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	<title><![CDATA[iAfrica :: Cooltech : News : Science]]></title>
	<link>http://www.iafrica.com</link>
	<description><![CDATA[All the news that's fit to print.]]></description>
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<pubDate>2017-10-02 09:17:30</pubDate>
<content_id>1055644</content_id>
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<heading><![CDATA[Macron trumps Trump with 'climate' campaign]]></heading>
<title><![CDATA[Macron trumps Trump with 'climate' campaign]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[French President Emmanuel Macron's 30-million-euro &quot;Make Climate Great Again&quot; campaign has narrowed a list of candidate scientists from abroad from thousands to 90.]]></description>
<body_text><![CDATA[French President Emmanuel Macron's 30-million-euro &quot;Make Climate Great Again&quot; campaign has narrowed a list of candidate scientists from abroad from thousands to 90, nearly half from the US.
Macron made the offer to fund and host foreign climate experts in early June after US President Donald Trump announced the United States would pull out of the 196-nation Paris Agreement, which pledges to cap global warming.
Trump also asked Congress to slash climate-research budgets across multiple federal agencies, including the Departments of Energy, NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
If enacted, the cuts would total billions of dollars and thousands of jobs.
&quot;As a climate scientist, I am extremely preoccupied by all the news I'm hearing about the White House budget, which clearly targets environmental and climate science,&quot; said Valerie Masson Delmotte, research director at France's Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission.
Tens of thousands of scientists took to the streets of Washington D.C. in April to protest.&nbsp;
&quot;The decision by the president of the United States is disappointing,&quot; Macron said at the time.&nbsp;
&quot;You will find in France a second homeland,&quot; he added in launching his appeal, clearly directed to US scientists.
- 'Disdain for science' -
Just over 250 applicants -- 45 percent US citizens -- made the first cut, based on academic qualifications and detailed research proposals, according to Anne Peyroche, chief research office at France's National Centre for Scientific Research.
&quot;We have some very high-level candidates,&quot; said told AFP.&nbsp;
&quot;It's a real opportunity for France, but at the same time it says something about the situation of climate scientists in the United States.&quot;
French institutes and universities have matched Macron's largesse, which means a total of 60 million euros ($70 million) set aside for 50 junior and senior five-year postings.
&quot;It is a kind offer, and it makes a very important statement,&quot; Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, told AFP.
&quot;The contrast between Macron -- who supports scientists and listens to its warnings -- and Trump, who expresses disdain for science, could not be more striking.&quot;&nbsp;
Macron is scheduled to unveil some of the marquee scientists selected on December 12, the second anniversary of the signing of the Paris Agreement.
Junior researchers will be alloted up to one million euros over four years, covering salary, two doctoral students and working expenses.
Senior researchers will each have a 1.5-million-euro budget that includes two assistants and two students.
Spouses will also be given work permits while they are in France.]]></body_text>
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<caption><![CDATA[French President Emmanuel Macron waves after visiting the Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy, in Varna on August 25, 2017. Credit: AFP PHOTO]]></caption>
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<pubDate>2017-09-28 10:12:43</pubDate>
<content_id>1055511</content_id>
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<heading><![CDATA[The Nobel Prize in numbers]]></heading>
<title><![CDATA[The Nobel Prize in numbers]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[How many people have won a Nobel Prize? Who was the oldest winner? How much do they win? Here are some facts and figures about the Nobel Prizes.]]></description>
<body_text><![CDATA[How many people have won a Nobel Prize? Who was&nbsp;the oldest winner? How much do they win?&nbsp;
Here are some facts and figures about the Nobel Prizes:
- 5 prizes were created by Alfred Nobel in his 1895 will, for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace, which were awarded from 1901. A sixth prize in economics, &quot;in memory of Alfred Nobel&quot;, was created by Sweden's central bank in 1968.
- 6 laureates have declined the prize. The only two to do so of their own will were France's Jean-Paul Sartre, who turned down the 1964 literature prize, and Vietnam's peace negotiator Le Duc Tho, who refused to share the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Adolf Hitler forbade three German laureates - Richard Kuhn (chemistry 1938), Adolf Butenandt (chemistry 1939) and Gerhard Domagk (medicine 1939) - from accepting the prize, while Soviet authorities forced Boris Pasternak to decline the 1958 literature prize.
