MPA. It’s probably a good idea to eat a little parsley and some fruit every day to ensure the minimal amount. However, you can also find this compound in pill supplements in the health food section of many stores. Of course, you should always check with your doctor before making any major changes to your diet or lifestyle.”

The next phrase of studies should include human clinical trials to determine the appropriate dosage amount, Hyder said. He believes further study on humans is necessary to address any health and safety issues that might exist.

The research team included Benford Mafuvadze, doctoral student in biomedical sciences, Indira Benakanakere, research scientist Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center; Franklin Lopez, research fellow in the Department of Veterinary Pathobiology; Cynthia Besch-Williford, associate professor of veterinary pathobiology, and Mark Ellersieck, research professor of statistics in the College of Arts and Science.


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MU researcher looks for ways to bridge generational technology gap

COLUMBIA, Mo. ¬— Rapidly improving technology is changing everyday life for all generations. This constantly changing environment can be a difficult adjustment for older generations. However, for the current generation known as "Generation Y", this sense of constant technology adaption isn't an adjustment; it is a way of life. A University of Missouri researcher says a widening gap is occurring between educators and students due to the difference in how older and younger generations approach evolving technologies. Newton D'Souza, an assistant professor of architectural studies at MU, is looking for ways to move beyond traditional teaching methods and to bridge the technology gap between teachers and students.

"In a traditional educational model, learning only occurs in the classroom," MU researcher Newton D'Souza said. "Now, with technology like laptops and mobile phones, learning can occur anywhere from classrooms to hallways to coffee shops. For older generations, technology is a separate fixture. For Generation Y, it's a part of their lives. On one hand, it is exciting; on the other hand, it challenging because we must find ways to adjust teaching styles."

Researchers at the University of Missouri are studying ways to integrate technology into design learning, specifically to learn how to teach children design basics. In an effort to study how children who have grown up in a wired, video game culture use technology, D'Souza engaged young students using a 3D virtual reality platform to teach design. Using a popular existing virtual reality platform called 2nd Life, researchers directed students to design a small zoo. The zoo project involved a topic that young students could relate to, while providing adequate research restraints.

The 2nd Life platform provided a realistic 3D spatial simulation for students to explore. They were given instructions on certain design specifics and then allowed to work within the simulation. By studying how the students worked within the virtual reality platform and their eventual design product, D'Souza was able to observe the improvement of specific design skills.

D'Souza found that students working within the 3D virtual reality environment tended to improve spatial skills, including kinesthetic and logical abilities. However, verbal and intrapersonal skills seemed to suffer. He attributed this mixed result as a lesson to constantly work on creating better interfaces for today's learners. D'Souza also was surprised to find how quickly the students grasped the virtual reality concept and were able to begin working with it.

"Because they are wired in media, the kids entered into the system much faster than we expected," D'Souza said. "Today's students already exist in a 3D environment; we need to find a way to teach them where they already are."

Ultimately, D'Souza says that because each individual learns differently, new media technologies like the 2nd Life platform will teach researchers even more about how students learn. He believes it is important to continually question the assumptions about how humans learn.

"Right now we are failing to communicate with younger children," D'Souza said. "Learning is effective when previous assumptions are questioned, and nothing is taken for granted. It's not that we should entirely abandon our traditional teaching techniques; we need to consolidate what we have, and yet improvise to meet the needs of current day learners."




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In Hebrew, the Dead Sea is called Yam ha-Melah, the “sea of salt.” Now measurements show that the sea’s salt has profound effects on the chemistry of the air above its surface.

The atmosphere over the Dead Sea, researchers have found, is laden with oxidized mercury. Some of the highest levels of oxidized mercury ever observed outside the polar regions exist there.

The results appear in a paper published on-line November 28th in the journal Nature Geoscience.

In the research, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), scientist Daniel Obrist and colleagues at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, and at Hebrew University in Israel measured several periods of extremely high atmospheric oxidized mercury.

