According to a new report from the National Institute of Medicine, U.S. Air Force reservists who (a decade after the Vietnam War) worked in C-123 aircraft that had sprayed Agent Orange during the war, were exposed to dangerous levels of the herbicide. Even as recently as 2009, samples taken from the aircraft showed the presence of Agent Orange residues in or above the cautionary range.

Agent Orange contained "minute traces" of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), more commonly known as dioxin. Through studies done on laboratory animals, dioxin has been shown to be highly toxic even in minute doses; human exposure to the chemical could be associated with serious health issues such as muscular dysfunction, inflammation, birth defects, nervous system disorders and even the development of various cancers. Returning Vietnam veterans and their families reported a range of afflictions, including rashes and other skin irritations, miscarriages, psychological symptoms, Type-2 diabetes, birth defects in children and cancers such as Hodgkin's disease, prostate cancer and leukemia.

The Agent Orange Act of 1991 provides health care and disability coverage for health conditions that have been deemed presumptively service-related and due to herbicide exposure during the Vietnam War. The 1,500 to 2,100 U.S. Air Force Reserve personnel who worked aboard these C-123 aircraft are currently ineligible to receive benefits, as it has thus-far been restricted to "boots on the ground" servicemen.

It has long been a mystery why quick and agile birds cannot out-maneuver automobiles and jetliners. This results in the deaths of thousands of birds every year and can injure drivers or cause potentially catastrophic jet engine failures. It's been estimated that bird strikes cause $400 million of damage every year in the US and up to $1.2 billion damage to commercial aircraft globally.

To work out why the strikes happen, a team of scientists from the US Department of Agriculture's National Wildlife Research Center in Ohio, Indiana State University and Purdue University, also in Indiana, used virtual reality, to avoid injuring birds. Researchers found that birds start to fly away from a vehicle when it is 98 ft (30 meters) away, no matter its speed. Thus they left too late to escape vehicles traveling faster than 75 mph (120kph).

The scientists suggested that installing lights on aircraft could warn the birds to flee from a longer distance away, reducing avian deaths.

In August 2014, California became the first state to impose a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags at large retail stores. In addition, there will be a 10 cent minimum charge for recycled paper bags, reusable plastic bags, and compostable bags at certain locations. The ban is widely supported by environmentalists, who say the bags contribute to litter and pollution. In California, there is particular concern that the bags, when swept out to sea, could harm ocean life.

The state-wide ban was meant take effect on July 1, 2015, but the measure has triggered a harsh reaction from plastic bag manufacturers, who say their product can be easily recycled. An effort to kill the ban on single-use plastic grocery bags advanced this week after bag makers spent several million dollars on a campaign to gather signatures for a proposed ballot initiative to overturn it. Mr. Daniels of Hilex Poly said the plastic bag has been unfairly scapegoated for a variety of environmental ills. Thin plastic bags are reused, he said: They are repurposed as lunch bags and trash can liners, and they come in handy for pet cleanup.

Dozens of cities and counties throughout the state have already implemented local bans. Abbi Waxman, a television writer in Los Angeles, said, "I have, I'm not kidding, about 40 reusable bags at home, because I feel so guilty when I come without them that I buy more each time." Ms. Moya, a telemarketer and a mother of two said she has begun stockpiling plastic bags at home because paper bags "are always breaking. It's stupid, and it makes it really hard for us," she said, as she waited in the rain for a taxi with her disintegrating paper bags.

Hawaii's Kilauea lava flow that began in June appears to have stalled, after slowing for more than a month. Coincidentally, just in time for residents of the islands to prepare to be hit by tropical storm Ana. The lava flow did relatively little damage, destroying roads but leaving threatened communities relatively unscathed. But active volcanoes are unpredictable, and the flow could resume at any time.

With that, we take a look back on ways that people have tried, and often failed, to contain or divert lava flows. From George S Patton ordering bombing runs on Hawaii's Mauna Loa in 1935, to spraying 6.8 billion liters of water on Iceland's Eldfell lava flow over a five month period, dismissively called "peeing on the lava". The US Geological Survey suggests that the Iceland (and Etna) diversion "may not have succeeded had their respective eruptions continued".

If Ana's winds increase to hurricane-force, it could become the first hurricane to make landfall on the islands in the past 22 years, illustrating Hawaii's peculiar immunity to hurricanes that scientists have been left to speculate about for decades. The island of Kauai being the notable exception.

Over the past ten years, there has been a stunning surge in the volume of used lead acid batteries exported from the U.S. Between 2002 and 2013 U.S. exports increased a staggering 19,902%. Last year alone, U.S. companies exported 639,670 metric tonnes of batteries, with as much as 92% going to Mexico.

The impact of this exodus is two-fold. From industry's standpoint, domestic recyclers are seeing a constant erosion of their feedstock, resulting in excess capacity that endangers jobs and the survival of domestic recycling. From a broader viewpoint, it imperils Mexico's environment and the health of workers due to the country's poor track record of secondary lead smelting oversight and regulation.