- 17 was the age of the youngest laureate to be honoured, Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan (Peace 2014). The oldest laureate was Russian-born American Leonid Hurwicz (Economics 2007), who was 90.
- 18 laureates have been affiliated with the two universities claiming the most Nobels: Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley.
- 21 years: That's how long Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi had to wait before she could travel to Oslo to collect the peace prize she was awarded in 1991. Also deprived of their liberty: German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky (Peace 1935), who died in 1938 without being allowed to leave his country; and Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (Peace 2010), who died earlier this year after being granted medical parole from prison.
- 28 English-language writers have won the literature prize, ahead of French (14), German (13) and Spanish (11) laureates.
- 48 women have won a Nobel prize, including Marie Curie who won it twice (Physics 1903 and Chemistry 1911). The economics prize, with only one female laureate in 2009, and the physics prize, with only two laureates, remain the most inaccessible prizes for women.
- 49 is the number of times the various juries have decided to not award the prize. The peace prize has had no recipient 19 times, most recently in 1972.
- 50 years must pass before the juries' top-secret deliberations are made public.
- 67 is the average age of the economics prize laureates - the oldest average age across all disciplines. The youngest average age can be found among physics laureates at 55.
- 318 is the tally of nominations for the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. 104&nbsp;people have received the prize since its creation, and 26 groups or organisations. In 1942, 1943 and 1944, no nominations were accepted.
- 579 is the number of times a Nobel has been awarded, to 911 individuals, between 1901 and 2016. A third of laureates were born in the United States. The laureates born in Sweden (29), Norway (12) and Denmark (11) have together won more than those born in Japan (24), China (11) and India (7) together.
- 500 metres of linen tablecloth are placed on the 60 tables at the Nobel gala banquet celebrating the laureates, held each year at Stockholm's city hall on December 10 in honour of the death of Alfred Nobel.
- 1,350 people are typically invited to the banquet, where 260 waiters serve food on 7,000 pieces of china, along with 5,400 glasses and 10,000 pieces of silver cutlery.
- 9-million Swedish kronor (R15-million) is the sum to be awarded for each Nobel Prize in 2017, to be shared if several laureates are honoured in the same discipline. Literature laureates are the ones most likely to take home the whole sum: on 105 occasions there has been just one literature winner.
- 4.2 billion kronor (R7-billion): The value of the assets managed by the Nobel Foundation at the end of 2016.]]></body_text>
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<caption><![CDATA[Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos poses with the medal and diploma during the award ceremony of the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 2016 in Oslo, Norway. Credit: AFP PHOTO]]></caption>
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<pubDate>2017-09-27 12:13:16</pubDate>
<content_id>1055487</content_id>
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<heading><![CDATA[Energy from water evaporation? Maybe...]]></heading>
<title><![CDATA[Energy from water evaporation? Maybe...]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Evaporation, the process that dries washing on the line and supplies clouds with rain water, could one day produce vast stores of clean energy, researchers suggest.]]></description>
<body_text><![CDATA[Evaporation, the process that dries washing on the line and supplies clouds with rain water, could one day produce vast stores of clean energy, researchers suggest.
Exploiting this natural process could generate up to 325 gigawatts of power over existing lakes and reservoirs in the United States, equivalent to about 70 percent of the country's electricity generation in 2015, they wrote in the journal Nature Communications.
There is only one problem: the technology to harvest this power does not exist.
&quot;A device that is placed at the air-water interface would be needed to capture this energy,&quot; study co-author Ozgur Sahin of Columbia University in New York told AFP.
&quot;Moisture that is coming out of the water body would first go into the device before reaching the atmosphere,&quot; he said. &quot;The technology has to be developed.&quot;
For their study, Sahin and a team relied on models of the energy-generating potential of evaporation, which is the process by which liquid water turns into gas, or vapour.
They looked at the impacts of humidity, wind speed and temperature on evaporation rates, and assumed the availability of devices to capture the energy produced as a result.