Mercury exists in the atmosphere in an elemental and in an oxidized state. It’s emitted by various natural and human processes, and can be converted in the atmosphere between these forms.

High levels of oxidized mercury are a concern, says Obrist, because this form is deposited quickly in the environment after its formation.

Atmospheric mercury deposition is the main way mercury, a potent neurotoxin, finds its way into global ecosystems.

After it’s deposited, mercury can accumulate through the food chain where it may reach very high levels.

“These levels are of major concern to humans,” says Obrist, “especially in the consumption of mercury-laden fish.”

Fish caught in oceans are the main source of mercury intake in the U.S. population.

Observations of high naturally-occurring oxidized mercury levels had been limited to the polar atmosphere. There, oxidized mercury is formed during a process called atmospheric mercury depletion events.

During mercury depletions, elemental mercury is converted to oxidized mercury, which is then readily deposited on surfaces.

These events may increase mercury loads to sensitive arctic environments by hundreds of tons of mercury each year.

Now, Obrist says,

“we’ve found near-complete depletion of elemental mercury–and formation of some of the highest oxidized mercury levels ever seen–above the Dead Sea, a place where temperatures reach 45 degrees Celsius.”

Such pronounced mercury depletion events were unexpected outside the frigid poles. High temperatures were thought to impede this chemical process.

“Elemental mercury is somewhat resistant to oxidation, so it’s been difficult to explain levels of oxidized mercury measured in the atmosphere outside polar regions,” says Alex Pszenny, director of NSF’s Atmospheric Chemistry Program, which funded the research. “These new results provide an explanation.”

The mechanisms involved in the conversion of mercury above the Dead Sea appear similar, however, to those in polar regions: both start with halogens.

Halogens, or halogen elements, are non-metal elements such as fluorine, chlorine, bromine and iodine.

Observations and modeling results indicate that at the Dead Sea, the conversion of elemental mercury is driven by bromine.

The new results show that bromine levels observed above oceans may be high enough to initiate mercury oxidation.

“We discovered that bromine can oxidize mercury in the mid-latitude atmosphere,” says Obrist, “far from the poles. That points to an important role of bromine-induced mercury oxidation in mercury deposition over the world’s oceans.”

What goes into the ocean, he says, may eventually wind up in its fish. And in those who eat them.


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India slides under Tibet, but how?

During the collision of India with the Eurasian continent, the Indian plate is pushed about 500 kilometers under Tibet, reaching a depth of 250 kilometers. The result of this largest collision in the world is the world's highest mountain range, but the tsunami in the Indian Ocean from 2004 was also created by earthquakes generated by this collision. The clash of the two continents is very complex, the Indian plate, for example, is compressed where it collides with the very rigid plate of the Tarim Basin at the north-western edge of Tibet. On the eastern edge of Tibet, the Wenchuan earthquake in May 2008 claimed over 70,000 deaths. Scientists at the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences report in the latest issue of the scientific journal "Science" (vol. 329, Sept. 17, 2010) on the results of a new seismic method which was used to investigate the collision process.

In international cooperation, it was possible to follow the route of the approximately 100 kilometers thick Indian continental plate beneath Tibet. To achieve this, a series of large seismic experiments were carried out in Tibet, during which the naturally occuring earthquakes were recorded. By evaluating weak waves that were scattered at the lower edge of the continental plate, this edge was made visible in detail. The boundary between the rigid lithosphere and the softer asthenosphere proved to be much more pronounced than was previously believed.

The entire Indian sub-continent moves continuously north over millions of years and has moved 2 meters below Tibet in the last 50 years alone. The Himalayas and the highlands of Tibet, the highest and largest plateau in the world, were formed this way. But the recurring catastrophic earthquakes in China are also caused by this collision of two continents. For a better understanding of the processes involved in the collision of the two plates, it is hoped to ultimately reduce the earthquake risk to millions of people across the entire collision zone.


