Raising mule...

 

Darn shop keepers, keeping shop ain't sweeping shop, dust in a broke ain't a rope a dope...

Um'o get me some fire liquer, and teach them stone throwers a back yard ain't mine till it's seen me asleep...

 

Soil Microbes Accelerate Global Warming

(July 13, 2011) — More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes soil to release the potent greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide, new research published in this week's edition of Nature reveals. "This feedback to our changing atmosphere means that nature is not as efficient in slowing global warming as we previously thought," said Dr Kees Jan van Groenigen, Research Fellow at the Botany department at the School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, and lead author of the study.

---

Van Groenigen, along with colleagues from Northern Arizona University and the University of Florida, gathered all published research to date from 49 different experiments mostly from North America, Europe and Asia, and conducted in forests, grasslands, wetlands, and agricultural fields, including rice paddies. The common theme in the experiments was that they all measured how extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere affects how soils take up or release the gases methane and nitrous oxide.
The research team used a statistical technique called meta-analysis, or quantitative data synthesis, a powerful tool for finding general patterns in a sea of conflicting results. "Until now, there was no consensus on this topic, because results varied from one study to the next," explained Professor Craig Osenberg of the University of Florida and co-author of the study. "However, two strong patterns emerged when we analysed all the data: firstly more CO₂ boosted soil emissions of nitrous oxide in all the ecosystems, and secondly, in rice paddies and wetlands, extra CO₂ caused soils to release more methane." Wetlands and rice fields are two major sources of methane emissions to the atmosphere.
The culprits are specialised microscopic organisms in soil, that respire the chemicals nitrate and carbon dioxide, like humans respire oxygen. The microbes also produce methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide, 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Their oxygen-free habit is one of the reasons these microorganisms flourish when atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase. Van Groenigen explained: "The higher CO₂ concentrations reduce plant water use, making soils wetter, in turn reducing the availability of oxygen in soil, favoring these microorganisms."
The other reason these microorganisms become more active is that increasing CO₂ makes plants grow faster, and the extra plant growth supplies soil microorganisms with extra energy, pumping up their metabolism. This extra plant growth is one of the main ways ecosystems could slow climate change. With more CO₂, plants grow more, soaking up carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, and, the hope is that they also lock away carbon in wood and soil. But this new work shows that at least some of that extra carbon also provides fuel to microorganisms whose byproducts, nitrous oxide and methane, end up in the atmosphere and counteract the cooling effects of more plant growth.
"It's an ecological point and counterpoint: the more the plants soak up CO₂, the more microbes release these more potent greenhouse gases," said Bruce Hungate, Professor at Northern Arizona University and co-author on the study. "The microbial counterpoint is only partial," continued Hungate, "reducing the cooling effect of plants by about 20%."
But it's an ecological surprise, too, and one that climate models will need to reckon with as they further refine pictures of the climate of the future. "By overlooking the key role of these two greenhouse gases, previous studies may have overestimated the potential of ecosystems to mitigate the greenhouse effect," van Groenigen concluded.

Critters and hairbrushes...

It''ll be a pastars rivet on a yarns tooth when them sky fairies born that belly vapour!!!

American Airlines Parent Files for Bankruptcy

By MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED

•  

• The press release

Scott Olson/Getty Images

 

 

The baggage area that services passengers of American at O’Hare Airport in November.

The parent company of American Airlines said on Tuesday that it has filed for bankruptcy protection, in an effort to reduce labor costs and shed its heavy debt load.
American’s parent, the AMR Corporation, was the last major airline in the United States to resist filing for Chapter 11 in an effort to shed contracts, a move that analysts said left it less nimble than many of its competitors.
AMR intends to operate normally throughout the bankruptcy process, as previous airlines have done. Thomas horton, formerly AMR’s president, took over as chairman and chief executive for Gerald Arpey, who is retiring/
“Our board decided that it was necessary to take this step now to restore the company’s profitability, operating flexibility, and financial strength,” Mr. Horton said in a statement.
As of Sept. 30, AMR had $24.7 billion in assets and $29.6 billion in debt, according to a filing with the federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan. The company added that it has about $4.1 billion in cash and short-term investments that it can use to pay off vendors and suppliers.
Its largest unsecured creditors include the Wilmington Trust and Manufacturers and Trust Company, which represent several classes of bonds. The company is being advised by the investment bank Rothschild and the law firms Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Paul Hastings, Debevoise & Plipton and the Groom Law Group.

