Developer invents mobile phone powered by Coca-Cola Developer invents mobile phone powered by Coca-Cola

News Com Au 15/01/2010

A CHINESE inventor says she has devised a way to power phones with a can of Coca-Cola after concerns about the financial and environmental costs of mobile phone batteries.

Developer Daizi Zheng's ecologically-friendly battery uses soda to power her mobile phone, rather than harmful lithium-based batteries.

"The concept is using bio battery ... to create a pollution-free environment," Zheng told Sky News.

"By using bio battery as the power source of the phone, it only needs a pack of sugary drink and it generates water and oxygen while the battery dies out," she said.

Zheng explained that a sugar-powered phone has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional batteries and could be fully biodegradable.

She designed the power cell as a client project for Nokia.

"At the time they wanted something to bring out within the next two years and thought my design was too futuristic," she said.

Sympathy cash 'pours in' for loss of Ady Gil

News Com Au 11/01/2010

IT lost a boat worth $2 million, but hundreds of thousands of dollars have poured into the coffers of controversial protest group Sea Shepherd since their ship Ady Gil was allegedly rammed and sunk by a Japanese whaler.

The group's leader Captain Paul Watson today said $170,000 was pledged in the first few hours after the incident while more was flooding in following the screening of a Sea Shepherd advert featuring Transformers actress Isabel Lucas.

And Mr Watson praised Australian Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard - who has been accused by Japan of inflaming public opinion and making diplomatic resolution of the whaling dispute harder to realise - for speaking out.

"Julia Gillard is the only politician who has had the courage to say something about the illegal activities Japan has undertaken; the rest of them are hiding behind Japan's kimonos as far as I can see," Mr Watson said.

He was especially scathing of New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully, who has said it was not the NZ Government's responsibility to send armed vessels to protect people "determined to break the law".

“The Minister of Foreign Affairs has made ignorant and unsubstantiated accusations and he should apologise and if he refuses to apologise he should be asked to resign," Mr Watson said.

"How dare he take Japan’s side in this issue against his own citizens?

Sea Shepherd recruits Aussie starlet Isabel Lucas for TV campaign

News Com Au 08/01/2010

JAPANESE authorities have criticised the environmental activist group Sea Shepherd for abandoning a vessel at sea, apparently leaking fuel and debris.

The Ady Gil was crippled in a collision with a Japanese whaling ship in the Southern Ocean on Wednesday.

Sea Shepherd spokespeople have repeatedly claimed the boat had sunk, and today the activist group abandoned the scene.

But Japanese authorities have released photographs which show the Ady Gil wreckage is still afloat in pristine Antarctic waters.

The official Institute of Cetacean Research said an oily substance thought to be fuel was leaking from the wreckage, "raising concerns that Sea Shepherd is willfully polluting the Antarctic environment''.

A Japanese vessel salvaged part of the severed Ady Gil hull and some arrows.

The institute called on Australia and other countries to prevent Sea Shepherd's "vicious'' sabotage of the whaling fleet.

Meanwhile Australian authorities have officially told Japan to stop whaling in the wake of a dramatic high-seas clash.

But Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has warned the anti-whaling push could harm relations with Japan, which is Australia's biggest export market.

Australia's acting ambassador in Tokyo yesterday spoke to the Japanese Government and to whaling officials.

Coral Reefs Breed New Species, Fossil Record Shows

VOA News 07/01/2010

Reefs have long been known as attractors of diverse species. Now, research published in the journal "Science" indicates that reefs are also cradles of evolution, places where new species actually evolve

Art Chimes

Washington, DC 07 January 2010

Photo: David Burdick, NOAA

Goatfish (Mulloidicthys sp.) and striped damselfish (Dascyllus aruanus) swim at reef in Mariana Islands, Guam

"When we lose reefs, we lose basically the cradles of evolution in the oceans." – Wolfgang Kiessling

A new study out this week highlights the role that coral reefs play in evolution, adding another reason to preserve these delicate, diverse, and often beautiful ecosystems.

Many of the world's coral reefs are threatened by ocean acidification and pollution, among other things.

Wolfgang Kiessling of Berlin's Natural History Museum says that concerns ecologists because of the vital role reefs play in ocean ecosystems.

"They're really important to marine ecology because they host thousands of fish, for example," he said. "This is where the young fish grow up. And they host millions of species of invertebrates, and so they are ecologically really key to tropical marine ecosystems."

Julie Bedford, NOAA Reef in Fiji with great diversity of coral species

The conventional view has been that reefs attract a diverse population – in part because they have lots of nooks and crannies where fish can hide from predators – but that they aren't necessarily places where new species evolve.

Kiessling began to doubt this when he looked at the evolutionary record following the mass extinction 65 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs. That event signaled a slowdown in the creation of new species.

