A study from the financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard show cost-competitive gains for wind and solar |

Critics wanting to curb the enthusiasm of supporters of alternative energy have held up production cost as proof that coal and natural gas cannot be rivaled. Now there is a sign that the story changed. Diane Cardwell, reporter-covering energy for The New York Times, said that solar and wind energy are starting to win on price versus conventional fuels. Read more at:

Can small land areas actually influence the composition of the atmosphere on the planet |

Each year in the Northern Hemisphere, levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) drop in the summer as plants inhale, and then climb again as they exhale and decompose after their growing season. Over the past 50 years, the size of this seasonal swing has increased by as much as half, for reasons that aren't fully understood.

 

"The fact that such a small land area can actually affect the composition of the atmosphere is an amazing fingerprint of human activity on the planet."

 

Read more at:

Physics - The science of matter, energy and their interactions; is it in need of a revolution?

True physics of relativity and quantum mechanics don't get along well.  The two ideas are also incredibly constraining, and they make it challenging for physicists to think outside the box and develop new ideas and theories, Arkani-Hamed said.
Read More |   

☼Military Advisory Board Forewarning☼

For a group who has had great success in predicting threats, and yet does not advocate fear mongering, why is the U.S Military Advisory Board forewarning the American people?

During our decades of experience in the U.S. military, we have addressed many national security challenges, from containment and deterrence of the Soviet nuclear threat during the Cold War to political extremism and transnational terrorism in recent years.

Every branch of the United States Military is concerned about climate change. They have been since well before it became controversial.  FORBES ---> 

                              

Photosynthetic biochemical reactions at night |

Cells often face low-oxygen conditions at night, when there's no photosynthesis releasing oxygen into the air and all photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic organisms in the environment are respiring oxygen. When this happens, some organisms such as the single-cell alga Chlamydomonas are able to generate cellular energy from the breakdown of sugars without taking up oxygen. Photosynthesis is probably the most well-known aspect of plant biochemistry. It enables plants, algae, and select bacteria to transform the energy from sunlight during the daytime into chemical energy in the form of sugars and starches (as well as oils and proteins), and it involves taking in carbon dioxide from the air and releasing oxygen derived from water molecules.  Read More:

Sustainability, astrobiology illuminate future of life in the universe and civilization on Earth |

Two astrophysicists show how habitability studies of exoplanets hold important lessons for sustaining the civilization we have developed on Earth. This “astrobiological perspective” casts sustainability as a place-specific subset of habitability, or a planet’s ability to support life. While sustainability is concerned with a particular form of life on a particular planet, astrobiology asks the bigger question: what about any form of life, on any planet, at any time? “If they use energy to produce work, they’re generating entropy. And that entropy will almost certainly have strong feedback effects on their planet’s habitability, as we are already beginning to see here on Earth.”

Read more at:

This is a schematic of two classes of trajectories in SWEIT solution space. Red line shows a trajectory representing population collapse whereby development of energy harvesting technologies allows for rapid population growth which then drives increases in planetary forcing. As planetary support systems change state the SWEIT population is unable to maintain its own internal systems and collapses. Blue line shows a trajectory representing sustainability in which population levels and energy use approach levels that do not push planetary systems into unfavorable states.

Without photosynthesis or oxygen, basically all recognizable life that we see in our landscape would be gone |

A world without plants would be a world without oxygen, uninhabitable for us and for many creatures. We know plants release oxygen by absorbing carbon dioxide and breaking down water using sunlight through the process of photosynthesis. However, we know little about the mechanics of how plants create oxygen during photosynthesis. A breakthrough that will help advance our understanding of this critical ecological process was made recently by scientists at LSU.

"Without photosynthesis or oxygen, basically all recognizable life that we see in our landscape would be gone: no animals, no plants," said Terry Bricker, Moreland Family Professor in LSU's Department of Biological Sciences.                                                  Read More |