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Sunday 27 July 2008
Thursday 10 July 2008
CO2ws
Be aware of cows' farts...WATCH
Can bovine burp research slow global warming?
Fun fieldwork for a team of Argentinan scientists who are measuring the levels of methane in cow belches in a bid to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
July 9, 2008 3:57 PM
from : guardian.co.uk
cowbelchblog.jpg
Methane, produced by cows, is a more potent global warming gas than carbon dioxide.
Scientists trying to find a solution to reducing the levels of methane in the Earth's atmosphere are using a handful of lucky Argentinian cows in a novel experiment involving bovine burps.
In a country famed for its cattle herds, scientists have strapped plastic tanks to the backs of cows in order to collect their belches and study their methane levels.
The scientists, from the National Institute of Agricultural Technology, say that as much as 30% of Argentina's greenhouse gas emissions could come from cows, and hope this study will find a way to cut down on emissions by changing the diet and lifestyle of the animals.
The grass that cows eat is hard to digest and broken down by bacteria in the animal's four stomachs. In the absence of oxygen, the bacteria turn it into methane. Contrary to common belief, most gas emerges from the front, not rear, ends of the cows.
Farmed ruminant animals are thought to be responsible for up to a quarter of "man-made" methane emissions, which researchers say is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping heat in the atmosphere.
Scientists are working to develop new diets for cows that could make it easier for them to digest food, moving them away from grains to plants like alfalfa and clover.
A study last year found that the average dairy cow in the UK belches out about 100 to 200 litres of methane each day. Given that Argentina is one of the world's biggest beef producers, with some 55 million heads of cattle grazing on the famed Pampas grasslands, that adds up to a significant number.
"When we got the first results, we were surprised. Thirty percent of Argentina's [total greenhouse] emissions could be generated by cows," said Guillermo Berra, a researcher working on the project.
Berra said the researchers "never thought" that a cow weighing 550kg (1,210lb) could produce 800 to 1,000 litres (28 to 35 cubic feet) of emissions each day.
At least 10 cows are being studied, Berra said, including some in a corral whose burps are collected in yellow balloons hanging from the roof.
"We have done a preliminary study and have found that by using tannins, you can reduce methane emissions by 25%," said Silvia Valtorta of the National Council of Scientific and Technical Investigations.
Can bovine burp research slow global warming?
Fun fieldwork for a team of Argentinan scientists who are measuring the levels of methane in cow belches in a bid to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
July 9, 2008 3:57 PM
from : guardian.co.uk
cowbelchblog.jpg
Methane, produced by cows, is a more potent global warming gas than carbon dioxide.
Scientists trying to find a solution to reducing the levels of methane in the Earth's atmosphere are using a handful of lucky Argentinian cows in a novel experiment involving bovine burps.
In a country famed for its cattle herds, scientists have strapped plastic tanks to the backs of cows in order to collect their belches and study their methane levels.
The scientists, from the National Institute of Agricultural Technology, say that as much as 30% of Argentina's greenhouse gas emissions could come from cows, and hope this study will find a way to cut down on emissions by changing the diet and lifestyle of the animals.
The grass that cows eat is hard to digest and broken down by bacteria in the animal's four stomachs. In the absence of oxygen, the bacteria turn it into methane. Contrary to common belief, most gas emerges from the front, not rear, ends of the cows.
Farmed ruminant animals are thought to be responsible for up to a quarter of "man-made" methane emissions, which researchers say is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping heat in the atmosphere.
Scientists are working to develop new diets for cows that could make it easier for them to digest food, moving them away from grains to plants like alfalfa and clover.
A study last year found that the average dairy cow in the UK belches out about 100 to 200 litres of methane each day. Given that Argentina is one of the world's biggest beef producers, with some 55 million heads of cattle grazing on the famed Pampas grasslands, that adds up to a significant number.
"When we got the first results, we were surprised. Thirty percent of Argentina's [total greenhouse] emissions could be generated by cows," said Guillermo Berra, a researcher working on the project.
Berra said the researchers "never thought" that a cow weighing 550kg (1,210lb) could produce 800 to 1,000 litres (28 to 35 cubic feet) of emissions each day.
At least 10 cows are being studied, Berra said, including some in a corral whose burps are collected in yellow balloons hanging from the roof.
"We have done a preliminary study and have found that by using tannins, you can reduce methane emissions by 25%," said Silvia Valtorta of the National Council of Scientific and Technical Investigations.
Wednesday 9 July 2008
Sunday 6 July 2008
Friday 4 July 2008
SHANTARAM
"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realised, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free : free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn't sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it's all you've got, that freedom is a universe of possibility. And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.
In my case, it's a long story, and a crowded one. I was a revolutionary who lost his ideals in heroin, a philosopher who lost his integrity in crime, and a poet who lost his soul in a maximum-security prison. When I escaped from that prison, over the front wall, between two gun-towers, I became my country's most wanted man. Luck ran with me and flew with me across the world to India, where I joined the Bombay mafia. I worked as a gunrunner, a smuggler, and a counterfeiter. I was chained on three continents, beaten, stabbed, and starved. I went to war. I ran into the enemy guns. And I survived, while other men around me died. They were better men than I am, most of them : better men whose lives were crunched up in mistakes, and thrown away by the wrong second of someone else's hate, or love, or indifference. And I buried them, too many of those men, and grieved their stories and their lives into my own.
But my story doesn't begin with them, or with the mafia : it goes back to that first day in Bombay. ..."
from SHANTARAM by Gregory David Roberts
Thursday 3 July 2008
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