• The Environment

    Salt Water Rising

    By the Editors of E - The Environmental Magazine Posted on 1.5.2009 28 Comments

    Dear EarthTalk: With all the talk of rising seas, what could happen to the rivers that flow into the oceans? Will they reverse flow? Will rising seas back up into fresh water lakes? And what happens to our groundwater should saltwater flow backwards into it? -- Sandy Smith, concerned Michigander

    1.5.2009 at 05:16pm - Comment by LagrothBur27

    I would just like to point something out here: All those glaciers in the ocean happen to be made of water, and when water freezes it expands and becomes less dense (which is how erosion works). When ice melts it shrinks and becomes more dense. Ice floats because it is less dense than water. Therefore when all the ice in the glaciers melts, it will shrink to the extent that it will occupy the same space as all the ice that was already below water in the glacier. To sum it up, if all the glaciers in the ocean melted, it would not increase the water level due to the fact that the ice in the glaciers is already displacing its own weight in the ocean. The water level would only increase if the ice and snow on land melted, as it is not displacing any weight in the ocean, and that would be nowhere near the predicted rise of 8 to 34 inches by the year 2100. Now I am not saying that global warming is a lie, I am just saying that humans aren't the cause of it. All the carbon dioxide we humans have put into the atmosphere since we came into existence would be equivalent to a few volcanic eruptions at most. What angers me here, is that while Al Gore is trying to scare us into buying carbon credits to save the environment (does anyone, besides the people who sell them, even know what the money gained from selling the credits is really being used for), he isn't even pointing out the real problems in the environment. Like the fact that as more carbon dioxide is put into the atmosphere it WILL be absorbed into the ocean, creating carbonic acid, which WILL increase the overall acidity of the ocean. The threat of rising sea levels is minuscule compared to this, and even then, the threat of this is minuscule compared to all the other **** we dump into the oceans. And from what I've heard, the polar bear population has actually increased five-fold since the 1960's, with maybe a slight decrease in the last decade, which is what Al Gore focused on in that movie of his.

  • Science

    SciKu, Anyone?

    By Posted on 12.26.2008 6 Comments

    Here at Popular Science, innovation is the name of the game. Now, our Features Editor has pushed the envelope on the blog's ubiquitous form by invoking a great form of poetry known for its compact use of language and emotive imagery. We bring you Nicole Dyer. We bring you SciKu.

    12.19.2008 at 04:19pm - Comment by LagrothBur27

    haiku's are easy but sometimes they don't make sense refrigerator

  • Science

    Readers Wonder: How Will It All End?

    By PopSci Staff Posted on 9.10.2008 21 Comments

    Nobody's implying that it's right around the corner, but an old question is on a lot of people's minds these days -- especially you readers. How will the world end? Wikipedia has a nice list of some possible scenarios. What's your favorite? Discuss in the comments.

    9.11.2008 at 08:06am - Comment by LagrothBur27

    Zengrath, when our sun dies, it will not have enough mass to create a blackhole. Householdutensils, if there was a cosmic object that was large enough to knock the Earth out of a coherent orbit, it would also be large enough to destroy it, so we wouldn't really have to worry about the orbit part. And as for my guess, the LHC has yet to collide any actual particles, so we still have a slight chance of dying from it.

  • Science

    Fighting Staph Through Viral Infection

    By Posted on 4.10.2008 3 Comments

    Using living organisms to combat human disease is nothing new to medicine. The Greeks used leeches to balance the humors (didn't work). Civil war medics used maggots to clean dead tissue from wounds (did work, and is still selectively used today). The next step in fighting infection with outside help looks to come from the bacteriophages, which are viruses that only infect bacteria.

    4.11.2008 at 08:25am - Comment by LagrothBur27

    Band aids heal EVERYTHING......... (give or take)

  • Entertainment & Gaming

    The Unenhanced Performance Is not Worth Testing For

    By Posted on 4.4.2008 3 Comments

    If cheating doesnt help you win, is it still cheating? Probably. But, if cheating doesnt help you win, should anybody care? The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announced this week that it has purchased thousands of kits to blood test athletes for HGH in advance of and during the Beijing Olympics. Yippee? Not so much. While major news organizations have been hailing the breakthrough, they've also been ignoring an article published online in the Annals of Internal Medicine that suggests HGH doesnt actually help cheaters win. The article reviewed 27 studies over the past 40 years and found nothing but a cosmetic enhancement as a result of HGH. The research is consistent with testimony to Congress from a panel of experts, including Dr. Richard Perls with whom we spoke in February.

    4.7.2008 at 08:27am - Comment by LagrothBur27

    Or they could just give up and even it out by having everyone take steroids.

  • The Environment

    Massive Ice Shelf Collapse

    By Posted on 3.25.2008 8 Comments

    At 5,282 square miles the Wilkins Ice Shelf is one of the largest on the Antarctic Peninsula. It is also the latest casualty of global warming. Satellite images released today by the British Antarctic Survey and the National Snow and Ice Data Center reveal a massive collapse over the past month—disintegration resulting in, most recently, a breakaway iceberg seven times the size of Manhattan.

    Article Rating:
    3.28.2008 at 05:41pm - Comment by LagrothBur27

    First of all, that whole carrots thing was meant as an insult to the vegetarian lifestyle. We farm vegetables, so why shouldn't we farm animals. Animals will die too eventually, so why don't we put them to good use, by eating them? Second, I believe in global warming, I just don't believe that humans are the main cause of it. If you really wanted to stop the pollution of the atmosphere you would have to stop all the volcanoes from erupting. Not including nukes or other such explosives, they can do a lot more damage to the atmosphere than we ever will.

  • The Environment

    Factory Farming and its Dire Consequences

    By Posted on 3.27.2008 7 Comments

    One of the dire consequences of factory farming is that it encourages the spread of disease due to the close quarters in which the animals live. Thats why theyre fed antibiotics and other medicines when they arent sick. This overuse of antibiotics, while beneficial to the flocks and herds in the short term, leads to stronger and more drug-resistant bacteria in the long term. The effect has been widely reported by popular authors like Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser. What we havent heard much about are how viruses can thrive in this environment.

    Article Rating:
    3.26.2008 at 04:47pm - Comment by LagrothBur27

    How do you think all those carrots feel about being eaten? At least animals can run away. Even if they are caged they can still move. Things such as carrots are buried alive while we grow them.

  • The Environment

    Massive Ice Shelf Collapse

    By Posted on 3.25.2008 8 Comments

    At 5,282 square miles the Wilkins Ice Shelf is one of the largest on the Antarctic Peninsula. It is also the latest casualty of global warming. Satellite images released today by the British Antarctic Survey and the National Snow and Ice Data Center reveal a massive collapse over the past month—disintegration resulting in, most recently, a breakaway iceberg seven times the size of Manhattan.

    Article Rating:
    3.26.2008 at 04:42pm - Comment by LagrothBur27

    I don't really see how global warming is to blame for this. It was going to happen eventually.



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