In the same old places: the ocean and SPACE! – If there was a huge dump down the block in your neighborhood, wouldn’t you ask your friends (or the local government) to help clean it up? Well, there’s one spot in the Atlantic Ocean where plastic trash that’s tossed into the sea accumulates. Will anyone do something about it? At least they’ve discovered a new way to clean up space trash!
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It’s not a miracle, it’s just a fact: Raising prices by taxing cigarettes worked, because it caused a lot of people to stop smoking. Could it do the same thing for eating unhealthy foods? (And if you’re overweight, you’re more likely to get the flu!
A new study that followed participants for 20 years shows both weight and risk for diabetes decreased for people in communities where fast food prices increased. Adults tend to eat less pizza and drink less soda as the cost of these items increases.
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In a bid for the US to become totally self-sufficient when it comes to energy, President Obama has announced that oil companies should be allowed to drill for oil in the oceans off the US coasts for the first time in decades. Will we see more oil spills? Although thousands of birds and mammals were killed immediately following the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, the long-term effects of oil exposure on the region’s wildlife remain a concern today, over 20 years later.
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Amphibians don’t just teach us how to stay married, they can also predict earthquakes. Biologists have discovered the common toads can sense an impending earthquake because they have been seen to flee their underground colonies days before one strikes. Other animals that seem to sense quakes, such as fish, mice and snakes, do so shortly before an earthquake strikes, rather than DAYS ahead, like toads do. Maybe it’s time to get a pet toad!
Rather than sensing movement in the ground, scientists think that the toasts may sense the disruptions in the ionosphere (the uppermost electromagnetic layer of the earth’s atmosphere) which have been linked to the release of radon gas prior to an earthquake.
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