Bir kimsenin özgür olarak gelişmesi, herkesin özgür olarak gelişmesinin şartıdır.
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By Elsa Youngsteadt
ScienceNOW Daily News
15 February 2008
BOSTON–Children with autism spectrum disorder are unable to sustain play, make-believe games, and fluid social interaction–at least with real people. But psychologist and linguist Justine Cassell of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, says that interaction with virtual peers releases hidden social skills in these children.
Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008 By BRYAN WALSH
www.time.com
Maybe it was simply too good to be true. For proponents, biofuels — petroleum substitutes made from plant matter like corn or sugar cane — seemed to promise everything. Using biofuels rather than oil would reduce the greenhouse gases that accelerate global warming, because plants absorb carbon dioxide when they grow, balancing out the carbon released when burned in cars or trucks. Using homegrown biofuels would help the U.S. reduce its utter dependence on foreign oil, and provide needed income for rural farmers around the world. And unlike cars powered purely by electric batteries or hydrogen fuel cells — two alternate technologies that have yet to pan out — biofuels could be used right now.
If a new report is to be believed, an entire generation of children has grown up drinking a toxic chemical from their earliest months: bisphenol A. A consortium of North American environmental and health groups released a paper Thursday showing that many major-brand baby bottles leach bisphenol A, and is now calling for a moratorium on the use of the compound — used to make polycarbonate plastic — in food and beverage containers.
Researchers tested 19 baby bottles purchased in nine U.S. states and Canada. Bottle brands included Avent, Dr. Brown, Evenflo, Disney, Gerber and Playtex. When the bottles were heated to 175 degrees F (80 degrees C), every one of them leached bisphenol A at about 5 to 7 parts per billion. The report also suggested that because of the chemical makeup of bisphenol A, it may leach more in fatty or acidic liquids, such as milk or apple juice, than in water.
One billion people will die from tobacco-related causes by the end of the century if current consumption trends continue, according to a global report released Thursday by the World Health Organization (WHO).
At a press conference held in midtown Manhattan, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose charitable organization, Bloomberg Philanthropies, contributed $2 million to conduct the study, joined top WHO officials to present the findings. Among the litany of sobering statistics: 5.4 million people die each year — one every six seconds — from lung cancer, heart disease or other illness directly linked to tobacco use. Smoking killed 100 million people in the 20th century, and the yearly death toll could pass 8 million as soon as 2030 — 80% of those deaths will be in the developing world, where tobacco use is growing most rapidly. “We’re on a collision course,” said Dr. Douglas Bettcher, director of WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative.
Devamı...
Clearing raw land to produce biofuels actually contributes to global warming by emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, researchers have warned.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from new croplands carved into rainforests, savannas, wetlands or grasslands would easily surpass the overall amount of CO2 emissions reduced through the use of biofuels, according to a report in the Feb. 8 edition of Science.