Lights, Camera, Pollution
The Hollywood movie industry, though outwardly eco-conscious, actually creates more air pollution in the Los Angeles region than aerospace manufacturing, apparel, hotels or semiconductor manufacturing does, a UCLA study reported. The study said that movie makers directly and indirectly create 140,000 tons of ozone and diesel emissions a year. The emissions come from diesel generators used to power movie sets, power plants that provide electricity to studios, special effects explosions, idling vehicles, and set-building. Only one industry out-polluted Hollywood: petroleum manufacturing.
The Tigris River is yet one more thing damaged by war in Iraq. Now, the Tigris is stagnant, polluted, and even a burial ground for victims of war and civil unrest. Police said they recently found 15 bodies of unidentified torture victims floating in the river 25 miles south of Baghdad. Fishermen and restaurants used to line the banks of the river, but now U.S. troops crowd them out. Upstream of Baghdad, the Tigris has been heavily dammed for irrigation, worsening the pollution problems downstream.
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No Vacancy
Take a number, aspiring space tourist. Trips to the International Space Station through the Russian Space Agency are booked until 2009, the agency's head said. So far, four people, most recently billionaire Anousheh Ansari, have taken the 10-day trip, which orbits the earth and costs each tourist more than $20 million. A Russian company is looking into sub-orbital vessels that could take passengers on a much shorter trip--it would stay in space for several minutes rather than orbiting the earth--for a lower price.
China and Russia are making plans to launch a cooperative lunar exploration in the next three years, saying their different strengths in space exploration will complement each other. The two countries have already considered a joint mission to Mars and are currently engaged in 38 space projects together. China is the third country to launch a human into space—behind Russia and the U.S.—and will launch its first lunar probe satellite, Chang'e I, before 2010. Russian probes, totaling 115, account for more than half of human space exploration.
Billions of years ago, a "baby boom" of supernova explosions in the Milky Way created powerful cosmic rays that influenced the evolution of life on Earth, a new study reported. By analyzing the carbon isotope content in sedimentary rocks, scientists at the Danish National Space Center determined the history of certain algae formations in the ocean and how productive the Earth's biosphere was at the beginning of life's formation. From this analysis, they proposed that a burst of cosmic rays 2.4 billion years ago caused cloud cover on the Earth and cooler temperatures. The cooler temperatures led to stronger, ocean-stirring winds, which gave ocean life forms better access to surface water nutrients, and thus a flurry of bacterial diversity in the ocean.
Bad Snooze Bears
Bears in southwestern Siberia just can't get a good winter's rest these days. The bears usually hibernate for six months, beginning in October or November, when temperatures drop. But the unseasonably warm weather has prevented bears from starting their months-long slumber. Environmental inspectors are monitoring the forests in the Kemerovo region, to ensure the bears do no harm to people or crops.
A zoo in northern Thailand has announced that in order to encourage a pair of pandas to mate, it will show the male videos of "panda porn". The zoo is home to six-year-old male, Chuang Chuang, and five-year-old female, Lin Hui, and the pandas—originally brought in from China in 2003—have not yet bred in captivity. The plan is to keep the pandas separate, affording them only occasional glimpses of one another. Then, when Chuang Chuang is feeling aroused, the zookeepers will show him porn videos, which they hope will teach him how to mate.
To Green or Not to Green