The scientists then calculated the potential of evaporation from water bodies in the United States larger than 100,000 square metres (1 million square feet), other than the Great Lakes.
- Driven by spores? -
Energy harvesters could be based on the natural action of spores -- tiny structures formed by bacteria in response to harsh environmental conditions. Spores can survive drought or freezing to give rise to new bacteria when conditions improve.
&quot;The protective outer layers of spores can absorb and release water when the relative humidity of the surrounding air changes,&quot; Sahin said.
&quot;At high humidity, they absorb water and expand, and at low humidity, they release water and contract. In this process they act like a muscle.&quot;
Theoretically, spores can be integrated into materials that generate energy when humidity levels change, as during evaporation.
&quot;We have made proof-of-concept devices out of spores that generate electrical energy when they are placed right above water,&quot; Sahin said.
&quot;These devices contain spore-coated plastic strips that elongate and shorten with changing humidity.
&quot;We have connected the moving end of the strips to a generator, which produces electricity.&quot;
The dam or lake could itself be used to store the sun's heat -- which drives evaporation -- so that power can be generated only when needed, the team said.
Water is an exceptional reservoir of heat, and may provide a solution to the problem of energy &quot;intermittency&quot; -- turbines or solar panels that generate power only when wind or sun is available, the team said.
Distributing evaporation-derived energy would require proximity to the electricity grid, they added. Reservoirs used to generate hydropower are already well placed.
The findings warrant further research into technology to convert energy from evaporation, the researchers said.]]></body_text>
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<caption><![CDATA[A water droplet. Credit: Pexels]]></caption>
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<source><![CDATA[AFP Relaxnews]]></source></item>
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<pubDate>2017-09-18 08:39:18</pubDate>
<content_id>1055203</content_id>
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<heading><![CDATA[Liquid cats: the 2017 Ig Nobel awards]]></heading>
<title><![CDATA[Liquid cats: the 2017 Ig Nobel awards]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Can a cat be both liquid and solid at the same time? Have vampire bats developed a taste for human blood? Will holding a crocodile bolster or blunt your gambling drive?]]></description>
<body_text><![CDATA[Can a cat be both liquid and solid at the same time? Have vampire bats developed a taste for human blood? Will holding a crocodile bolster or blunt your gambling drive?
These questions may appear improbable, yet they are important, say the organisers of the annual Ig Nobel awards &quot;for achievements that first make people laugh, then make them think&quot;.
Researchers who invested time and money in solving these and other burning questions were honoured Thursday with Ig Nobels in 10 categories ranging from economics, anatomy and biology to fluid dynamics, medicine and cognition.
The awards were presented at Harvard University by bemused laureates of the perhaps better-known Nobel Prize, which the Ig Nobels have spoofed since 1991, tongue firmly in cheek.
&quot;The winners this year have truly earned their prizes,&quot; master of ceremonies Mark Abrahams, editor of The Annals of Improbable Research -- a science humour magazine -- told guests as he unveiled this year's statuette: a mannequin head with a red question mark perched on top.
Winners would also receive $10 trillion, the presenters announced -- albeit of the Zimbabwean variety. That sum was worth about $8 (six euros) when the bank note was issued in 2009.
The theme of this year's Ig Nobels was &quot;Uncertainty&quot;.
&quot;Each winner has done something that makes people laugh, then think,&quot; said Abrahams.
The Ig Nobel for physics went to French researcher Marc-Antoine Fardin for a science paper questioning: &quot;Can a Cat Be Both a Solid and a Liquid?&quot;
A liquid, he explained to the audience, is something that can adapt its shape to the container it is in.
As he spoke, photographs of cats in different stages of a liquid-like state, perched in vases, wine glasses and wash basins, flashed on a screen behind him.
- Uncool to refuse -
The study was a serious attempt to probe &quot;some of the actual questions and problems that are studied in rheology, the study of flows,&quot; Fardin said.