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Over the past few days ozone-depleted air masses extended from the north pole to southern Scandinavia leading to higher than normal levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation during sunny days in southern Finland. These air masses will move east over the next few days, covering parts of Russia and perhaps extend as far south as the Chinese/Russian border. Such excursions of ozone-depleted air may also occur over Central Europe and could reach as far south as the Mediterranean. On an international press conference by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in Vienna today, atmospheric researcher Dr. Markus Rex from Germany´s Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association (AWI) pointed out that the current situation in the Arctic ozone layer is unparalleled.

“Such massive ozone loss has so far never occurred in the northern hemisphere, which is densely populated even at high latitudes,” AWI researcher Markus Rex describes the situation. The ozone layer protects life on Earth’s surface from harmful solar ultraviolet radiation. Because of the low inclination angle of the sun, exposure to ultraviolet radiation is not normally a public health concern at high northern latitudes. However, if ozone-depleted air masses drift further south over Central Europe, south Canada, the US, or over Central Asiatic Russia, for example, the surface intensity of UV radiation could lead to sunburn within minutes for sensitive persons, even in April.

Whether and when this may occur can be forecasted reliably only in the short term. People should thus follow the UV forecasts of regional weather services. “If elevated levels of surface UV occur, they will last a few days and sun protection will be necessary on those days, especially for children”, Rex recommends.

The expected UV intensity during these short episodes will, however, remain in the range of typical exposure at the height of summer and below the values that occur during holiday trips to the tropics.  Extreme caution is therefore unnecessary. “The concern is that people don’t expect to get sunburn so rapidly early in the year and consequently don’t take sun protection as seriously as in the middle of summer or while on vacation,” states Rex.  Any sunburn increases the risk of developing skin cancer later in life and this adverse effect is particularly pronounced in children.

“But provided that UV-protection is used it is safe and even healthy to exercise normal outdoor activities even during low ozone episodes. Particularly in countries high up in the north people tend to suffer from vitamin D deficit after the dark winter and Sun is a natural source of it”, adds Dr. Esko Kyrö from Arctic Research Center at Finnish Meteorological Institute.

The air masses with very low ozone concentrations will eventually disperse, as the sun warms the stratosphere and the winds change, as happens every year in spring. This will lead to somewhat lower ozone in spring and early summer this year, as the low ozone from the Arctic mixes with other stratospheric air throughout the northern hemisphere. This effect will be small, due to the large dilution of the ozone depleted air masses in background air.

As noted some weeks ago (AWI press release on 14.03.2011), the Arctic stratosphere has been unusually cold this winter, resulting in a transformation of chlorine supplied by industrial compounds into other forms that aggressively remove ozone. Since then the ozone removal process gained additional momentum by the return of sunlight to the Arctic, which is needed for the chemical processes to occur. The current amount of ozone depletion above the Arctic is far beyond that recorded for any other spring, over the time when ozone has been measured by modern instrumentation. These findings are based on an international network of 30 ozone sounding stations in the Arctic and Subarctic that is coordinated by the Alfred Wegener Institute.

Background:

 

This year’s Arctic ozone depletion is caused by industrial CFCs and related compounds.  Production of these chemicals was banned by the Montreal Protocol.  Ozone loss was particularly large this winter due to unusually low temperature, which results in the presence of clouds in the polar stratosphere.  Reactions on the surface of these clouds transform chlorine containing breakdown products of CFCs into compounds that aggressively remove ozone.  Even though the Montreal Protocol has successfully banned the production of CFCs and related compounds, chlorine levels in the Arctic stratosphere are only about 5% below the prior peak level, due to the long atmospheric lifetime of CFCs (removal takes 50 to 100 years). The Arctic ozone layer will remain vulnerable to depletion for the next several decades, particularly following unusually cold winters. In contrast, temperatures within the Antarctic stratosphere are cold enough, each winter, to lead to widespread occurrence of stratospheric clouds that are part of the chain of events that causes the Antarctic ozone hole that occurs each spring.


