Solar-powered plane takes his first ride

The prototype of a solar-powered plane made its first trip on a tip from a Swiss airport to test its engines and computers.

This week, the aircraft traveled at least two kilometers at a speed of five knots.

As wide as a jumbo jet, but with a weight of just 1,500 kg, the spacecraft will be piloted in the future by Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard.

The first flight of the aircraft is scheduled for next February, and when the prototype is eventually approved, will try to cross the Atlantic in 2012.

The plane ride was conducted with a security attachment below the cockpit to protect the ship where the landing gear was damaged.

In the next test, the aircraft made the same journey, but this attachment, and is intended to reach a speed of 10 knots.

As Wright

A spokeswoman for the construction company, Solar Impulse, said the first route of the plane on the runway was as planned.

"It was fantastic. We are all happy and excited," he told the BBC.

"If these tests are successful, the next step will be a short flight, a leap into the air, and this is done within two weeks," he said.

"We will start the flight at one end of the runway, so that the ship is lifted for a few feet above the pavement, just like they did the Wright Brothers in 1903, and then the helicopter landed. We want to see how it behaves commencement of flight, "he told the BBC the CEO of Solar Impulse, Andre Borschberg.

If everything is satisfactory, "we're going to disassemble and transport it to a military base in western Switzerland, where he undertook the first flight seriously, about two hours, next February," he said.

Simple care to avoid uncomfortable varicose veins

Sensation of heavy legs, aching, burning, fatigue, edema around the ankle. All these symptoms may be an indication that the varicose veins, uncomfortable glasses that jump in the legs. To treat them is essential to avoid more serious complications such as injuries, but is ideal to prevent the emergence of these veins by taking some precautions.

Avoid gaining weight, adopt a diet rich in fiber and not remain standing long standing or sitting are some care. It is also important to practice walking and exercise, not smoking and relax with your legs up.

Predisposition
It is estimated that between 60% and 70% of women have some form of varicose veins, but men can be victims of the disease. The high incidence in females is because two of the major triggers hormone use are common in menopause and pregnancy. During menstruation and pregnancy pains for varicose veins become more intense. At this stage, the key is to wear compression stockings. Avoid contraceptives is important.

Both men and women, heredity, obesity, poor eating habits and smoking are believed to develop the disease. And still, professions that must remain long standing or sitting in the same position they end up being dangerous to people who have this tendency.

"There is no relationship that can claim that hair removal, use of high heels, climbing stairs, carrying weight and gymnastics to develop varicose veins. On the contrary, gymnastics, exercise and stair climbing are activities recommended for the prevention since are done correctly and without exaggeration, "said vascular surgeon Júnior José Roberto Bonfim Domenici.

Consequences
Vanderlei da Silva Paula, vascular surgeon said that the most important complications and recurrent varicose veins are phlebitis, a blood clot in the veins and varicose ulcers, causing injuries to his legs.

To treat this disease before it develops is important to reduce the pain of the vessels. "Many patients with the disease have the feeling of heaviness in the legs at the end of the day," said the trader. Treatment varies with the nature and size of varices and is essential for a doctor to determine the severity of each case.

Siemens receives order for wind turbines in Mexico

German industrial conglomerate Siemens AG said Tuesday it has received an order for wind turbines from Mexico, first-come from Latin America.

Siemens, headquartered in Munich, said revenue generated by 23,000 million (34,000 million) in its environmental portfolio, up from 20,700 million in 2008.

Siemens said it received an order for 70 turbines for the windfarm The orchards in Tamaulipas, Mexico, worth about $ 270 million, and another order for Transpowder New Zealand Limited for 164 million euros to upgrade the power lines.

The company said the Mexican request was the first of the Latin American wind turbines.

Siemens added that the buyer is the Renewable Energy Solutions Group, Mexico. With a total installed capacity exceeding 160 megawatts, it is believed that the wind farm The orchards provide clean energy to 200,000 homes to be the largest establishment of its kind in Mexico.