&quot;When I was asked if I was willing to accept the prize, the answer was easy,&quot; he added. &quot;It might be cool to refuse a Nobel Prize but it's certainly uncool to refuse an Ig Nobel.&quot;
This year's peace prize went to a team who investigated &quot;Didgeridoo Playing as Alternative Treatment for Obstructive Sleep Apnoea Syndrome&quot;, which included a randomised controlled patient trial and all.
The award for economics went to a US-Australian duo for experiments to discover whether touching a live crocodile would affect a person's willingness to gamble.
The prize for anatomy research went to a study asking &quot;Why Do Old Men Have Big Ears&quot;, while the nutrition award went to a research paper entitled: &quot;What's for Dinner? First Report of Human Blood in the Diet of the Hairy-Legged Vampire Bat.&quot;
The prize for research into fluid dynamics, according to an Ig Nobel press statement, went to a project observing &quot;the dynamics of liquid-sloshing&quot; when a person walks backwards while carrying a cup of coffee.
The awards are not an attempt at ridiculing science, the Ig Nobel website states.
&quot;Good achievements can also be odd, funny, and even absurd, so can bad achievements,&quot; it explains.
&quot;A lot of good science gets attacked because of its absurdity. A lot of bad science gets revered despite its absurdity.&quot;]]></body_text>
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<caption><![CDATA[A 'liquid cat' in a jar. Credit: SportsBuzz]]></caption>
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<pubDate>2017-09-15 09:53:06</pubDate>
<content_id>1055112</content_id>
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<heading><![CDATA['Extinct' giant tortoise to be resurrected]]></heading>
<title><![CDATA['Extinct' giant tortoise to be resurrected]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[A species of Galapagos giant tortoise thought to be extinct will be bred in captivity after DNA studies showed specimens discovered in the last decade shared similar genetic makeup.]]></description>
<body_text><![CDATA[A species of Galapagos giant tortoise thought to have been made extinct 150 years ago will be bred in captivity, officials said, after DNA studies showed specimens discovered in the last decade shared similar genetic makeup.
The breeding program involving 32 tortoises - 19 of which are descended from the Chelonoidis nigra species in question - will allow for medium-term repopulation of their native Floreana Island, the Galapagos Islands National Park said Wednesday.
The Chelonoidis nigra species was wiped out on Floreana Island by whalers who took them on ships as food, abandoning some on the slopes of&nbsp;Isabela Island's Wolf Volcano to lighten their load.
Species with similar genetics have since been found on Isabela Island, where researchers from the National Park and Galapagos Conservancy analyzed 150 tortoises during expeditions in 2008 and 2015.
The breeding program will help &quot;repopulate Floreana Island with tortoises which aren't exactly the same, but have very high genetic links to its native species,&quot; Washington Tapia, director of the Giant Tortoise Restoration Initiative, told AFP.
In 2015, Ecuador announced the discovery of the Chelonoidis donfaustoi species on the Galapagos, bringing the total number of Galapagos giant tortoise species to 15 - of which three are extinct.&nbsp;
The Galapagos Islands, which served as a laboratory to English naturalist Charles Darwin, have enjoyed World Heritage Site status since 1979.]]></body_text>
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<caption><![CDATA[This handout photo from the Galapagos National Park shows a giant tortoise eating at the park in Santa Cruz, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. Credit: AFP / Galapagos National Park]]></caption>
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<pubDate>2017-09-06 12:00:30</pubDate>
<content_id>1054838</content_id>
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<heading><![CDATA[Pacific islands face up to climate change]]></heading>
<title><![CDATA[Pacific islands face up to climate change]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Climate change will dominate discussions when the leaders of vulnerable Pacific nations hold their annual meeting in the Samoan capital Apia this week.]]></description>
<body_text><![CDATA[Climate change will dominate discussions when the leaders of vulnerable Pacific nations hold their annual meeting in the Samoan capital Apia this week, with global warming threatening their existence, officials say.
The 18-member Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) includes countries such as Kiribati and Tuvalu, which are only metres above sea level and risk being swamped by rising oceans.&nbsp;
Others, such as Vanuatu and Fiji, have been battered in recent years by devastating cyclones that have become more extreme as global warming affects weather patterns.
Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga said there was no subject more important to the people of the Pacific.
