The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has been at the forefront in the development of green and energy efficient technologies. So it makes sense that NREL architects and designers would construct the greenest building of its size in the nation.
NREL's new Research Support Facility is 222,000 square feet and as large as that may be, it has the potential to produce as much energy as it uses.
"It's a net-zero energy building. There are solar panels on the roof and on the parking structure and while the RSF will still be on the grid, the energy it produces should meet most, if not all of the buildings needs," said Jeff Baker with the NREL office of laboratory operations.
Insured Americans are using fewer medical services, raising questions about whether patients are consuming less health care as they pick up a greater share of the costs.
The drop in usage is showing up as health-care companies report financial results. Insurers, lab-testing companies, hospitals, and doctor-billing concerns say that patient visits, drug prescriptions, and procedures were down in the second quarter from year-ago levels.
Now that BP engineers have managed to place a cap on the company's bleeding well in the Gulf, the sprawling oil slicks seem to have retreated from the water's surface, claimed many media reports this week.
"Where is all the oil?" an AFP headline asked. Time magazine ran a piece suggesting that the environmental impact of the spill has been "exaggerated." The New York Times ran a story that said the "Gulf oil spill is vanishing fast." And this very news organization ran a story suggesting that oil-gobbling microbes are eating up a lot the oil.
These reports have angered many — particularly those close to the disaster who are still, well, seeing lots of oil.
Lauren Lawrence, dreams columnist for the New York Daily News, gave a little insight into what we really desire based on what we often dream of.
According to Lawrence, dreams are a way we handle conflict resolution. They are important to our daily lives because whatever we may be anxious about or might be stressing us out, we work out in our dreams.
If you remember a specific dream more than others, Lawrence says it is more important to you. If you have dreams about specific things such as teeth, it has a meaning that you may not expect.
Consider the case of Jean, whose life was saved by her ginger cat Topsy. "Topsy always waits until I am settled and then jumps on to the bottom of my bed and goes to sleep himself," says Jean.
"But one night he started acting in a really bizarre way. He jumped on my bed before I had got in it, circled around and around and then jumped back off again. It was as if he was trying to tell me something. He kept jumping on and off and was really frantic. It was impossible to sleep because Topsy was making so much commotion.
"I got up and as I did I started to feel shaky, sweaty and dizzy. Then it hit me. I'm a diabetic and I had forgotten to check my blood sugar levels before I went to bed. When I did my glucose test it had fallen dangerously low. If I'd fallen asleep I could have lost consciousness or died. I wouldn't have made it through the night."
July 30, 2010 From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine
Dear EarthTalk: I've noticed that wildflower blooms in the mountains have been coming earlier and earlier in recent years. Is this a sign of global warming? And what does this mean for the long term survival of these hardy yet rare plants? – Ashley J., via e-mail
As always, it's hard to pin specific year-to-year weather-variations and related phenomena–including altered blooming schedules for wildflowers–on global warming. But longer term analysis of seasonal flowering patterns and other natural events do indicate that global warming may be playing a role in how early wildflowers begin popping up in the high country.
Aspen sunflowers, like the one's pictured here, used
to first bloom in mid-May, but are now are doing so in
mid-April, a full month earlier. University of Maryland
ecologist David Inouye thinks that smaller snow packs
in the mountains are melting earlier due to global
warming, in turn triggering early blooms. beautifulcataya, courtesy Flickr
University of Maryland ecologist David Inouye has been studying wildflowers in the Rocky Mountains near Crested Butte, Colorado for four decades, and has noticed that blooms have indeed begun earlier over the last decade. Aspen sunflowers, among other charismatic high country wildflowers, used to first bloom in mid-May, but are now are doing so in mid-April, a full month earlier. Inouye thinks that smaller snow packs in the mountains are melting earlier due to global warming, in turn triggering early blooms.
Smaller snow packs not only mean fewer flowers (since they have less water to use in photosynthesis); they can also stress wildflower populations not accustomed to exposure to late-spring frost. According to Inouye's research, between 1992 and 1998 such frosts killed about a third of the Aspen sunflower buds in some 30 different study plots; but more recently, from 1999 through 2006, the typical mortality rate doubled, with three-quarters of all buds killed by frost in an average year thanks to earlier blooming. Read the rest of this entry »
We live in a toxic world. Whether you live next to an oil refinery or on a pristine mountaintop in the Rockies, you carry environmental toxins in your tissues. From heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury, and cadmium, emitted from smokestacks and vehicle exhaust, to pesticides, fertilizers, and PCB's released into rivers and soil, and phthalates that off-gas from household plastic products, we are all swimming in a soup of toxic chemicals.
Trent Northcutt, 42, a corporate executive in New York City, had been suffering from lower back pain and leg pain for about three years, to the point that he was "cautious about picking up the simplest thing," he remembers.
When he finally sought help, his doctor recommended acupuncture right off the bat. Northcutt ended up having six treatments over about eight months. Now, he says, "I don't have any back pain at all. I'm 100 percent good."
He once performed hypnotherapy on a couple of Oprah Winfrey's staff to get her to talk about his profession in a positive light.
Joe Stotts, a hypnotherapist from Pratt, Kansas, has spent 30 years helping people overcome a variety of personality and health issues including pain, addiction to smoking, weight loss, personal problems, phobias and more using hypnosis as his tool.
New research shows that Pycnogenol (an extract of the French maritime pine tree) may offer natural relief of allergies. Often marketed as a supplement for heart and circulatory health, Pycnogenol appears to ease symptoms of hay fever.
Dear EarthTalk: I've noticed that wildflower blooms in the mountains have been coming earlier and earlier in recent years. Is this a sign of global warming? And what does this mean for the long term survival of these hardy yet rare plants?