When them town folk press them breaches, law is a mighty fine thing...

 Round them there ankles? No mam...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9APEzXQbj4&feature=related

Yellow diamond sold for £6.89m

The world's largest yellow diamond was auctioned by Sotheby's

The world's largest known yellow diamond has been sold at auction for more than 10.9 million US dollars (£6.89 million).
Auction house Sotheby's had estimated that the pear-shaped Sun-Drop Diamond would fetch between 11 and 15 million dollars (£6.95 million to £9.48 million) at auction in Geneva.
It was bought by a telephone bidder. The sales price does not include the auctioneer's commission and any taxes the buyer might have to pay.
The diamond was sold by New York-based company Cora International, which discovered the jewel in South Africa last year.
Gemologists rate the 110.3 carat diamond as fancy vivid yellow - the highest possible colour grading.
The colour in yellow diamonds is caused by nitrogen impurities trapped within carbon molecules and hardened over the course of millions of years.

A sugar stick in crocsville ain't no mountain barley dance...

Swig, swag and a tellers jet lag.

Thing is, a mules work on a donkey ain't a horse's stud, them prairies land some keyote's some easier picking's in a man's back yard, but, a man's day's work ain't a holla in the yonder's ass, no sir, squating in them there cactus's ain't a keyote.


http://video.uk.msn.com/watch/video/awesome-trampoline-wall-tricks/1j4ye9iet

Npower fined £2m over complaints

Energy supplier npower has been fined £2 million by regulator Ofgem for mishandling customer complaints.

Npower has been fined over customer complaints

Energy supplier npower has been fined £2 million by regulator Ofgem for mishandling customer complaints.

It is the second heavy fine levied on one of the "big six" energy firms over complaints handling in the space of four months following a £2.5 million fine for British Gas in July.

Ofgem said npower failed to record all details of the complaints it received, did not give customers enough details of the redress service offered by the energy ombudsman and failed to put in adequate processes to deal with complaints.

The regulator said it is also investigating the way EDF Energy, another of the big six suppliers, handles its complaints.

Sarah Harrison, Ofgem's senior partner for sustainable development, said: "Consumers have a right to expect that energy companies will comply with the standards. Npower failed to do so and, although it took remedial action, it has incurred a penalty for failing consumers."

Ofgem added that the fine would have been higher had the company not admitted the breaches of regulations and taken action to improve its complaints procedures.

Npower, which is owned by German group RWE, is the UK's fourth largest provider and supplies about 3.3 million customers. This month it put up its average tariffs for gas by 15.7% and electricity by 7.2% because of rising wholesale power prices.

The firm was fined £1.8 million in 2009 by Ofgem for mis-selling after complaints from customers about its doorstep sales team.

Adam Scorer, director of external affairs at consumer rights group Consumer Focus, said: "It is welcome to see Ofgem willing to hammer home the point that unless energy companies start treating consumers fairly there will be a price to pay.

"Customers need to be confident that suppliers will deal with their complaint quickly and fairly and that there will be consequences when they don't play fair."

A stiff whooper new mornings present ain't a hair of the dog round them clumsy city folk toiling on the train tracks, no sir, me, a cottons tanning neck and a real pritty flask of yonder cherub milk...

Yiiiiii haaaaaa!!!!!!!!!

Horse husslers, cattle and broom weeds.

Me and ma look mighty strange brushing them there praries with the hounds hollering yonder, mule thirst breeds a flowers bredth of an acre...

Knights tour...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Knight%27s_tour_anim_2.gif


Stem, waters stone throw and a bean, three days ferment and a whiskeys sock for the clock is a days graze!!!

September remember...

A while is a while and a river is a place man should keep clean if his face is seen... Darn it...

A king on country is like looking at his cuffs, you tell how much care is in the garden, but, the garden grows, well, ain't much complaining around the business register...