"We see that evolution slowed a bit, and this was basically – that was my guess – because so many reefs were killed as well. So it took a long time for diversity to build up again in the aftermath."

Using a vast, online catalog called the Paleobiology Database, Kiessling and his colleagues analyzed the occurrence of hundreds of thousands of new species as documented by researchers around the world.

Japanese sailors accused of ramming anti-whaling vessel

News Com Au 07/01/2010 

SEA Shepherd captain Paul Watson today accused Japanese whalers of a high seas hit-and-run, disputing claims a collision with one of its speedboats was accidental.

Six crew members aboard the anti-whaling ship Ady Gil were rescued, one with broken ribs, after it and the Japanese whalers' ship the Shonan Maru 2 collided in remote Antarctic waters.

The high-tech trimaran was ripped apart in the collision.

Japan's Fisheries Agency has blamed the Ady Gil for the crash, saying it slowed suddenly while crossing in front of the Shonan Maru.

But Mr Watson today labelled the claim ridiculous, saying the whaling ship deliberately rammed the boat in a high seas "hit and run".

"The Ady Gil was stationary at the time it was struck," Mr Watson said on Macquarie Radio.

Conservationists Clash With Japanese Whalers in Southern Ocean

VOA News 06/01/2010

An environmental group says one of its boats was split in two and taking on water after a collision with a Japanese whaling ship in Antarctica.

An environmental group says one of its boats was split in two and taking on water after a collision with a Japanese whaling ship in Antarctica.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society says one of its boats, the Ady Gil, a sleek high-technology speed boat, was rammed and sliced in half by a Japanese ship, the Shonan Maru.

All six crew members were unharmed and were rescued as the boat began taking on water near Commonwealth Bay in Antarctica.

The Sea Shepherd group claims it was the victim of unprovoked aggression and indicates that it will fight back.

The captain of the organization's flagship vessel, Paul Watson, says his colleagues are lucky to be alive.

"When the skipper on the Ady Gil saw the Shonan Maru moving in to strike him, he put his engines in reverse to get out of the way, which probably saved some of his crew but it ripped the front end of the vessel off and caused catastrophic damage to the Ady Gil," explained Watson. "The Ady Gil then put out a distress signal, a mayday signal, which was ignored and not acknowledged by the Japanese and then they sped away from the scene of this incident."

Australians Sweating After Hottest Decade on Record

VOA News 05/01/2010

2010 could be another hot year, with forecasters expecting temperatures to be as much as one degree Celsius above average this year

The past decade was Australia's hottest on record as a result of global warming. And the nation's Bureau of Meteorology says 2010 will be even warmer, with temperatures as much as one degree above the average.

In its annual report, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology's says the decade from 2000 to 2009 was the hottest since records began 100 years ago.

The average temperature during the decade was almost half a degree Celsius above the average seen since 1960.

Climatologists say 2005 was Australia's hottest year on record, followed closely by 2009.

The past 12 months have been punctuated by three punishing heat waves, which have exacerbated bush fires, a long-standing drought and dust storms. Weather bureau officials say a single severe heat wave would be unusual, and that three in the same year was "extraordinary".

The bureau's head of climate change analysis, David Jones, thinks temperatures will keep on rising.

"The statement is simply a fact of the observations we've seen. And the reality is that Australia is warming, it's warmed by about a degree over the past 50 years, it's continuing to warm," he said. "You know global warming is something we see in observations, you know, it's not a statement, it's not a deduction, it's a fact."

2010 could be another hot year for Australia, with forecasters expecting temperatures to be as much as one degree Celsius above average this year.

EU Earmarks $3.6 Billion in Aid for Developing Countries

VOA News European Union is earmarking nearly $3.6 billion yearly in short-term aid for developing countries to adapt to climate change. At a summit in Brussels, EU leaders also agreed to cut their carbon emissions by 30 percent - if other developed countries followed suit.

The agreement on short-term climate funding was reached after a meeting of European Union leaders in Brussels. EU aid for developing countries will total about $7.2 billion between 2010-2012, with Britain, Germany and France contributing the lion's share. Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden, which holds the rotating EU presidency until January, announced the sum at a press conference.

"We of course are very pleased and satisfied that we [had] contributions from all member countries and that we also now show leadership in taking our fair share of the fast-start money that we know is important to get the global agreement in place and we of course now urge other developed parts of the world to make that same contribution so this will add up," said Mr. Reinfeld.

The EU aid may help boost negotiations at the climate change summit in Copenhagen. The United Nations is urging industrialized nations to contribute about $30 billion in short-term climate aid to poor nations. Overall, the EU estimates about $150 billion in assistance will be needed by 2020. The money would help developing nations invest in things like coastal protection and renewable energy to help deal with climate change. Reinfeldt said Europe would contribute what he described as its "fair share."