&quot;This is an issue about our existence... climate change threatens our very identities,&quot; he said.
PIF secretary general Meg Taylor said the summit, which opens Tuesday, was an opportunity for small island nations to speak as one voice.&nbsp;
&quot;We can do more together than we can alone, I think this will be at the heart of the discussions,&quot; she said.&nbsp;
Taylor said the unified approach had already proved successful when Pacific nations successfully pushed for strong aspirational goals at the UN climate talks in Paris in 2015.
&quot;That was led by the champions of the Pacific... (we) were able to persuade the world that this was so very important,&quot; she said.
The Pacific's next chance to prick the world's conscience and demand further action on climate is at UN talks being held in Bonn in November.
Fiji, as one of the island nations on the frontline of climate change, has been invited to chair the talks, making this week's PIF an important forum for Pacific leaders to discuss strategy.
Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama earlier this year offered permanent refuge to the peoples of Tuvalu and Kiribati.&nbsp;
But Sopoaga said the bigger issues of global warming and sea-level rise needed to be addressed and relocation was not the answer.&nbsp;
&quot;It's not as simple as that because you have to be concerned of your protection and sovereignty rights, human rights and therefore you have to be very careful and you have to prioritise this issue,&quot; he said.
Conservation International's Sue Taei said leaders arriving for the Samoa meeting needed to examine how to pay for climate change mitigation.
Samoa's Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said the &quot;Blue Pacific&quot; theme of this year's summit put specific focus on placing the region at the centre of international policy making.&nbsp;
&quot;Embracing this as a unique opportunity in the history of the region, the Blue Pacific provides a new narrative for Pacific regionalism and how the Forum engages with the world,&quot; he said.
The PIF links Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.]]></body_text>
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<caption><![CDATA[An undated handout picture released by the secretariat of the Pacific community (SPC) shows inhabitants of Kiritimati coral atoll building a stone seawall against the rising sea level. Credit: AFP / SPC]]></caption>
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<pubDate>2017-09-01 13:34:42</pubDate>
<content_id>1054705</content_id>
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<heading><![CDATA[Monster X-ray laser will peer into nano-world]]></heading>
<title><![CDATA[Monster X-ray laser will peer into nano-world]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The world's largest X-ray laser opens in Germany on Friday, promising to let scientists penetrate the inner workings of atoms, viruses and chemical reactions.]]></description>
<body_text><![CDATA[The world's largest X-ray laser opens in Germany on Friday, promising to shed new light onto very small things by letting scientists penetrate the inner workings of atoms, viruses and chemical reactions.
The mega-project will generate extremely intense laser flashes, at a mind-boggling rate of 27,000 per second, inside a 3.4-kilometre (2.1-mile) tunnel up to 38 metres (125 feet) below the northern city of Hamburg.
This ultrafast strobe light will allow researchers for the first time to look deep inside matter and take snapshots and films at the nano-level, scientists at the European XFEL project say.
Teams from around the world will be able to, for instance, map the atomic details of viruses, take 3-D images of the molecular make-up of cells or film chemical reactions as they happen.
The huge laser is &quot;like a camera and a microscope that will make it possible to see more tiny details and processes in the nano-world than ever before,&quot; Robert Feidenhans'l,&nbsp;chairman of the project's management board, told AFP.
The applications are sweeping -- images of biomolecules may help understand and treat illnesses, while a peek inside a building material might explain why it tears or cracks.
The light beams can also be bundled to create extreme pressure and temperatures to study process like those at the Earth's core.
- Particle accelerator -
The 1.5-billion-euro ($1.7 billion) facility, which took eight years to build with funding from 11 countries, has been hailed as one of the largest and most ambitious European research projects ever.
It boasts a list of superlatives: the light's brilliance is a billion times higher than that of the best conventional X-ray sources.
The silicon mirrors along which the light is bounced, produced in Japan, are so smooth that any bump on their surface measures no more than a millionth of a millimetre, Spiegel magazine reported.
Some 800 guests have been invited for the launch of the project, which stretches from inside Hamburg to Schenefeld in the adjoining state of Schleswig-Holstein.