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Your next new car hopefully won’t be a lemon. But it could be a pineapple or a banana. That’s because scientists in Brazil have developed a more effective way to use fibers from these and other plants in a new generation of automotive plastics that are stronger, lighter, and more eco-friendly than plastics now in use.

They described the work, which could lead to stronger, lighter, and more sustainable materials for cars and other products, March 28 at the 241st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Study leader Alcides Leão, Ph.D., said the fibers used to reinforce the new plastics may come from delicate fruits like bananas and pineapples, but they are super strong. Some of these so-called nano-cellulose fibers are almost as stiff as Kevlar, the renowned super-strong material used in armor and bulletproof vests. Unlike Kevlar and other traditional plastics, which are made from petroleum or natural gas, nano-cellulose fibers are completely renewable.

“The properties of these plastics are incredible,” Leão said, “They are light, but very strong — 30 per cent lighter and 3-to-4 times stronger. We believe that a lot of car parts, including dashboards, bumpers, side panels, will be made of nano-sized fruit fibers in the future. For one thing, they will help reduce the weight of cars and that will improve fuel economy.”

Besides weight reduction, nano-cellulose reinforced plastics have mechanical advantages over conventional automotive plastics, Leão added. These include greater resistance to damage from heat, spilled gasoline, water, and oxygen. With automobile manufacturers already testing nano-cellulose-reinforced plastics, with promising results, he predicted they would be used within two years.

Cellulose is the main material that makes up the wood in trees and other parts of plants. Its ordinary-size fibers have been used for centuries to make paper, extracted from wood that is ground up and processed. In more recent years, scientists have discovered that intensive processing of wood releases ultra-small, or “nano” cellulose fibers, so tiny that 50,000 could fit inside across the width of a single strand of human hair. Like fibers made from glass, carbon, and other materials, nano-cellulose fibers can be added to raw material used to make plastics, producing reinforced plastics that are stronger and more durable.

Leão said that pineapple leaves and stems, rather than wood, may be the most promising source for nano-cellulose. He is with Sao Paulo State University in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Another is curaua, a plant related to pineapple that is cultivated in South America.

Other good sources include bananas; coir fibers found in coconut shells; typha, or “cattails;” sisal fibers produced from the agave plant; and fique, another plant related to pineapples.

To prepare the nano-fibers, the scientists insert the leaves and stems of pineapples or other plants into a device similar to a pressure cooker. They then add certain chemicals to the plants and heat the mixture over several cycles, producing a fine material that resembles talcum powder. The process is costly, but it takes just one pound of nano-cellulose to produce 100 pounds of super-strong, lightweight plastic, the scientists said.

“So far, we’re focusing on replacing automotive plastics,” said Leão. “But in the future, we may be able to replace steel and aluminum automotive parts using these plant-based nanocellulose materials.”

Similar plastics also show promise for future use in medical applications, such as replacement materials for artificial heart valves, artificial ligaments, and hip joints, Leão and colleagues said.

This research was presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.
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here's a bit more....

Study: 85 percent of homeless people have chronic health conditions

TORONTO, Ont., Aug 24, 2011 – More than eight out of 10 homeless people surveyed by researchers at St. Michael's Hospital and elsewhere have at least one chronic health condition and more than half have a mental health problem.

People who are "vulnerably housed"—meaning they live in unsafe, unstable or unaffordable housing--had equally poor, and in some cases worse, health, the survey found.

The underlying cause for these health issues is poverty, said Dr. Stephen Hwang, the principal investigator of the study and a physician-researcher at the hospital's Centre for Research on Inner City Health.

"Poor housing conditions and poor health are closely linked," said Dr. Hwang. "We need to treat both problems."

Results of the survey were published yesterday in the International Journal of Public Health.

