Author Archives: Glory Miche

Breaking: Sydney on Lockdown As Dramatic Siege Unfolds

Mother Jones

The heart of Sydney, Australia, is currently in lockdown, as a siege unfolds at a downtown cafe. Reporting is still fuzzy and ongoing, but here’s what we know so far: Police are responding to a situation at the Lindt Cafe in Martin Place, a central plaza in the city surrounded by banks and law firms, and not far from the state parliament buildings and the Sydney Opera House.

The number of hostages taken have not been confirmed. Channel Seven, a TV station with studios and offices in Martin Place, is reporting police sources as saying there are 13 people being held. The number of hostage-takers has also not been confirmed.

Twitter users have posted images of people, apparently hostages, with their hands against the windows of the cafe and holding up a black flag with Arabic writing on it. Guardian Australia is reporting the flag reads, “There is no god but the God, Muhammad is the messenger of God.” It is not the Islamic State flag. Large parts of the area have been cordoned off.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which has unlocked its live stream for an international audience, is providing rolling coverage. Channel Seven is also providing live coverage here.

The Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, has released a statement saying his government is convening an emergency session of the National Security Committee of Cabinet:

UPDATE: Sunday, December 14, 2014, 9 p.m. EST: The Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has addressed reporters in Australia’s capital, Canberra. He didn’t provide any further factual detail about the unfolding saga in Sydney. Notably, he did not outline potential reasons for the attack. “We don’t yet know the motivation of the perpetrator,” he said, though he added that “obviously there are some indications” the attack could be political in nature. Abbott said the normal business of government would continue:

I can understand the concerns and anxieties of the Australian people at a time like this, but our thoughts and prayers must above all go out to the individuals who are caught up in this. I can think of almost nothing more distressing, more terrifying than to be caught up in such a situation and our hearts go out to these people.

UPDATE 2: Monday, December 15, 2014, 12:15 a.m. EST: It appears that at least three hostages have gotten free, though whether they escaped or were released is not yet clear.

As things unfold, we’ve compiled a list of sources on Twitter to follow. Find it here.

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Breaking: Sydney on Lockdown As Dramatic Siege Unfolds

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"She Was Screaming in the Tub"

Mother Jones

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This story was originally published in the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Videos produced by Climate Desk’s Tim McDonnell.

On the morning of January 9, Twylla Bays pumped a syringe of water into the gastric feeding tube in her 29-year-old daughter Cassy’s abdomen. The reaction was instantaneous and violent: in the space of 30 minutes, Cassy, who has muscular dystrophy and is on a ventilator, had seven bouts of diarrhoea.

At about that time, 15 miles away in Charleston, West Virginia, executives of West Virginia American Water and state officials were deciding when and how to tell 300,000 people their water was not safe to drink.

By 5pm, when word reached Twylla Bays that her tap water was so contaminated it was only fit for flushing toilets, she had given Cassy two more 150cc injections of water along with her medicine and food. Each time, Cassy was sick.

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"She Was Screaming in the Tub"

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Why Enzymatic Cleaners Are Amazing & How You Can Make Your Own

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Why Enzymatic Cleaners Are Amazing & How You Can Make Your Own

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Africa’s biggest wind farm starts spinning

Africa’s biggest wind farm starts spinning

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Ethiopia’s infamous droughts don’t just condemn the country to periodic famine; they also deprive it of electricity.

In a major step toward diversifying a power system that’s almost entirely reliant on hydropower, the country has built Africa’s largest wind farm. Power production started at the $290 million Ashegoda Wind Farm on Saturday, four years after construction began. From Reuters:

The 120 MW, 84-turbine farm — straddling a sprawling field of grassland dotted by stone-brick hamlets more than 780 kilometers north of Addis Ababa — is part of a plan to mitigate the impact of dry seasons on the country’s dams.

At present, Ethiopia’s energy resources are almost completely derived from hydropower projects.

“It compliments hydropower, which is seasonal. When you have a dry water season we have higher wind speed,” said Mihret Debebe, CEO of the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation.

“There is harmony between the two sources of energy.”

Last week, Ethiopia also signed a preliminary agreement with a U.S.-Icelandic firm for a $4 billion private sector investment intended to tap its vast geothermal power resources and produce 1,000 MW from steam.

During a speech at the weekend inauguration, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said “there is potential to harness abundant wind energy resources in every region of Ethiopia.”

But Ethiopia is still looking to boost its hydropower generation. The country plans to build a 6,000-megawatt Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on a tributary of the Nile. If completed as planned, it will cost $4.2 billion and be the largest dam in Africa. Downstream neighbors like Egypt would probably prefer a lot more wind turbines.