Germany has coughed up 58 percent of the cost and Russia 27 percent, with scientific cooperation continuing despite geopolitical tensions.
The other partners, with stakes of one to three percent each, are Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Britain is in the process of joining.
The project was spearheaded by the Hamburg research centre Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (Desy), which has operated a particle accelerator since the 1960s.
- Near-light speed -
XFEL -- which stands for X-Ray Free-Electron Laser -- is all about looking at things at the hard-to-fathom nano-level.&nbsp;(For a rough idea, a human hair is about 100,000 nanometres thick.)
It works by blasting a powerful laser into metal which sends bundles of electrons flying through a superconducting linear accelerator, the world's longest at 1.7 kilometres.
As they hurtle through the tube, which is supercooled to minus 271 degrees centigrade, they are charged by microwaves in order to reach nearly the speed of light.
In the next section, thousands of alternating magnets send the electrons onto a tight &quot;slalom&quot; course.
The electrons gather into a multitude of ultrathin discs, allowing them to emit their light in sync and produce intense X-ray flashes of laser light.
When these hit a material, they create a strobe-like series of crisp pictures with an ultrashort &quot;shutter speed&quot; of a billionth of a second, which can be assembled to create 3-D images or films.]]></body_text>
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<caption><![CDATA[A handout picture taken on August 30, 2017 by the European XFEL shows the tunnel system of the European XFEL X-ray Free Electron laser at the XFEL facility near Hamburg, northern Germany. Credit: AFP / XFEL]]></caption>
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<pubDate>2017-08-24 09:44:15</pubDate>
<content_id>1054450</content_id>
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<heading><![CDATA[Study: ExxonMobil has misled public on climate]]></heading>
<title><![CDATA[Study: ExxonMobil has misled public on climate]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[US oil giant ExxonMobil knowingly misled the public for decades about the danger climate change poses to a warming world and the company's long-term viability.]]></description>
<body_text><![CDATA[US oil giant ExxonMobil knowingly misled the public for decades about the danger&nbsp;climate change poses to a warming world and the company's long-term viability, according to a peer-reviewed study.
An analysis of nearly 200 documents spanning decades found that four-fifths of scientific studies and internal memos acknowledged global warming is real and caused by humans.
At the same time a similar proportion of hundreds of paid editorials in major US newspapers over the same period cast deep doubt on these widely accepted facts.
The study also cites ExxonMobil calculations that capping global warming at under two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) -- the goal enshrined in the landmark Paris climate accord -- would impose sharp limits on the amount of fossil fuels that could be burned, and thus potentially affect the firm's growth.
Both findings are relevant to ongoing investigations by state and federal attorneys general, along with the Securities and Exchange Commission, on whether the company deceived investors on how it accounts for climate change risk.
The new study was published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.&nbsp;
Earlier reporting by InsideClimate News, nominated last year for a Pulitzer, unearthed the internal documents and came to much the same conclusion.
In response, the company -- the largest oil producer in the United States, with revenue of $218 billion dollars (185 billion euros) last year -- denied having led a four-decade disinformation campaign.&nbsp;
&quot;We unequivocally reject allegations that ExxonMobil suppressed climate change research,&quot; it said at the time. &quot;We understand that climate risks are real.&quot;
- Systemic bias -
The company slammed journalists for having allegedly &quot;cherry-picked&quot; data in a way that unfairly put the company in a bad light.
The new study pushes back on that characterisation.
&quot;We looked at the whole cherry tree,&quot; Geoffrey Supran, a researcher at Harvard University and co-author of the study, told AFP.
&quot;Using social science methods, we found a gaping, systematic discrepancy between what Exxon said about climate change in private and academic circles, and what is said to the public.&quot;
As early as 1979, when climate change barely registered as an issue for the public, Exxon was sounding internal alarms.
&quot;The most widely held theory is that... the increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to fossil fuel combustion,&quot; an internal memo from that year read.&nbsp;
A peer-reviewed study by Exxon scientists 17 years later concluded that &quot;the body of evidence... now points towards a discernable human influence on global climate.&quot;
At the same time, however, the company was spending tens of millions of dollars to place editorials in The New York Times and other influential newspapers that delivered a very different message.