 

Space Junk Problem Reaches 'Tipping Point'

  

       

It's bad news for all you aspiring space tourists out there. Soon, the only ticket into space may be of the suborbital variety and nothing more ambitious, like actually flying into orbit.
Earth is now surrounded by so much space junk that a leading expert on the issue has declared that we are at a "tipping point" -- it may soon become too dangerous to venture into low-Earth orbit (LEO) through fear of having a manned spaceship punctured or a communications satellite trashed.
SEE ALSO: Space Station Alert as Debris Makes 250 Meter Near Miss
Ex-NASA scientist Donald Kessler led a National Research Council study into the orbital situation, and the outlook is grim. In Thursday's announcement on the study's findings, the amount of orbital rubbish "has reached a tipping point, with enough currently in orbit to continually collide and create even more debris, raising the risk of spacecraft failures."

WATCH VIDEO: NASA TRIES TO BREAK SATELLITES.

This is the nightmare scenario of the Space Age, and Kessler is all-to familiar with its ramifications. In 1978, when working in NASA's Environmental Effects Project Office at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, he developed what became known as the "Kessler Syndrome."
As a space debris expert, Kessler realized that at some point in the future, after mankind has dumped all kinds of refuse, dead satellites, and nuts and bolts in LEO, the condition may be met when collisions between pieces of space junk become commonplace. After each collision, more and more pieces of debris are created, causing further collisions -- a cascade effect would follow. Kessler now has the dubious pleasure of having a space "syndrome" named after him.
SEE ALSO: New Radar Net to Catch More Space Junks
"We've lost control of the environment," he said. And he's not wrong -- more junk is being left in orbit than ever and we have no way (yet) of removing the trash.
Although we may not be seeing the Kessler Syndrome in full-swing, there have been two recent incidents that dramatically demonstrate what's going on above our heads.
In 2009, two satellites -- a defunct Soviet-era satellite and a functioning Iridium communications satellite -- smashed into one other at a relative speed of 7.2 miles per second, creating 1,700 pieces of debris large enough to be tracked from Earth. Each of those chunks of shredded satellite became more pieces of space junk to be avoided.
SEE ALSO: CubeSails to Drag Space Junk from Orbit
When you consider how big space is (even in LEO) and the vanishingly small likelihood of two spacecraft bumping into one another, you suddenly realize that it must be getting crowded up there.
However, the worst contributor to the space junk problem came two years earlier when the Chinese tested an anti-satellite missile on their Fengyun-1C satellite. The system obviously worked; over 2,700 pieces of the destroyed craft remain in orbit today.
These two incidents doubled the amount of debris buzzing around.
So what can be done?
The study doesn't thoroughly examine the ways we might clean up our orbital neighborhood -- although it does single out some ideas examined by DARPA -- but it does stress that we need to act soon, before it's too late.
Image: An artist's impression of the space junk problem (satellites are overemphasized). Credit: ESA


Lemons and water in a ranch glove grip for a day makes a fine refreshment for the cowboys around them parts...

Cowboy shoes???

Them there cotton pickin rooting tooting keyote's, a howling and a stealing yonder crops blowing round the barn side view, I'm a yawning afternoon on them there plains, me and daisy, old mcdonald, and sing a song a six pence are mulling them vultures on that there horizon, they'll be a lot for answering on them townsman, still, a liquering bickering ol fool should be a womans delight in a barnyard full of hays fright...

Lol... me getting old, the walking does the talking when the thought is at court, hanging for the banging, and the sack for the ladies pack...

I''LL BE COMING ROUND THE MOUNTAIN WHEN SHE COMES, I'LL BE COMING ROUND THE MOUNTAIN WHEN SHE COMES, I'LL BE COMING ROUND THE MOUNTAIN, COMING ROUND THE MOUNTAIN, COMING ROUND THE MOUNTAIN WHEN SHE COMES, YII HAAA!!!!!

Pollution Killing Flower's Fragrance
Environmental Scientists Fume About Disappearing Flower Fragrances

August 1, 2008 — Biochemists have shown that air pollution inhibits the distance that flower's fragrances can travel. Scent molecules usually travel easily in the air, but pollutants break them apart, which destroys the smell. The researchers found that these delicate odors responsible for attracting bees and other pollinating insects are traveling as little as one-third of their former distances.