In New Zealand, Siemens will modernize and increase the capacity of high voltage direct link between the islands of North and South for Transpower, the national energy company based in Wellington.

"Our products and green solutions help stabilize our business during the economic crisis," said Barbara Kux, chief sustainability of the firm, in a statement.

Siemens had said earlier this year she expects the governments of the 20 largest world economies will spend about 430,000 million dollars in the coming years to improve electricity infrastructure and transport networks to make them more efficient and less harmful to the environment. The company said it expects to benefit from this trend and increase their revenues in the environmental portfolio to 25,000 million euros for 2011.

Google bets on research in renewable energy

Google has decided to broaden their horizons and strongly climb the energy revolution. The Internet giant two years ago made a utopian equation (RE-C) and recruited minds from around the world to advance at full speed toward the goal: Renewable cheaper than coal.

"There is a great opportunity to reach that turning point in five years," anticipates WORLDWIDE Bill Weihl, Google's green brain. "It may take slightly longer, but we are determined to go for innovative ideas in the whole range of renewables."

Through its philanthropic arm, Google.org, the company last year spent $ 45 million for research into solar thermal, wind power and enhanced geothermal systems (EGS). It has also invested in 'startups' as ESOL or brightsolid, and in recent months have launched the field of energy efficiency with the Meters, software that allows control from a laptop (and in the future from a mobile phone) energy consumption in homes in real time.

Google began the conversion from within. The arrival of Bill Weihl Mountain Valley, a former professor at MIT, led to the redesign of the data center (with a saving of 50% of energy) and the installation of one of the largest U.S. solar roof , with photovoltaic panels capable of generating 1.6 megawatts.

Himself Larry Page, Google co-founder, entered the dynamics, and announced his intention to "apply the same creativity and imagination to the challenge of generating renewable energy on a large scale." The challenge, he said, is to produce one gigawatt of clean energy (enough to power San Francisco) at a price cheaper than coal.

Weihl function, elevated to the status of green energy czar of Google, is now to accelerate the search, with an eye to thermal energy. It aims to reduce by 50% or even 75% the cost of heliostats (or mirrors) used to bring to boiling water and steam to generate electricity. Google is experimenting with innovative materials and trying to maximize the efficiency of other system components to cross the border of five cents per kilowatt hour.

"This is a pilot program and still no results," says Weihl, who does not hide his desire to see the Government investing 20,000 to 30,000 million dollars in high-risk ideas in renewable energy. "Obama has made a start 15 days ago, when allocated $ 137 million to 37 universities and companies working in R & D, but we need more money if we tackle climate change."

While we solve, Google has put all the energy in the project Meters, which starts later this year in USA, Germany, India and Canada. It is software that, using homemade devices or smart grids of electrical energy consumption may inform the house the minute. "The electricity bill has always been a dark spot for consumers," says the father of the idea, Ed Lu, a former NASA astronaut and chief engineer at Google. "With the Meters are able to see the prices and energy to correct bad habits.

Lu opened his laptop and makes remote check of the last 24 hours of consumption at home in Silicon Valley. "The information will be one of the keys to the next energy revolution," he predicts. "Imagine the multiplier effect of millions of households saving 15% of energy every month.
Leading by example

The Google headquarters in Mountain View (California) is the closest thing to a college campus, designed with the highest standards of energy efficiency, waste management and water use, places of entertainment and leisure for workers, picnic areas and even a garden of herbs from around the globe.

On the roof of the main building is installed one of the largest areas of photovoltaic panels in the U.S. trade floor, with capacity to generate 1.6 megawatts, enough to supply about 1,000 homes. Solar panels contribute 30% of energy in the building. In addition, employees are free at their disposal a fleet of eight hybrid cars that are recharged in the garage 'solar'.

The company encourages the use of the bicycle, with donations of five dollars a day to workers moving to the office on two wheels (the money goes to an NGO of your choice). The farm worker also have a free fleet of more than a hundred bikes on campus.