The survey is part of the first examination of the longitudinal changes in the health and housing status of Canadians. The Research Alliance for Canadian Homelessness, Housing, and Health, is tracking 1,200 homeless and vulnerably housed single adults in Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa over three years. The alliance, known as REACH3, is headed by Dr. Hwang and includes some of Canada's leading academic researchers and community organizations with expertise on homelessness.

On any given night, about 5,000 people in Toronto, 900 people in Ottawa and 2,700 people in Vancouver are homeless. Over the course of a year, an estimated 150,000 to 300,000 Canadians will experience homelessness. A report by REACH3 released in November found that for every one person who is homeless, another 23 live in unsafe, crowded or unaffordable housing.

Participants in the survey reported having at least one chronic health condition, such as diabetes and heart disease, and more than 50 per cent reported being diagnosed with a mental health problem.

The study did not include comparable figures for the general population, but previous research has found that homeless people have much poorer health than other members of society.

The 2007 Street Health Report, a survey of the health status and needs of homeless people in downtown Toronto, found that while 61 per cent of the general population reported they were in excellent or very good health, only 29 per cent of homeless people felt they were. While 40 per cent of homeless people said they were in fair or poor health, only 9 per cent of the general population responded that way.



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Tibet Autonomous Region is located in the southwest of China, with a land area of 1.22 million square kilometers (the second largest region of China), bordering Xinjiang Region and Qinghai Province to the north, Sichuan and Yunnan to the east, India, Nepal, Sikkim, and Burma to the south.



Sitting atop the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Tibet is the highest region on earth, with an average elevation of 4,000 metres. That's why Tibet is often referred to as the roof of the world. The Himalayas and many of the highest mountain peaks in the world stands on the south of Tibet.


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There are fears that in 25 years, 80 per cent of local glaciers will vanish as warming bites, writes  CLIFFORD COONAN in Tibet

LOCAL PEOPLE selling trinkets and prayer flags at the Karola Pass in Tibet are looking nervously at the glacier behind, which has melted halfway up the mountain because of global warming. The ice fields at the roof of the world are shrinking.

“It keeps getting smaller,” said one man, dressed in traditional Tibetan garb, anxiously eyeing the spectacular natural phenomenon that is his livelihood.

Meanwhile, in the Tibetan provincial capital, Lhasa, the Lalu wetland reserve, known as the “lung of Lhasa”, is also shrinking because of global warming and pressure from developers. It generates oxygen for a city starved of air because of its height.

Lalu is the largest and highest natural wetland in the world, covering 12.2sq kms (4.7sq miles), and the Chinese Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has introduced a 15.5 billion yuan (€1.82 billion) plan to help protect it from destruction.

“Tibet is on the Qinghai plateau and the ecological environment is very vulnerable,” said Gyanpel, director general of the Tibetan Environmental Protection Department.

The temperature in Tibet has risen by up to one-third of a degree every 10 years between 1961 and 2008, which is well ahead of the rest of the world, and nowhere is this more obvious than at the Karola glacier. Ice on the Qinghai plateau is retreating at the rate of seven per cent every year. There are fears that in 25 years, 80 per cent of the glacial area in Tibet and surrounding areas could be gone.

It’s bad news for the local herdsmen who rely on the water from the glaciers for themselves and their yaks and goats, but it’s also bad news for water supplies in the rest of China, India and southeast Asia.

The mighty Yangtze and Yellow rivers, as well as the Mekong and the Ganges, are in danger of running out of water, threatening the livelihood of millions in India, China, Pakistan and other parts of Asia.

The Qinghai-Tibet plateau covers 2.5 million sq kilometres – around a quarter of China’s land area – at an average altitude of 4,000 metres above sea level.

Himalayan glaciers on the Qinghai-Tibet highland store more ice than anywhere on Earth except for the polar regions and Alaska. But because of global warming, all across the plateau, glacial and snow run-off is evaporating, leaving dwindling rivers dangerously clogged with silt. Northern India relies on glacial run-off for much of its fresh water.