&quot;Let's face it: The science of climate change is too uncertain to mandate a plan of action that could plunge economies into turmoil,&quot; Exxon opined in 1997, as the Bill Clinton administration faced overwhelming opposition in Congress to US ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
Natasha Lamb, managing partner of investment management firm Arjuna Capital, said the new analysis could bolster the lawsuits accusing ExxonMobil of deliberately downplaying climate change risks.
&quot;The Harvard research shows systemic bias in sowing public doubt, while acknowledging the risks privately,&quot; she said after reviewing the study's main findings.
&quot;That is at the heart of the investigations.&quot;
- 'Deception and denial' -
Lamb's firm filed the first shareholder proposal in 2013 asking ExxonMobil to assess whether imposing a 2C limit on warming would result in the company not being able to exploit its reserves.
Those efforts were swatted down, but four years later a decisive 62 percent of shareholders called on ExxonMobil, in a non-binding vote last May, to detail how climate change will affect its future.
In three other lawsuits, coastal communities in California are suing 37 oil, gas and coal companies, including ExxonMobil.&nbsp;
Marin and San Mateo counties, along with the city of Imperial Beach, assert that these fossil fuel purveyors knew their product would cause sea level rise and coastal flooding but took no action to inform the public or curtail their carbon emissions.
The new study &quot;confirms some of the central tenets of our cases,&quot; said Vic Sher, a senior partner at Sher Edling and a lawyer in the case.
&quot;We will prove that Exxon and the fossil fuel industry knew for decades that greenhouse gas pollution would case warming of the air and oceans, sea level rise, and other consequences,&quot; he told AFP.
&quot;The industry engaged in deception and denial while aggressively marketing and making enormous profits.&quot;
From 2006 to 2016, ExxonMobil was led by Rex Tillerson, currently Secretary of State under US President Donald Trump.&nbsp;]]></body_text>
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<caption><![CDATA[The Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company, which slammed into Bligh Reef and spilled more than 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. Credit: AFP / CHRIS WILKINS]]></caption>
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<source><![CDATA[AFP Relaxnews]]></source></item>
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<pubDate>2017-07-26 09:52:05</pubDate>
<content_id>1053511</content_id>
<author><![CDATA[]]></author>
<heading><![CDATA[Musk and Zuckerberg at odds over AI]]></heading>
<title><![CDATA[Musk and Zuckerberg at odds over AI]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg differ heavily on the emergence of Artificial Intelligence.]]></description>
<body_text><![CDATA[Visionary entrepreneur Elon Musk and Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg were trading jabs on social media over artificial intelligence this week in a debate that has turned personal between the two technology luminaries.
Musk, the founder of Tesla, SpaceX and other ventures, on Tuesday claimed Zuckerberg's knowledge of artificial intelligence was &quot;limited,&quot; two days after the Facebook founder described &quot;naysayers&quot; as &quot;irresponsible.&quot;
The debate underscored the rift in the tech community on whether new technologies capable of creating intelligent machines like robots and self-driving cars would be a blessing or a curse for humanity.
Musk has long warned of the potential for machines to get so smart that humans become tantamount to pets, while Zuckerberg has touted the potential for artificial intelligence to improve lives.
Facebook is among the Silicon Valley's largest investors in artificial intelligence.
While live streaming on the leading social network from his yard on Sunday, Zuckerberg touched on the topic while answering questions from viewers.
&quot;With AI especially, I am really optimistic,&quot; Zuckerberg said.
&quot;And I think people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios -- &nbsp;I just, I don't understand it. It's really negative and in some ways I actually think it is pretty irresponsible.&quot;
When asked about Zuckerberg's comment early Tuesday during an exchange on Twitter, Musk wrote that he has discussed the topic with Zuckerberg and that &quot;his understanding of the subject is limited.&quot;
Musk more than a year ago took part in creating a nonprofit research company devoted to developing artificial intelligence that will help people and not hurt them.
- People pets -
&quot;If we create some digital super-intelligence that exceeds us in every way by a lot, it is very important that it be benign,&quot; Musk said a while back at a conference in California.
