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Mary Ellen Harte: Climate Change This Week: Massive Worldwide Tree Die-Off, Selling Solar Surges, and More!  
Today, the Earth got a little hotter, and a little more crowded.




Saving BUB, Beautiful Unique Biodiversity, like this Amazon tree frog, is another...

Read more: Climate Change, Environment, Drought, Extreme Weather, Global Warming, Sustainability, Energy, Energy Efficiency, Nature, Science, Technology, Technologie, Green Technology, Technology News, Climate Change Denial, Climate, Climate Science, Climate-Change, Obama, Green Energy, Clean Energy, Renewable Energy, Natural Gas, Wind Power, Solar Power, Fossil Fuels, Heat Waves, Congress, Voting, Weather, Business, Business News, Corporations, Economy, Climate Change Solutions, Greenhouse Gases, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Carbon Emissions, Food, Water, Coal, Fracking, Oil, Agriculture, Crops, Rising Sea Levels, Insurance, Pollution, Wildlife, Transportation, Transports, Transport, Cities, Deforestation, Jobs, Natural Disasters, Population, Population Growth, Overpopulation, Oceans, President Obama, Barack Obama, Epa, Nasa, Noaa, Department of Energy, Republicans, Gop, Democrats, Animals, Cute Animals, Fish, Birds, Activism, Political Activism, Humor, Alaska, California, Florida, Minnesota, United Nations, United Kingdom, England, Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Europe, European Union, France, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Asia, Africa, Mexico, Children, Babies, Children'S Health, Kids, Human Health, Health, Education, Air Pollution, Seafood, Exxon Mobil, Hillary Clinton, Soil, Art, Cartoons, Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, Apple, Patagonia, Google, Vegetarianism, Harvard, Green News

 
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Michael Brune: How Environmental Issues Impact Communities Of Color  
I don't know anyone who didn't find last week both hard and heartbreaking. Two more incomprehensible fatal police shootings of African Americans f...

Read more: Climate Change, Black Lives Matter, Racism, Global Warming, Environment, Green News

 
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Broken  

ibrahimbarbour posted a photo:

Broken LED light bulb.

 
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Red sky at night......  

CharlieH76 posted a photo:

 
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http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fsally-brown2%2Ffood-waste-on-the-farm_b_10971562.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dscience%26ir%3DScience&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8  
Food Waste on the Farm  
Food waste doesn't just come from your plate or the back corners of your refrigerator. Food waste starts at the farm- whether that farm covers hundreds of acres or some space on your terrace. Growing and harvesting food is not a 100% efficient process. The fate of excess lettuce is one classic example. Lettuce is one of the first things you plant in the spring. It comes in lovely shapes and colors and you plant it at a time when the whole notion of gardening is fresh and full of promise. That often means that you plant too much. Round about July that excess lettuce starts thinking that perhaps the reason you haven't harvested it is that it was destined for greater things than simple salads. The lettuce starts to bolt- meaning a center stalk grows tall and the leaves get bitter. The lettuce is attempting to turn into a tree. Maybe the lettuce has heard about Christmas in July. This happens to commercial farmers as well as to amateurs. Some examples from friends and the neighborhood are below.





At the farm these 'trees' are typically just plowed back into the soil. That can happen in your garden as well. Adding organic matter back to the soil is a good thing. But it isn't the best thing to do with food that could be eaten. Realize that it takes a lot of energy and effort to produce food. The New York Times made this clear with a pictorial showing how much water is used to grow various crops in California:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/21/us/your-contribution-to-the-california-drought.html?_r=0. Lettuce trees do not grow by water alone. All plants also require nutrients- the big three being nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). Those are the three numbers that you see on a bag of fertilizer.



Nitrogen is typically applied at between 100 and 200 pounds per acre. While gaseous nitrogen is plentiful in our air (atmosphere is 77% N2 gas) it takes a lot of energy to turn the gas into a form that plants can use. Most of our fertilizer N is produced using the Haber - Bosch process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process) at a cost of about 4 pounds of CO2 for each pound of nitrogen. About half as much energy is used to produce the P and K. Phosphorus fertilizer comes from calcium phosphate rocks. We used to have large reserves in the US in Idaho and Florida. Now the biggest world reserves are in and around Morocco and China (http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pnadw835.PDF) with Saudi Arabia also having significant quantities (http://www.mining-technology.com/features/featurea-kingdom-of-riches-saudi-arabia-looks-to-strike-it-rich-with-mining-sector-4382267/). Wasting the food means that you are also wasting the water and the nutrient it took to grow.