While EPA's June release of a final rule restricting the export of lead-containing CRT displays offers some encouragement, it is hard to ignore the double standard. Why focus the effort on obsolete CRTs when America has more cars than people?

http://www.waste-management-world.com/articles/print/volume-15/issue-4/features/trash-talking.html

At 70 percent complete, and slated to be open and operating November of 2015, the Carlsbad Desalination Project is predicted to be, at 50-million gallons per day, the largest and most energy-efficient seawater desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere. And it will supply enough water to meet about 7 percent of San Diego county's water needs.

The water authority has pledged to buy the desalinated water at $2,014 to $2,257 per acre-foot. About twice the cost of traditional water supplies, but about half that of desalination plants just 10 years ago. An acre-foot is enough to supply two homes for a year. During the first full year of production - in 2016 - the desalinated water will add about $5.14 per month to the typical household's water bill, according to the water authority.

"This source, since it's not dependent on rainfall and snow melt, is the (region's) first drought-proof source of water."

But they're not going all-in with desalination. San Diego city's plan to purify wastewater to drinking-water standards is the next major item on their agenda. The city envisions constructing a water-purification plant that can generate 83 million gallons of drinking water per day by 2035. The purification plant could also help eliminate the need for $1.8 billion in overdue upgrades to the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant by reducing the amount of wastewater that must be piped to sea.

Given the huge evolution and expansion of the consumer electronics market, we are generating a lot of discarded, electronic devices. The New York Times ponders Is smart garbage the next booming category of electronic waste?

By some measures, we are witnessing a rapid change in computing and the swift evolution of relationships between humans and automated helpers. A vision of the future is materializing before our very eyes, the development of networked helper bots that will manage every aspect of our lives, automating it and, theoretically, improving it by simplifying it.

But what happens when those devices go into disrepair - or worse, obsolescence - and their sleeker, faster successors go on sale, as part of the relentless cycle common among most major hardware companies?

A study on plants using data from over 1000 forests has found that the size and age of the plant has more of an impact on their productivity than temperature and precipitation.

"A fundamental assumption of our models for understanding how climate influences the functioning of ecosystems is that temperature and precipitation directly influence how fast plants can take up and use carbon dioxide," said Enquist, a professor in the UA's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology whose research lab led the study.

"Essentially, warm and wet environments are thought to allow plant metabolism to run fast, while cold and drier environments slow down metabolism and hence lower biomass production in ecosystems," he said. "This assumption makes sense, as we know from countless experiments that temperature and water control how fast plants can grow. However, when applied to a the scale of entire ecosystems, this assumption appears to not be correct."

To test the assumption on the scale of ecosystems, the team developed a new mathematical theory that assesses the relative importance of several hypothesized drivers of net primary productivity. That theory was then evaluated using a massive new dataset assembled from more than 1,000 different forest locations across the world.

The analysis revealed a new and general mathematical relationship that governs worldwide variation in terrestrial ecosystem net primary productivity. The team found that plant size and plant age control most of the variation in plant productivity, not temperature and precipitation as traditionally thought.

The abstract is available here.

Ever wish you could be transported across town at 250 kilometers per hour via magnetic transport tech? Get your butt over to Tel Aviv, Israel, then. According to the guys over at PanicaTech, Israel is getting ready to build the world's first ultra-modern transport system. From the article:

Company SkyTran, based at the National Research Center NASA Ames in California (USA), is going to create in Tel Aviv, the world's first high-speed rail transportation system-Maglev. Each "composition" will be designed for two people. At the moment, together with engineers from SkyTran NASA engaged in manufacturing the necessary elements, structures and capsules, which will then be sent to Israel for further installation of the transport network.

Initially, before the end of 2015 it is planned to construct a circular branch length of only about 400 meters. To test. If all goes well, then Tel Aviv will become the first city in the world, which will be installed full futuristic public transport system Maglev.

[Ed. note: yes, but can you drink a coffee at that speed?]

Since retiring as CEO (in 2000), Chief Architect (2008), and Chairman of the Board (2013) of Microsoft, Bill Gates has devoted most of his professional life to the work of his philanthropic organization. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provides grants to charities, scientists and others to fight disease and poverty, and to provide educational and technological assistance, mostly in the developing world. But Gates remains interested in science and technology of all kinds, and climate change and 'clean energy' in particular.

He has just blogged about the serious underfunding of clean energy research and development in the US - from both government and the private sector - and backed up his claim with four stunningly clear charts, based on publicly available data, showing the rapid rise of energy-related carbon emissions over the past 150 years; comparing US R&D expenditures on energy vs. other fields (e.g. defense, health care); and showing where the US stacks up against other countries (middle of the pack).

Gates advocates tripling US Government expenditures on long-term energy research, and increasing private sector research indirectly by expanding grants and streamlining regulations.