He reasoned that even a benign situation with ultra-intelligent AI would put people so far beneath the machine they would be &quot;like a house cat.&quot;
&quot;I don't love the idea of being a house cat,&quot; Musk said, envisioning the creation of neural lacing that magnifies people's brain power by linking them directly to computing capabilities.
At a gathering of US governors this month, Musk contended that artificial intelligence &nbsp;is a terrifying problem and a threat to human civilization.
He argued for the technology to be regulated sooner rather than later for risk of safeguards being put in place too late.
Smart machines could start wars or kill people in streets, Musk has warned.
Musk is also behind a startup devoted to neural lace that would enable brains to interface directly with computers.
Such a &quot;Neuralink&quot; would have the potential to level the playing field a bit by enabling people to directly access processing power and perhaps even download memories for storage.
Zuckerberg last year created his own personal &quot;butler&quot; imbued with artificial intelligence, named Jarvis, which plays with his family.]]></body_text>
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<caption><![CDATA[Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Credit: CNN Money.]]></caption>
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<source><![CDATA[AFP]]></source></item>
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<pubDate>2017-07-20 14:23:00</pubDate>
<content_id>1053269</content_id>
<author><![CDATA[]]></author>
<heading><![CDATA[Earth has a major plastic problem]]></heading>
<title><![CDATA[Earth has a major plastic problem]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The world has a plastic problem. More than 8.3-billion metric tons of it have been produced on Earth, with most dumped into landfills or the oceans.]]></description>
<body_text><![CDATA[The world has a plastic problem. More than 8.3-billion metric tons of it have been produced on Earth, with most dumped into landfills or&nbsp;the oceans.
The report in the journal Science Advances is described as &quot;the first global analysis of all mass-produced plastics,&quot; and warns that an even more dire scenario lies ahead.
At the current pace, &quot;over 12-billion tons of plastic waste will be discarded in landfills or in the environment by 2050.&quot;
This amount is about 35,000 times as heavy as the Empire State Building in New York City.
&quot;Most plastics don't biodegrade in any meaningful sense, so the plastic waste humans have generated could be with us for hundreds or even thousands of years,&quot; said Jenna Jambeck, study co-author and associate professor of engineering at the University of Georgia.
&quot;Our estimates underscore the need to think critically about the materials we use and our waste management practices.&quot;
- Tons of waste -
Researchers compiled their data from production statistics for resins, fibers and additives from a variety of industry sources.
The report found that as of 2015, nearly seven billion tons (6.3 metric tons) of plastic waste was generated on our planet.
A total of 79 percent of that plastic waste accumulated in landfills or the environment, including the oceans.
Despite widespread efforts toward re-usability, only nine percent was recycled.
Another 12 percent was incinerated, a process that can also be harmful to the environment.
Recycling is not much help when it comes to plastics, because they do not dissolve in the environment.
None of the plastics in widespread use are biodegradable.&nbsp;
- Few years of use -
Just over two tons of plastics were produced globally in 1950, when mass manufacturing of the durable material began, said the report.
By 2015, that number skyrocketed to over 440 million tons, outpacing most other man-made materials, with the exception of steel and cement.&nbsp;
About half of the total amount of plastics produced from 1950 to 2015 has been made in just the last 13 years.
While steel and cement are used for years, most plastic is used in packaging - think plastic water bottles that are used once and discarded.
&quot;Roughly half of all the steel we make goes into construction, so it will have decades of use -- plastic is the opposite,&quot; said Roland Geyer, lead author of the paper and associate professor in University of California, Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science and Management.
&quot;Half of all plastics become waste after four or fewer years of use.&quot;
The share of plastics in municipal solid waste increased from less than one percent in 1960 to more than 10 percent by 2005 in middle- and high-income countries.
Plastic debris can now be found in oceans all over the world.
The same team of researchers reported in 2015 eight million metric tons of plastic entered the oceans in 2010.]]></body_text>
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<caption><![CDATA[Plastic waste on a Hong Kong beach. Credit: AFP PHOTO]]></caption>
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<source><![CDATA[AFP]]></source></item>
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