A recent BBC article from last week reports that:

A team of US researchers found that there was a limit on how high the giant trees were able to pull water up their trunks to supply upper branches.

The results are coming from this article –

Domec, J.-C. B. Lachenbruch, F. C. Meinzer, D. R. Woodruff, J. M. Warren, and K. A. McCulloh. 2008. Maximum height in a conifer is associated with conflicting requirements for xylem design. Proc. National Academy of Sciences.

Enjoy your Monday reading!

** Photo by Rob

New CMA Report Warns Poor Air Quality Killing Canadians

OTTAWA, August 13, 2008 – The Canadian Medical Association released staggering new data today showing that this year alone as many as 21,000 Canadians will die prematurely from the effects of air pollution. While most of those deaths will be due to chronic exposure over a number of years, almost 3,000 will be the result of acute, short-term exposure.

The CMA’s report entitled No Breathing Room: National Illness Costs of Air Pollution, shows the effects of poor air quality based on the concentrations of two highly predictive pollutants – ozone and particulate matter – on four distinct age groups of Canadians.

“With the start of the Olympics in Beijing, much has been made about the poor air quality in China and the effect it is having on our athletes,” said CMA President Dr. Brian Day. “But we have a serious home-grown pollution problem right here and Canadians, ranging from the very young to the very old, are paying the price.”

Specific findings of the No Breathing Room: National Illness Costs of Air Pollution report include:

* By 2031, almost 90,000 Canadians will have died from the acute short-term effects of air pollution. The number of deaths, due to long-term exposure, will be over 700,000 – the population of Quebec City.
* In 2008, 80% of those who die due to air pollution will be over age 65.
* In 2008, 25 Canadians under age 19 will die of the effects of short-term exposure to air pollution.
* Ontario and Quebec residents are the worst hit Canadians, with 70% of the premature deaths occurring in Central Canada, even though these two provinces comprise only 62% of Canada’s population.
* In 2008 there will be over 9,000 hospital visits, 30,000 emergency department visits and 620,000 doctor’s office visits due to air pollution.
* The economic costs of air pollution in 2008 will top $8 billion. By 2031, they will have accumulated to over $250 billion.

“This report shows for the first time the tragic effects of the toxic air that we breathe, whether it is in my hometown of Vancouver, or across the country in St. John’s,” added Dr. Day.

No Breathing Room: National Illness Costs of Air Pollution used a software model first developed by the Ontario Medical Association and provides detailed health and economic data relating to changes in air quality. The study uses the best available knowledge and data on air quality, human health and economics to produce accurate forecasts of health impacts and expected costs related to changes in air quality. The tool has also been validated by a panel of international experts on health and the environment.

The full report, including provincial data and tables, is available at www.cma.ca

Posted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Earth and Ocean Sciences

By Katherine McAlpine and a few more folks @ CERN.

They do a very nice and concise Rap explanation what LHC does – I loved it…Please see it below 🙂

CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

Entertainment Software Association has released its 2008 report titled – “2008 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry”

Some interesting stats from there :

* 65% of American households play computer or video games.
* The average game player age is 35.
* In 2008, 26% of gamers were over the age of 50.
* The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is: 40
* Women age 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (33%) than boys age 17 or younger (18%).
* 13 is the average number of years adult gamers have been playing computer or video games.
* 59% of gamers play games with other gamers in person.
* 94% of the time parents are present at the time games are purchased or rented.
* 63% of parents believe games are a positive part of their children’s lives.
* 83% of the time children receive their parents’ permission before purchasing or renting a game.
* Parents report always or sometimes monitoring the games their children play 88% of the time.

Read the full text here – “2008 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry”

via Stephen’s Lighthouse

** photo by Earl – What I Saw 2.0

The New York Times has an article today about an ancient Greek technology known as the Antikythera Mechanism

A very interesting read indeed – Discovering How Greeks Computed in 100 B.C.

The NYT article cites a letter published in Nature today –

Freeth, T; Alexander, J, Steele, JM, Bitsakis, Y (July 31, 2008). “Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera Mechanism“. Nature 454: 614–617.

** Photo from – http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethanhein/

As part of the UBC Library’s mandate to archive undergraduate research, three EOSC honors theses have just been added to the Earth and Ocean Sciences Community in cIRcle – UBC’s Information Repository.