For those who prefer wheeled transport is a free bus fleet with biodiesel, used by more than 1,500 workers.

The data center has also been redesigned with the highest standards of efficiency and saving 50% energy. More than 200 workers participated in an internal experiment in energy saving using the Meters. The per capita savings ranged from 10% to 15%. The company encourages the efficient use of computers. According to his calculations, each search on Google released the equivalent of 0.2 grams of CO2.

10,000 virus at the South Pole

A group of Spanish researchers has identified for the first time the genetic makeup of viruses from Antarctica and found a very high diversity of organisms in the polar area, the highest of the entire planet, unlike what the scientific community thought so far.

These are two of the main conclusions of a study conducted by researchers from the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (UAM), Universidad de Valencia and the Higher School of Public Health Research Valencian, and that published in the journal Science.

This group of scientists have described about 90,000 virus sequences Limnopolar lake in Byers Peninsula (Livingston Island, Antarctica), the largest number of viral families found to date in a metagenome (complete genetic information of a natural community of microorganisms ) aquatic environments.

To achieve this global view of genetic variability, scientists have obtained images of viruses by electron microscopy and have used a new system of mass sequencing. Researchers have agreed that this study is full of surprises and offers new questions. Antonio Quesada, UAM, Efe explained that one of these surprises was finding a very high diversity of viruses in Lake Limnopolar because ecological theory suggests that extreme ecosystems, such as polar biodiversity stay little .

Viruses need a body to grow and so far it has been thought that the poles are few viruses and few species. However, the researchers of this study, have estimated that the lake contains about 10,000 different viral species. They have also discovered a lot of viruses of higher organisms, those with distinct nucleus.

Quesada has stated that another thing that you have described, for the first time, is how it changes the virus population before and after the thaw of the lake, and scientists have also noted the existence of viruses are extremely small. As reported by the CSIC, these people are most abundant when the lake is covered with ice, had not been described in other natural environments and might even belong to families hitherto unknown virus.
Virus and ecosystems

This study is the first step to better understand the role that viruses play in these extreme ecosystems and determine whether they have evolved independently for millions of years, "opined Antonio Alcamí, CSIC. This research project is encompassed within the Limnopolar, that since 2001, analyzed whether it can use the freshwater ecosystems in polar regions as sensors of climate change.

"We have opened the Pandora's box and have appeared very interesting things," acknowledged Quesada, who said that while the genetic makeup of viruses in Antarctica is not directly related to climate change, they understand how they could allow to change the populations of organisms. For this researcher, the main question that uncovers this study, scientists have been working for four years, is how it is possible that only 5,000 or 6,000 years old ecosystem of this lake has so many different viruses.

The project is funded by Limnopolar Spanish Polar Program, and the expedition to Antarctica was made possible by logistical support from the Marine Technology Unit, CSIC, and Oceanographic Research Vessel Navy Las Palmas.

The influenza pandemic threat to the Yanomami Indians of the Amazon

The Yanomami, Amazonian indigenous people in the 80 staged an international campaign in defense of their survival, are dying from influenza A. Seven people have already died in the last 15 days so it is a suspected outbreak of this disease and another thousand Yanomami may have been infected, according to Survival International.

It was the regional office of the World Health Organization (WHO) who has sounded a warning and confirmed the presence of influenza A in the area. The Venezuelan government has responded by isolating the area where the Yanomami live and sending medical teams to treat the sick.

All fear that the epidemic will spread by the Yanomami territory, shared by Venezuela and northern Brazil, which could increase the number of victims.

Not the first nor the only threat to a people already in the 80s was about to implode in a wave of prospectors who invaded their lands. Then, the Pro Yanomami Commission and Survival International launched an international campaign, which included artists such as Sting, to pressure governments to protect their rights.

On that occasion, Survival points out that a fifth of Indians died because of diseases like flu or malaria, which infected them miners.

The result of this international campaign was that, in Brazil, President Collor de Mello demarcation of Yanomami territory in 1992, an area twice the size of Switzerland. In Venezuela, too, live in a protected area, but find it increasingly difficult to live in isolation, as claimed.