Source
Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan Mull New Probe Nile Dam Impact, Bloomberg
Ethiopia opens Africa’s largest wind farm to boost power production, Reuters

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Africa’s biggest wind farm starts spinning

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How Proton Beams Are a Metaphor for Our Broken Health Care System

Mother Jones

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Via Austin Frakt, here’s a lovely little chart from a Brookings report that helps explain why health care costs in the United States are so stubbornly hard to control. It shows the growth in proton beam facilities, which Kaiser Health News describes as an “arms race” between hospitals. These facilities are the size of a football field and cost hundreds of millions of dollars to construct.

Which might be OK if PRT were truly an advance in treating cancer. Unfortunately, there’s not much evidence that it is, even though it costs far more than old-school IMRT radiotherapy. Here’s the conclusion from a recent study of prostate cancer cases:

Although PRT is substantially more costly than IMRT, there was no difference in toxicity in a comprehensive cohort of Medicare beneficiaries with prostate cancer at 12 months post-treatment.

In other words, the supposed advantage of PRT—that it targets cancers more precisely and has fewer toxic side effects—doesn’t seem to be true. It might be better in certain very specialized cases, but not for garden variety prostate cancer.

And yet, new facilities are being constructed at a breakneck pace. Why? Because if they build them, patients will come. “They’re simply done to generate profits,” says health care advisor Ezekiel Emanuel. Roger that.

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How Proton Beams Are a Metaphor for Our Broken Health Care System

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Exactly What Is Aquaponics About?

If you are a “green-minded” individual, or if you want expanding your own organic fresh fruit/vegetables or clean fish, then aquaponics might be an ideal system for you to find out more regarding. After spending some time to analysis this new innovation, you will discover that a question on many individuals’s minds is “exactly what is aquaponics?”.

This system is based on aquaculture, which is a closed freshwater system for increasing fish that does not require everyday water drainage or replenishment. Aquaponics produces a biological environment that natural vegetables and fruits expand incredibly well in, while at the same time purifying the water that the fish stay in.

The major parts of the aquaponics system include expanding beds for the vegetables, and a holding tank for the fish, where the water is re-circulated from one component to the other. There are numerous methods of recycling the water via this system, and one of the most preferred procedures is called the “vitamins and mineral movie” method. It is called this given that the nutrients from the fish waste water develop a slim layer around the expand beds that is absorbed and made use of by the vegetables as meals. As these nutrients are absorbed by the plants, the water is cleaned and recycled for the fish.

Aquaponics was created to increase pesticide-free natural vegetables and fish that are without toxins and unsafe levels of chemicals that are regrettably discovered in lots of closed freshwater systems. The popularity of this approach of horticulture is easy to understand, given that it is economical to set up, and will certainly need virtually no maintenance once the quantity of greenery and fish is meticulously balanced.

What is the Secret to Aquaponics?

There are quite a few reasons using the aquaponics approach for increasing natural vegetables and fruit transcends to conventional techniques such as hydroponics and aquaculture. The primary explanations consist of:.

Aquaponics is a practically hands-off system. When organic balance is achieved, it is self-sufficient, and only requires the fish to be fed. Aquaculture and hydroponics both call for modest to massive everyday maintenance, including feeding the fish, giving nutrients to the plant life, and water removal and replacement.

Raising freshwater fish utilizing the aquaculture procedure requires that at least ten percent of the total amount of water should be replaced each and every day. Over the course of one month, a 5 hundred gallon fish holding storage tank will certainly require to have about fifteen hundred gallons eliminated and switched out, or else the fish will pass away.

Aquaponics offers an atmosphere where numerous different sorts of vegetables and fruits can be grown. The size of the plants rises as additional varieties are increased.

The fish waste is developed into nitrates and gives consistent sustenance for the plants. The plants clear the water by counteracting the fish waste and ammonia, and keep the fish environment clean. Aquaponics resolves the troubles of both the aquaculture and hydroponics systems.

Aquaponics normally gives the exact same amount of nutrients for the plants to take in and make use of for development as is required in a hydroponics system.

Exactly what is happening In Aquaponics?

As you can see, aquaponics is a brand-new modern technology that boosts on earlier techniques of increasing healthy and balanced fish and organic fruit and vegetables. Listed below you will certainly discover much more specifics regarding exactly how an effective aquaponics system is established.

Before you identify precisely the best ways to establish your aquaponics system, you have to identify how many fish and how many vegetables and fruits you want to produce. If you are thinking of generating a big quantity of fish or plants, perhaps for a new aquaponics company, after that you will wish to go out and buy a mechanical purification pump. This will certainly make sure that the fish waste does not develop around the plant roots and the pump will likewise distribute the water regularly.