Soils are not so picky about the type of organic matter that they are fed. They are just as happy getting plant roots as edible leaves. They don't mind slime. The same can't be said for people. But even if you have excess romaine your neighbor may not. Feeding others with your bounty is one way to put the excess to optimal use and expand your social circle. On a commercial level this is much more difficult but can still be done. Excess from farmer's markets and fields can be donated to food banks or left for gleaning projects. Gleaning means going into a field after harvest and getting what the farmer did not. It was the subject of an 18th century painting by Jean Francois Millet and has been making a comeback in the US http://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/133059889/gleaning-a-harvest-for-the-needy-by-fighting-waste.



While you can give your extra lettuce to friends and neighbors before it bolts, this type of generosity is harder to justify for a farmer who needs to make a living from selling his/ her produce. Gleaning and donations are good for the world but not as good for the bottom line. Tax incentives to encourage gleaning and other rules that limit liability for farmers who allow gleaners on their land are ways to do that: http://modernfarmer.com/2015/12/gleaning/. So share your lettuce before it can think of turning into a tree. New rules and incentives will hopefully let farmers do so too.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Cocaine and HIV Infection  


By Drs. David Niesel and Norbert Herzog

Cocaine and HIV Infection

It is well known that cocaine use increases the chance of acquiring HIV, the virus infection that if left untreated leads to AIDS. It was assumed that needle sharing and increased risky behaviors were the reason for more infections. Some data now argues that cocaine use fundamentally changes cells of the immune system making them more susceptible to HIV infection.

HIV is a retrovirus that infects cells of the immune system that carry the receptors to which HIV binds on their surfaces. The cells are a type of white blood cells called a T lymphocyte or T cell. T cells are important in identifying and hunting down virus infected cells and some of them are critical in orchestrating the immune response. For HIV to successfully infect the T cells, they must be capable of dividing into daughter cells. A large population of T cells in the body are not dividing and hence dormant and HIV cannot infect them.

Anything that activates these dormant cells would increase the cells HIV could infect. Scientists exposed dormant T cells to cocaine and then to HIV. They measured the amount of HIV produced to determine if cocaine influenced the susceptibility of these dormant cells to HIV infection. Exposure to cocaine increases the susceptibility of dormant T cells to HIV infection. These experiments were done in a petri dish, but if this occurs in the body, this would greatly increase the number of cells available for HIV to productively infect in cocaine users. This would increase the likelihood of establishing an HIV infection, likely making the infection more severe and potentially affecting the disease progression.

More recently, the investigators did similar experiments but this time in a very special type of mouse called a humanized mouse. In these mice, their immune system was eliminated and replaced with a human one. This was done by transplanting stem cells that become the full range of human immune cells, making in effect a mouse with a human immune system. These mice are a good model for studying HIV infections and their impact on the immune system. They had two groups of mice, one was injected with cocaine, and a control group that just received injections of saline before half the mice in each group were infected with HIV. Then the mice continued to receive either cocaine or saline for two more weeks after which blood and tissue samples were analyzed. HIV infected mice that received cocaine were found to have higher levels of virus than their counterparts which received only saline. So cocaine exposure enhances HIV infection and makes the infection worse, exactly as predicted by the petri dish experiments. They also discovered that cocaine reduced the immune response to HIV infection by affecting the activities of the very cells that usually protect us from viral infections. So cocaine not only changes people's behaviors, but also changes the cells of the immune system increasing the chances of HIV infection and potentially the severity of it. Cocaine is a tremendously addictive drug that ruins lives and now we know another important way it can compromise your health. Stay away!

Medical Discovery News is hosted by professors Norbert Herzog at Quinnipiac University, and David Niesel of the University of Texas Medical Branch. Learn more at www.medicaldiscoverynews.com.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Could we generate useful energy from earthquakes?  
Elliott Spender calculates the amount of useful energy we could generate during a quake  
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Neural networks provide deep insights into the mysteries of water  
Simulations reveal the importance of van der Waals interactions  
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PHOTOS: Experimental Solar Plane Flies Over Egypt's Giza Pyramids  

Egypt is the last stop before Solar Impulse 2 finishes its round-the-world journey in the United Arab Emirates. The team is aiming to raise awareness about clean energy.

 
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After Dallas, Black Gun Owners Take Stock  

Many African-Americans keep guns for self-defense, dating back to Emancipation. But the shooting in Dallas, and recent killings of black men by police, have raised hard questions for black gun owners.

 
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Holocaust Museum, Arlington National Cemetery Plead: No Pokémon  

The sites where visitors normally reflect on somber themes ask players of the hot new mobile game not to chase cartoon characters there.

 
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