Chinese scientists believe the Rongbuk glaciers have retreated by up to 230 metres in the past three decades. These glaciers account for 47 per cent of the total glacier coverage in China.

It’s not all grim. Gyanpel said efforts to rescue the Lalu wetland had been successful.

“The wetland plays a crucial role in producing oxygen and purifying the air. We call it the city’s lung, and have given it the nickname ‘the air purifier’. Lalu is part of Lhasa and we’ve done a lot to preserve it, both at provincial and national level,” said Gyanpel.

This includes an investment of 150 million yuan to preserve the wetland, and the Tibetan Environmental Protection Department has restored some parts of the area, and implemented measures to stop landslides. The Lalu wetland has shrunk by some 70 per cent, but the EPA was able to restore 90 per cent of the area lost.

There are 43 species of wild animal living on the reserve, including the black-necked crane and the vulture, as well as 30 aquatic and 101 insect species.

“It’s by no means easy to protect such a large area. The price of land is very high in Lhasa. That we don’t develop the area shows how much we value the environment in Lhasa,” he said.

“In Lhasa we have very high restrictions on polluting enterprises. For example, we moved a big cement factory outside the city. Beside these Lalu wetlands, there are 20 such areas in counties around Lhasa. The central government has set aside 15.5 billion yuan to develop a national environmental security barrier for Tibet,” Gyanpel added.

The aim is to minimise the impact of industrial development and to avoid polluting industries.

“Tibet is rich is minerals and natural resources. There will be appropriate extraction of natural resources without impacting on the environment.

“All projects must follow the principle of protecting the environment first. If there is serious damage to the environment during the extraction, we will stop it, even if it’s gold or other precious metals,” he said.

NEW DELHI: Your daily dose of cola could be poisoning the lives of communities living near soft drink manufacturing plants, according to a study by Hazards Centre.

The NGO found high levels of toxic chromium and other pollutants in the soil and water around five Coca-Cola and Pepsico plants in North India.

The study was released two months after a Kerala government panel ruled that Coca-Cola must pay Rs.216 crore in compensation to villagers affected by pollution, and a depletion of groundwater resources, by its Plachimada bottling plant. Now five other communities — Mehdiganj and Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, Kaladera and Chopanki in Rajasthan, and Panipat in Haryana — are also claiming that soft drinks plants in their vicinity are responsible for their woes.

Could file PIL

“Our water is being contaminated...and the level of water has also dropped,” says Sharafat Ali, a Ghaziabad farmer who is also a member of the Azadi Bachao Andolan movement. “Our people are suffering from skin problems, stomach sickness,” he said at the release of the study in the Capital over the weekend.

Mr. Ali said villagers would first complain to local authorities, and could consider filing a PIL in the High Court later.

“We found that chromium was the most common pollutant,” said Hazards Centre director Dunu Roy. According to him, 59 of 85 water samples showed chromium concentration above the permissible limit of 0.05 parts per million (ppm), with some samples going as high as 5.64 ppm.

“Chromium can cause skin rashes, upset stomachs and ulcers, respiratory problems and cancer,” he said.

Cadmium and lead were also detected in samples from Ghaziabad. Concentrations were high in samples collected from the drains where factory effluents were discharged, showing that it is finding its way out from the manufacturing process.

Interestingly, the Hazards Centre says that since these heavy metals are not supposed to be part of the process for manufacturing beverages, no standards are specified for them for this industry sector in the Environmental Protection Act, 1986. High Chemical Oxygen Demand levels also show that the effluent must contain a significant amount of chemicals other than the three heavy metals analysed, according to the study.

No, says Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola has rejected the study's findings, saying that its operations conform to Pollution Control Board (PCB) norms. The company says a comprehensive 2009 study by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute and IL&FS Ecosmart at Kaladera and Mehandiganj found no adverse impacts on soil and groundwater quality.