Its estimated population is 32,000 people, around a border in which health care remains very precarious, due to the accessibility of the region is very limited.

Survival has issued a statement noting that the situation is critical: "Both governments must act immediately to stop the epidemic and improve health care for the Yanomami. Otherwise, we once again see hundreds of Yanomami dying. It's devastating for indigenous people seeking asylum, just as he was recovering from the epidemics that decimated them 20 years ago, "he says.

Environmental catastrophe in the 'Amazon submarine'

The services of extinction have doused the flames in two structures of the public petroleum Thai PTTEP in the Timor Sea after finally achieving contain an oil spill that began last Aug. 21. According to the World Wildlife Fund, the landfill covers over 10,000 square kilometers in the heart of the Coral Triangle, an area of six million square kilometers between Asia and Oceania to the experts call the 'Amazon submarine'.

For nearly 10 weeks have spilled into the sea about 400 barrels of oil daily. "This disaster has caused damage to the marine ecosystem and left a legacy with which we have to deal in the future," said Sen. Australian Green Party, Rachel Siewert.

The fire originated four days ago, precisely when the work carried out to stop the oil slick, and there are still some small pockets assets. The flames reached hundreds of meters to two nautical miles from the drilling rig and platform located in the West Triton deposit in the Timor Sea, separating Australia from Indonesia.

Thousands of gallons of sludge injected into the well-managed West Atlas-fourth attempt to plug the huge landfill that fed the fire, as announced by Jose Martins, PTTEP spokesman Australasia. "We are relieved and grateful for having stopped the spill and fire, but we still have much work to do and our priority now is to determine how to plug the well," Martins said in a statement.

The oil slick reached the territorial waters of Indonesia and endangered marine biodiversity and fisheries in the protected area of Sea Savu, home to several endangered species of turtles, dolphins and whales. According

PTTEP's shares on the Bangkok Stock Exchange tumbled this week when it became clear that the company may not, at present, extract 35,000 barrels of crude oil expected to draw from their wells in the Timor Sea.

Kilimanjaro perpetual snow run out by 2022

The Snows of Kilimanjaro, which give their name to a short story by Ernest Hemingway and his film adaptation starring Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner, have been a symbol of romanticism that has engulfed the African continent for centuries. But in recent years have also become a symbol of climate change.

A new study in the permafrost of the highest mountain in Africa, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Accademy of Sciences' (PNAS) reinforces this idea. The research findings reveal that the glaciers located both in the crater on the slopes of the summit of Kilimanjaro could vanish within 20 years if nothing is done to reverse the current trend of global climate warming.

The study was conducted by the renowned glaciologist at Ohio University (Columbia, USA) Lonnie Thompson, a key figure in the advancement of scientific knowledge on climate change because it was the first to warn of the rapid retreat of perennial ice in the high mountains of the tropics, one of the indicators that sounded the alarm about global warming. For further endorsement of the research, published in PNAS article was edited by James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA and famous by his confrontation with the Bush administration for forcing him to conceal the causes of climate change.

In 2007 he had lost 85% of the ice on the mountain in 1912 and 26% of the remaining snow in 2000 has disappeared today. "It's the first time that researchers calculate the volume of ice that is lost in a mountain glacier," says Thompson. "Some of those remaining on Kilimanjaro have lost half of its thickness and at some point in the future than a year have snow and the next are completely gone."

The research stated that some of the largest glaciers of the mountain, those in Kibo, one of three volcanic cones that form its summit-will disappear by 2022 if not reversed, the current warming trend. To avoid this, the climate summit in Copenhagen and the previous negotiating sessions that take place in Barcelona this week play a key role. Otherwise, the snows of Kilimanjaro will be a source of inspiration for novelists and filmmakers.

The 'reincarnation' of plastic bags

The smell is detected long before through the door. It is dense. to waste. Inside, tons of containers of all colors and shapes fall from the trucks, including thousands, millions of plastic bags, those films that are caught as easily on the shelves for the most trivial objects and only 13 % ends up in a yellow container to be reincarnated in a container or a pipe.