Bayliss, Sandra M. 2008. Uranium-Lead, Argon-Argon, and Lead Isotopic Constraints of Magmatism and Associated Mineralization within the Stikine Terrane, on the Williams Gold Property, North Central British Columbia. Undergraduate Honours Thesis. Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences. University of British Columbia.

Kushnir, Alexandra R.L. 2008. Understanding Multi-Peak Anomalies for Unexploded Ordnance Discrimination. Undergraduate Honours Thesis. Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences. University of British Columbia.

Cleven, Nathan R. 2008. Role of Dolomite Content on the Mechanical Strength and Failure Mechanisms in Dolomite-Limestone Composites. Undergraduate Honours Thesis. Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences. University of British Columbia.

If you are interested in contributing your undergraduate thesis to cIRcle, please contact me directly kevin.lindstrom@ubc.ca

Randy Pausch, the computer scientist from Carnegie Mellon Univ, whose “The Last Lecture” speech on September 18, 2007 at Carnegie Mellon University inspired so many (including yours truly) had died yesterday night.

Watch Pausch’s last lecture on youtube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

From Carnegie Mellon Univ press release:

Celebrated in his field for co-founding the pioneering Entertainment
Technology Center and for creating the innovative educational software
tool known as “Alice,” Pausch earned his greatest worldwide fame for his
inspirational “Last Lecture.”
That life-affirming lecture, a call to his students and colleagues to go
on without him and do great things, was delivered at Carnegie Mellon on
Sept. 18, 2007, a few weeks after Pausch learned he had just months to
live. Titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” the humorous and
heartfelt talk was videotaped, and unexpectedly spread around the world
via the Internet. Tens of millions of people have since viewed video
footage of it.
Pausch, who had regularly won awards in the field of computer science,
spent the final months of his life being lauded in arenas far beyond his
specialty. ABC News declared him one of its three “Persons of the Year”
for 2007. TIME magazine named him to its list of the 100 most
influential people in the world. On thousands of Web sites, people wrote
essays about what they had learned from him. His book based on the
lecture became a #1 bestseller internationally, translated into 30
languages.

The 2007 Canadian Internet Use Survey was released on June 12th.

Interesting findings include:

“Almost three-quarters (73%), or 19.2 million Canadians aged 16 and older, went online for personal reasons during the 12 months prior to the survey. This was up from just over two-thirds (68%) in 2005 when the survey was last conducted. For the first time, the survey covered young people aged 16 and 17. They accounted for almost one of the five percentage point increase in Internet use between 2005 and 2007.”

“Among people who used the Internet at home, 68% went online every day during a typical month and 50% for five hours or more during a typical week. On average, men were online more often and for longer periods than women.”

“High-speed connections are becoming far more prevalent. An estimated 88% of people who accessed the Internet at home did so with a high-speed connection in 2007, up from 80% two years earlier. This growth was driven by new users and by existing users switching from a slower service.

Over 9 in 10 urban home users reported using a high-speed connection, compared with just over 7 in 10 home users in rural areas. More than one-half of rural and small town residents using a slower service reported that a high-speed telephone or cable service was not available in their area.”

More Canadians are participating in blogging, chatting and downloading. Internet use rates are highest in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.

Found via Stephen’s Lighthouse

** Photo by striatic

The Council of Canadian Academies was asked by the federal Minister of Natural Resources to assess the challenges for an acceptable operational extraction of gas hydrates in Canada in terms of: economic impact, social acceptability, and accessibility? As a result, the Expert Panel on Gas Hydrates was appointed by the Council to address the question and provide an account of the science and technology relevant to the safe extraction and use of gas hydrates in Canada.

The expert panel, chaired by John Grace (FRSC, FCAE), held its first meeting on May 8 and 9, 2007 to discuss the question with the sponsoring department (Natural Resources Canada); to agree on an outline for the assessment report; and to coordinate research and writing tasks. The question addressed by the panel is as follows: “What are the challenges for an acceptable operational extraction of gas hydrates in Canada in terms of: economic impact, social acceptability, and accessibility?”

UBC Members of the Expert Panel include

John Grace, Chair
Professor, Chemical and Biological Engineering and Canada Research Chair in Clean Energy Processes, University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC)

Peter Englezos
Professor, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC)

The Report in Focus is now available with the Full Report to be released in August 2008 from the Council of Canadian Academies website.

On 4 July 2008 Science had an editorial about peer-review process.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/321/5885/15

Written by the Science editors, including Bruce Alberts – the Editor-in-Chief, it is indeed an interesting read! Have a look..

** Photo by selva