If they are established up appropriately, smaller sized systems do not need a pump.

Large-scale aquaponics companies can stay clear of using a filtration pump by establishing drifting expand beds.

Fish feed should be added to the fish holding container for a number of days prior to any fish are included in it. This decreases the chlorine, and develops the healthy microorganisms that will break down the fish ammonia, turning it in to nitrates that nurture the plants. Without proper cycling, the ammonia and chlorine levels will be excessive, creating the fish to pass away.

After the fish are included in their holding reservoir, they are preyed on a day-to-day basis, and their strong waste and ammonia by-products are distributed to the expanding beds for uptake.

The plants cleanse the water by taking in the waste and nutrients in it. The water is usually recycled back to the fish, which aerates the water and gives the fish with clean fresh water to reside in.

Attaining biological balance in your aquaponics system is the most vital element in succeeding. You must carefully combine the amount and variety of fish, germs, and plant material to ensure that this equilibrium is obtained. Too many fish will certainly bring about sloppy water that will not assist the fish, and not nearly enough fish will fail to offer sufficient meals for the plants. Without enough germs, the fish waste will not be changed to food for the veggies. As you could see, each part of the system is dependent on the others, but it is actually not that tough to accomplish if you comprehend the fundamentals and methodically create your aquaponics garden.

The major components of the aquaponics system consist of increasing beds for the veggies, and a holding reservoir for the fish, where the water is re-circulated from one part to the various other. Over the program of one month, a five hundred gallon fish holding storage tank will require to have about fifteen hundred gallons gotten rid of and changed, or else the fish will perish. The plants clear the water by counteracting the fish waste and ammonia, and keep the fish setting clean. Fish feed need to be included to the fish holding tank for many days before any type of fish are included to it. As well a lot of fish will certainly lead to muddy water that will not assist the fish, and not enough fish will fall short to give enough food for the plants.

Learn more about Basics of Aquaponics. Stop by Glory Miche’s site where you can find out all about Aquaponics and what it can do for you.

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Perks Of Home Aquaponics

For those of you that do not know anything of aquaponics I just wish to rapidly explain what exactly house aquaponics is. Aquaponics is essentially expanding plants by utilizing fish. It works wonders due to the fact that the nutrients that fish naturally placed in the water they stay in are exactly what the plants need to grow. The difference between normal techniques of increasing veggies such as planting them in the ground is gigantic. You could increase more plants faster than ever before.

So now you could already picture the perks of residence aquaponics. And fortunately is that aquaponics are rather easy to create and do not take much space. Aquaponics systems differ in size but you do not need much room to begin your very own house aquaponics system. These are 2 of the advantages of residence aquaponics that permits anybody to begin growing their own vegetables and fruit. And what’s great is the truth that the meals you increase not only expands quite rapidly yet it additionally tries a lot better compared to any type of fruit and vegetables you could purchase from a grocery store.

Then offer exactly what you expand after that by making use of aquaponics you can expand a substantial yield in half the time, if you delight in growing plants and meals and. So not only could you make even more cash from offering your fruit and vegetables but you will certainly be supplying some wonderful sampling meals for your consumers and your family members. So another advantage would be increased exploit your plants. And what’s fantastic is aquaponics systems call for very little energy to run and the moment it takes to keep your system is very little if you establish the system up right to begin with.

I have just been using aquaponics for a few years but I would never go back to expanding my veggies and plants in the ground. There are some sources to assist you make your own residence aquaponics system. A few of the very best can be discovered online. Count on me once you start obtaining the advantages of your own aquaponics system, you will not look back. You can even begin eating or offering the fish that you make use of in your system.

The advantages of residence aquaponics are well worth having for the little cost that it takes to establish the system up. You could buy aquaponics systems however I suggest you discover just how to construct your own system.

Aquaponics systems differ in dimension yet you do not need much space to begin your own house aquaponics system. These are 2 of the advantages of house aquaponics that permits anybody to start increasing their own fruit and vegetables. And what’s excellent is the fact that the meals you grow not only increases really quickly however it also tries much better compared to any kind of fruit and vegetables you can get from a grocery store.

If you delight in growing plants and food and after that sell what you increase then by utilizing aquaponics you can grow an enormous return in half the time.

Want to find out more about Basics of Aquaponics, then visit Glory Miche’s site on how to choose the best Aquaponics for your needs.

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10 Tips For A Non-Toxic Summer

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10 Tips For A Non-Toxic Summer

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