Tag: stronger

El Nino looks set to be strongest ever

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These folks had checked weather within 24 hours – still were caught

The developing El Nino is stronger than the last major event of its type in 1997.

According to the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the UK Met Office, this El Nino is shaping up to be the strongest since records began in 1950.

El Nino is a natural phenomenon which occurs every two to seven years and lasts between six and 18 months.

It manifests as a warming of the surface waters of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. The current El Nino is so strong that in some areas sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are more than 2 degrees Celsius above the long-term average.

Aside from the devastating effect that El Nino has on the Peruvian fishing industry, the real significance lies in the change in weather patterns that it produces around the globe.

In the Pacific, the warmer waters in the eastern part of the ocean have spawned more typhoons, super typhoons and hurricanes than usual, with the tracks of those storm systems also being altered considerably. Severe weather conditions have been experienced around the Asia-Pacific region…

In North America, where much of the south and west has been experiencing the worst drought in a century, the El Nino could bring the benefit of rain, although if the El Nino of 1997-98 is anything to go by, that rain could result in severe flooding and deaths.

Yup. Here in New Mexico, many look forward to El Niño. Snowier winters bring lots of tourists to the best powder skiing in the United States. In high desert country, more moisture is always welcome. As long as people are bright enough to stay out of arroyos and away from flash flood danger, the additional precipitation is beneficial.

In the Caribbean, the developing El Nino has already had the opposite effect to the one experienced in the Pacific: namely, it has reduced hurricane frequency by causing an increase in wind shear. This is a change of wind direction and speed with height that can disrupt hurricane formation.

In Africa, El Ninos are associated with drought across southern portions of the continent, and drought in countries such as Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa is causing a looming food crisis.

Even Europe is not immune from the effects of an El Nino. If this year’s event follows the pattern of previous ones, then winter weather here could be colder and drier than average and last well into spring.

Regular readers down in Oz are well aware of the dangers El Niño brings to their part of Earth. The fire danger experienced there can be the worst on the planet.

No two El Ninos are the same. There are lots of other short and long-term variables in the global weather patterns, but the coming months could see some unusual and spectacular weather in many parts of the world.

A pool parasite — not carrying a beer

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Cryptosporidium
Yes – highly magnified

A hardy parasite has led federal health officials to warn pool goers to be careful in the water this summer.

Outbreaks related to pools, hot tubs and other recreational uses of water can be dangerous and according to a new report the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 90 outbreaks between 2011 to 2012 resulted in 1,788 illnesses, 95 hospitalizations and one death.

A major cause of the outbreaks in treated water, including hot tubs and pools, is a hardy parasite called Cryptosporidium, which is encased in a tough shell and causes acute gastrointestinal issues such as diarrhea.

Michele Hlavsa, chief of the CDC’s Healthy Swimming Program, said the parasite is particularity troubling due to how long it can live in treated water.

“It can survive for 10 days,” Hlavasa told ABC News, noting that other bacteria including E. coli are killed in minutes to hours in a treated pool.

“With these outbreaks, we see they disproportionately affect young children,” Hlavasa said. “They’re the ones who can go to a pool and young children tend to carry lots of germs.”…

To stay safe, pool goers should look to see if their pool’s most recent inspection was posted through their local health department or even look into buying their own chlorine tests that can be used to test if the water is properly treated.

Eeoough! You’re often better off if you can avoid the young of your own species. 🙂

Aerospace contractor finds method for cheap, clean water

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A defense contractor better known for building jet fighters and lethal missiles says it has found a way to slash the amount of energy needed to remove salt from seawater, potentially making it vastly cheaper to produce clean water at a time when scarcity has become a global security issue.

The process, officials and engineers at Lockheed Martin Corp say, would enable filter manufacturers to produce thin carbon membranes with regular holes about a nanometer in size that are large enough to allow water to pass through but small enough to block the molecules of salt in seawater…

Because the sheets of pure carbon known as graphene are so thin – just one atom in thickness – it takes much less energy to push the seawater through the filter with the force required to separate the salt from the water, they said.

The development could spare underdeveloped countries from having to build exotic, expensive pumping stations needed in plants that use a desalination process called reverse osmosis.

“It’s 500 times thinner than the best filter on the market today and a thousand times stronger,” said John Stetson, the engineer who has been working on the idea. “The energy that’s required and the pressure that’s required to filter salt is approximately 100 times less…”

About 780 million people around the world do not have access to clean drinking water, the United Nations reported last year.

“One of the areas that we’re very concerned about in terms of global security is the access to clean and affordable drinking water,” said Tom Notaro, Lockheed business manager for advanced materials. “As more and more countries become more developed … access to that water for their daily lives is becoming more and more critical.”

RTFA for details. The best news is that Lockheed engineers expect to be into the prototyping stage by the end of this year. After that, partners with experience and distribution channels will be likely to come on board. Good engineering looks like it’s going to reduce cost and increase availability for a very important process.

Not exactly unimportant is that the prototyping program will include developing filters which can be retrofitted to existing plants.

Old geezer? Smoking grass may make your bones stronger.

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Scientists investigating the effects of cannabis on bone health have found that its impact varies dramatically with age.

The study has found that although cannabis could reduce bone strength in young people, it may protect against osteoporosis, a weakening of the bones, in later life. The team at the University of Edinburgh has shown that a molecule found naturally in the body, which can be activated by cannabis – called the type 1 cannabinoid receptor (CB1) – is key to the development of osteoporosis.

It is known that when CB1 comes into contact with cannabis it has an impact on bone regeneration, but until now it was not clear whether the drug had a positive or negative effect.

The study…showed that the same compounds decreased bone loss in older mice and prevented the accumulation of fat in the bones, which is known to occur in humans with osteoporosis. The results are published in Cell Metabolism.

Osteoporosis affects up to 30 per cent of women and 12 per cent of men at some point in life.

Stuart Ralston, the Arthritis Research Campaign Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Edinburgh, who led the study, said: “This is an exciting step forward, but we must recognise that these are early results and more tests are needed on the effects of cannabis in humans to determine how the effects differ with age in people.

“We plan to conduct further trials soon and hope the results will help to deliver new treatments that will be of value in the fight against osteoporosis.”

They’re also getting a group rate from Mamma’s Pizza.