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POPSGIANT gabage patch floating in Pacific This is absolutely unbelievable. If you're never drive across To put this in perspective, Texas, the second larges state in the union, includes roughly 267,339 sq. mi, or 7.4% of the nation's total area. And our mommies can't clean up after us this time.
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POPSPaper Bags or Plastic Bags? Everything You Need to Know So, while it's good to have the alternative (and to recognize the innovation it represents), bioplastics aren't quite ready to save us from the paper or plastic debate. Paper bags or plastic bags: the conclusion Both paper and plastic bags require lots and lots of resources and energy, and proper recycling requires due diligence from both consumer and municipal waste collector or private recycling company, so there are a lot of variables that can lead to low recycling rates. Ultimately, neither paper nor plastic bags are the best choice; we think choosing reusable canvas bags instead is the way to go. From an energy standpoint, according to this Australian study, canvas bags are 14 times better than plastic bags and 39 times better than paper bags, assuming that canvas bags get a good workout and are used 500 times during their life cycle. Happy shopping!
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POPSThe truth about recycling Far too much valuable info here to fit in a clip, so go to the source for interesting discussions of the history of recycling, current status, innovations and concerns about what happens to recyclables being shipped to China and other developing nations. China is now the largest importer of recyclable materials in the world! The explanation of how single stream collection of recyclables works is fascinating. I was not aware of all the new technology being employed to sort and separate recyclable materials. The section on the future of recycling discusses the need for product design to take into account recycling of the product materials to create "closed-loop" cycles where there is no waste. Sustainable packaging emphasizes the use of renewable, recycled and non-toxic source materials to benefit the environment and cut costs. Wal-Mart is jumping on this bandwagon. "Waste is really a design flaw."
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POPSCreating insignificant events -Futuristic art Vincent Callebaut 'work was lately exhibited in Paris ; ;" To believe in the world means to create events, even insignificant ones, that gets out of control, or create new space-times, even in reduced surfaces or volumes"
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POPSThe Pope is Absolutely Right Publicity from anywhere on this is good. It rarely makes the headlines but deep in the heart of the financial system is this legalised fraud whereby greedy rich people (and, of course, not all rich people are greedy) evade taxes, enhance profits, and destablise the global economy. In the UK alone it is estimated that individuals and companies legally syphon off £20 billion annually.
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POPSPollution in China 
"It was only when pollution literally started to bloom across the lakes of China earlier this summer that the country's leaders finally sounded full alarm on the environment. Blue-green algae blooms choked Lake Taihu - China's third biggest source of freshwater - in May, forcing 5 million people to use bottled water for drinking and bathing. "Soon after, local media were reporting outbreaks across the country. Rancid blooms contaminated Dianchi Lake in southwestern China, then Xinlicheng reservoir, the main source of water for Changchun - a northern city of almost 3 million people. In every case, pollution - either from factories, fertilizer or untreated sewage - was to blame. "Algae blooms are nature's response to discharges of nitrogen and phosphorus. Grown to excess, they choke waterways of oxygen, killing fish and fouling the air with a putrid smell. When prime minister Wen Jiabao visited Lake Taihu, he reportedly described it as an environmental wake-up call to the nation."
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POPSAmerica Is a Toxic Dump Lobbying groups like the National Association of Manufacturers, headquartered in Washington, have fought tooth and nail for decades against any restrictions on the highly profitable production of disposable containers and packaging. And at the other end of the equation, the equally powerful waste-management companies (a multi-billion-dollar industry) work on the simple premise that more trash equals more cash.
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POPSStunning underwater shots captured by world's top female cave diver and her team
Crawling through underwater caves from Antarctica to Mexico and Florida to Bermuda, it is a good thing that Jill Heinerth is not claustrophobic It also helps that Ms Heinerth, 44, is acknowledged as the world's top female cave diver Holding the world record for distance travelled in underwater caves as well as being the first person to cave dive in an Antarctic iceberg, Ms Heinerth has been at the top of her game for 20 years An expert at crossing pitch-black freezing tunnels, full time cave photographer Ms Heinerth carries up to 300 pounds of equipment with her on each expedition Using technology more advanced than average scuba diving gear, the Florida based adventure cave diver makes use of electric heated wetsuits and unique carbon dioxide recycling aqua-lungs 'The images of me with my team from Antarctica still bring back the excitement of that unique expedition,' says Ms Heinerth, who lives in the much warmer climate of High Springs in Florida.
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POPS10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now 7. The Rent-A-Country Countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and South Korea — well-off states without enough good land or water to feed their people — started to look outside their borders. "It's economically not viable to grow food in the desert," says David Hallam, deputy director of trade and markets for the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization. "They said, 'If we can't grow our own food, we'll grow it somewhere else.'" 8. Biobanks the U.S.'s first national biobank — a safe house for tissue samples, tumor cells, DNA and, yes, even blood — that would be used for research into new treatments for diseases. Think of it as an organic bank account. You put your biomaterial in and earn medical interest in the form of knowledge and therapies that grow out of that deposit — no monetary reward, just the potential that you might benefit from the accumulated data at some later date.
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POPSAndrew Maynard’s Suburb Eating Robot As part of Critical Visions 08, a conference organized by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in Sydney, Andrew Maynard and six other young up-and-coming architects presented a vision of what the future holds for architects and designers, and the challenges that we will have to face. The visions proposed everything from clearing large swaths of Sydney for creating green spaces, to radically conceptualizing what a city would look like if it only had public transportation, and all points were no more than 30 minutes away from each other.
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POPSBookCrossing Its an old site, but I ran into it again and remembered that I like the idea.
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POPSCan Recycling Be Used To Treat Cancer? The researchers discovered a compound, STF-62247, that was selectively toxic to RCCs deficient in VHL whereas cells with normal VHL were not affected. Treatment of RCC cells lacking functional VHL induced autophagy, a cellular recycling process that cells normally use to conserve resources during times of stress. "Increasing evidence implicates a role for autophagy in cancer, but it is not well understood how cellular and environmental cues drive autophagic cells down survival or death pathways," explains Dr. Giaccia. The researchers demonstrated that STF-62247 enhanced autophagy in VHL-deficient cells while inhibition of the autophagy pathway significantly increased the survival of VHL-deficient cells treated with STF-62247. "We have found a small molecule that selectively induces cell death in VHL-deficient cells, such as those that are found in kidney cancer. This represents a paradigm shift for targeted therapy," concludes Dr. Giaccia.
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