---

Soon, it may be harder to stop and smell the roses. Something is killing off flower's sweet smell. Now, we can discover what the culprit is.
Ah, the sweet smell of flowers can be hard to resist. When you go and visit a garden the first temptation you have is to smell a flower, explains Jose Fuentes, Ph.D., atmospheric scientist University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va.
But hurry up and catch a whiff while you still can.
Atmospheric and environmental scientists report that flower's scents are being destroyed. What's to blame for the disappearing aromas? Pollution. Fumes from cars and factories are pumping pollutants into the air, which may be destroying flower's fragrances.
"What we find is that these fragrances only travel one-third of the distance that they used to travel," Dr. Fuentes says.
Flowers produce scent molecules that travel easily in the air. Pollutants break apart the fragrance molecules, destroying their smell. Our noses will miss the pleasant fragrance, but bee's depend on it.
"The pollinators are spending more time trying to locate food and less time trying to actually harvest food that they need," Dr. Fuentes notes.
Wiping out flower scents could have a major impact on bee populations. But we can help bring back the bees and flower smells.
Dr. Fuentes explains, "One specific action that we can take is to really work towards having a very clean environment."
Flower populations may also diminish because plants need bee's to pollinate that allows flowers to reproduce. Now, we can make a clean effort for a chance to smell the flowers.

HOW WE SMELL: A smell is the sensory response to the complex mixtures of chemicals in the air around us, called odorants. We are able to sense these chemicals because they bind to protein receptors that line the cells in our nose. Each kind of receptor can only detect specific chemical compositions, producing the sensation of different smells. These receptor proteins are produced from about 1,000 different genes: almost 3 percent of our total gene count.
THE NOSE KNOWS: Our sense of taste is partially enhanced by smell, which is why food may taste bland when we have a cold that blocks the nasal passages. Nerve receptor cells within the nose detect odors carried into the organ by air, and transmit signals to the brain through the olfactory nerve.
ABOUT AIR POLLUTION: Air pollution is made up of many kinds of gases, droplets and particles that can remain suspended in the air. This makes the air dirty. The easiest way to visualize airborne particles (also called aerosols) is to exhale outside on a cold day and watch the fog come out of your mouth when water vapor forms water droplets. The same thing happens in the atmosphere, but for different reasons. Under certain conditions individual molecules come together and form particles -- a chemical soup. In the city, air pollution may be caused by cars, buses and airplanes, as well as industry and construction. Ground-level ozone is created when engine and fuel gases already released into the air interact when sunlight hits them. Ozone levels increase in cities when the air is still, the sun is bright and the temperature is warm.

Ranch hands apply...

Been airing the water respectfully these recents, listening a yonder and afar tells reminisce days bounty,  plentiful teaching them desk makers in them there workshops...

 

University fee levels announced

 

Almost three-fifths of universities will charge the maximum 9,000 pounds for at least one of their undergraduate courses

More than a third of English universities have been granted permission to charge fees of £9,000 as standard from 2012, it has been confirmed.
Students starting degree courses from next year face average tuition fees of almost £8,500. Overall, almost three fifths of universities will charge the maximum £9,000 for at least one of their undergraduate courses.
University fee levels for next year have been released by the Office for Fair Access (OFFA), as it published each institution's plans for preventing disadvantaged youngsters being priced out of higher education.
Every university which wants to charge more than £6,000 in fees has had to have its proposals for recruiting poorer students approved by OFFA.
These "access agreements" will be reviewed each year, with institutions that fail to meet their agreed targets on recruitment and retention facing fines or losing the right to charge more than £6,000.
OFFA on Tuesday confirmed that 123 universities, plus 18 further education (FE) colleges submitted access agreements for approval. Of these, all but two, both from FE colleges, have been agreed so far.
Among those that have had their access agreements approved, 80 universities and one FE college (58%) will now charge fees of £9,000, the maximum allowed, for one or more of their courses.
More than a third (38%) of universities - 47 out of the 123 that submitted proposals - will charge £9,000 across the board. This includes many of England's most elite institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge.
When FE colleges are taken into account, 48 institutions out of 139 will set the maximum fee as standard. But OFFA insisted that just 7% of institutions will have an estimated average fee of £9,000 after fee waivers for poorer students are taken into account.
These institutions are Bradford University; Durham University; University of East London; University College Falmouth; Lincoln University; University of the Arts London; University College London; University of the West of England, Bristol; and Plymouth College of Art.




How a man has a family at that age in them concrete mainframes a liquer boy could attempt his reason with his cup, but, them tumbling broom plants seem real much and plenty...

Bag of grain and valley drips of water, right there yes sir, yonder and me, we talk plenny...



It's a mighty fine day there cowboy, you could walk your way right over that there ridge and collect you some hours on the sleep...


Watering the ground with that there grain and grape cook.