We are in the plant selection and the recycling of plastics Amorebieta, just outside Bilbao, one of the largest in the country.

The Spanish are still primary pupils in the subject of recycling, but slowly we are passing exams. From 1997 to extend have recovered 10 million tons of packaging his life turned into something else. It is the equivalent of 10 stadiums like the Bernabeu clogged.
Of these, eight million were recycled, because there is a 25% of the waste (unfit, they are called) that goes wrong and located at home. Still, this simple gesture of separating waste meant a saving of 7.7 million tonnes of CO2 or annual water consumption of four million people.

"It is therefore important to select good household waste, but so is reducing the containers used or that companies take steps to save on raw material and do: since 1996 have managed to save 75,000 tonnes saving measures, explains Antonio Barron, director of communications Ecoembes, a nonprofit company that manages recycling.
Population not in containers

With 12,400 associates, Ecoembes ensures that covers 90% of the packaging market, all bearing the green dot indicates that they can be recycled and therefore pay a fee.

However, for this conversion takes place must be near a yellow container. Adolfo, who lives in Guardo (Palencia) is part of 1.5% of the population who, according Ecoembes, does not. "It's a shame, not even paper," he complains. So their plastics are not among that 38% is recycled.

The EU minimum enters into any agreement on his position on climate change

European leaders have reached a minimal agreement on the position to defend the EU in global negotiations in Copenhagen on the fight against climate change. The 27 consider that the measures to combat climate change will cost the developing countries about 100,000 million per year in 2020, of which between 22,000 and 50,000 million should come from international public funding.

The rest result from the combined efforts of developing countries themselves (through public and private funding) and revenues of the carbon market.

The EU contribution to international public funding has not been finalized, but it does have twenty-seven tracks on the magnitude that could have, noting that every country in the world except the poorest, should contribute in terms of " responsibility for global emissions and its capacity to deliver, by giving considerable weight to the emission levels.

In any case, this is the first figures to reach agreement on EU governments ahead of the global climate conference to be held in Copenhagen in December, according to sources and diplomatic community.
"Mandate for Copenhagen

The Twenty-seven have finally agreed on the problematic section of the financial assistance to developing countries, to support their efforts and adjustments to the fight against global warming.

"The European Union already has a mandate to Copenhagen, a strong position and we continue to lead the process", assured the acting president of the EU, the Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. "We now expect others to follow," he added.

"We can tell everybody that we are ready for Copenhagen. We will carry this message to Washington to New Delhi and other capitals," noted for its part, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso during the final press conference Community summit held in Brussels yesterday and today.

The European Council also has "taken note" of the European Commission estimates according to which developing nations need urgent annual funding (2010-2012) of between 5,000 and 7,000 million euros, which will help both the EU and "Those member states which may, in accordance with its economic and financial situation, with their share of these costs equitably.
Concessions to the East

Reinfeldt has made clear in the press conference that this first aid will therefore be a "voluntary". All these figures have only been agreed to concessions to the base of the East.

While leaving for later the decision about how much each member state to provide funding that the EU give to developing nations, which the Eastern European partners insisted on clarifying before closing a European position, the West had to give in other respects.

Specifically, the 27 have agreed to leave the door open to use of the allowances set by the Kyoto Protocol after the expiry of this agreement in late 2012, an option that will produce substantial savings income to block more modest, and they can sell the credits have not used before that date to other states.

According to the text of the conclusions of this European Council, the transfer of allowances "should be addressed in a nondiscriminatory manner, so as not to affect the environmental integrity of the Copenhagen agreement," which means that the option is not ruled by Complete as requested, including Germany.

In return for this concession, the Eastern European countries have agreed not only to postpone the debate on how much each member state should provide aid to developing countries, but the mechanism is implemented within the EU is based on the agreed at international level that are likely to take account of the GDP and the responsibility for emissions in each country.