“Water is the main ingredient in all of our products and we have a shared interest in protecting the quantity and quality of this precious resource. It would be unreasonable for anyone to think the company itself would contaminate its main raw material,” said a release from Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Private Ltd.

Pepsico insisted that its plants meet PCB norms, but declined to comment on the specific charges, saying that the report had not been shared with it.

The study was conducted between 2006 and 2008, with samples being tested at the People's Science Institute in Dehra Dun.

AGADIR, Morocco: US scientists who spent five years sampling the tissue of nearly 1000 sperm whales discovered surprisingly high levels of toxic heavy metals in the animals, a report shows.

The levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium together are the highest ever found in marine mammals, the scientists say, warning that the health of both ocean life and people who eat seafood could be at risk.

Analysis of cells from the sperm whales showed pollution is reaching the farthest corners of the oceans, from deep in the polar regions to ''the middle of nowhere'' in the equatorial regions, the biologist Roger Payne, founder and president of Ocean Alliance, which conducted the research, said.

''The entire ocean life is just loaded with a series of contaminants, most of which have been released by human beings,'' Dr Payne said in an interview on the sidelines of the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting in Agadir. ''These contaminants, I think, are threatening the human food supply. They certainly are threatening the whales and the other animals that live in the ocean.''

Ultimately, he said, they could contaminate fish that are a primary source of animal protein for 1 billion people.

''The biggest surprise was chromium,'' Dr Payne said. ''That's an absolute shocker. Nobody was even looking for it.''

Chromium, a corrosion-resistant material, is used in stainless steel, paints, dyes and the tanning of leather.

Dr Payne said female whales pass the contaminants on to the next generation when they nurse a calf. ''What she's actually doing is dumping her lifetime accumulation of that fat-soluble stuff into her baby,'' he said, and each generation passes on more to the next.

''I don't see any future for whale species except extinction. This is not on anybody's radar, no government's radar anywhere

Associated Press

BEIJING, June 22 (Xinhaunet) -- The number of syphilis cases in the country rose rapidly over the past decade and the risk of contracting syphilis is widespread, health authorities warned.

The Ministry of Health issued a 10-year working plan on Monday for syphilis prevention and control, targeting high-risk groups such as prostitutes, gay men and those engaged in extramarital xxx.

Syphilis is an infectious disease that can cause damage to the nerves and cardiovascular system. It can be transmitted via xxx and blood, as well as from mother to baby in the womb.

According to statistics from the China Information System for Disease Control and Prevention (CISDCP), some 327,433 cases of syphilis were reported last year in China, a year-on-year increase of 17.07 percent. Moreover, 10,757 newborn children were infected with the disease in 2009.

Recent reports also revealed that peasants, migrant workers and retired people are exposed to higher risks of contracting syphilis.

"They lack knowledge and the ability to protect themselves," said Chen Xiangsheng, deputy director of the CISDCP.

The government banned prostitution in 1949 and has since provided free medical treatment for syphilis. By the 1960s, syphilis had almost disappeared on the mainland.

However, in the 1980s, syphilis started to spread again as the population shifted. Between 1993 and 1999, cases of syphilis rose 85 percent.

"Syphilis has become a severe public health problem," the Oriental Outlook magazine quoted Chen as saying.

AIDS authorities at all levels are being urged to place more syphilis prevention advertisements in the media and on the Internet.

Grassroots clinics are obliged to distribute educational material to patients and to hold free lectures on the prevention of syphilis.

Condoms will also be supplied in public places by the government.

A lack of knowledge leads some syphilitics to go to nonstandard private clinics, so the Ministry of Health is planning to train more doctors at grassroots hospitals.

According to the working plan, anti-syphilis drugs will be included in the refund list. All community hospitals are required to provide free medical services to the patients and to maintain their privacy.

The aim of the plan is to curb the spread of syphilis over the next five years, reduce the number of early-stage syphilitics and eliminate syphilis babies within 10 years.