Image:  Harvard's Wyss Institute - Turning shrimp shells into plastic: Harvard's Wyss Institute comes up with fully degradable bioplastic.

news.harvard.edu - May 5th, 2014

For many people, “plastic” is a one-word analog for environmental disaster. It is made from precious petroleum, after all, and once discarded in landfills and oceans, it takes centuries to degrade.

Then came apparent salvation: “bioplastics,” durable substances made from renewable cellulose, a plant-based polysaccharide.

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Image: Social media and increasingly accessible smartphones help groups mobilise around the world. Photograph: Prasit Chansareekorn/Flickr Vision

theguardian.org - March 13th, 2014 - Hansdeep Singh, Jaspreet Singh and Linda Raftree

Technology has huge potential to be used for social good. Mobiles and mapping software can be used to gather data, and visualise patterns and trends; predictive analytics can be used to help translate 'big data' into useful statistics; unmanned aerial vehicles can monitor real-time crises; and social media helps mobilise groups around the world.

These technologies are getting more accessible to diverse groups by the day.

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submittted by Margery Schab   

Strawberry Energy

treehugger.com - by Derek Markham - March 14, 2014

In a bid to bring more renewable energy choices to the public, while educating people on the benefits of solar power, one Serbian startup is building public solar charging stations that will energize mobile gadgets and serve as a social hub.

The vision of Strawberry Energy is to make renewable energy sources more accessible for all people, and to show that solar power and other clean energy solutions aren't just abstract concepts, but are instead practical and desirable. The way they're helping to get that message across is through their public solar charging stations, dubbed Strawberry Trees, which offer free charging for mobile devices, and in some cases, free WiFi.

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CREDIT: AP Photo/Gus Ruelas

thinkprogress.org - by Annie-Rose Strasser - June 28, 2014

The latest way that Facebook has been peeking into its users’ personal lives may be the most surprising yet: Facebook researches have published a scientific paper that reveals the company has been conducting psychological experiments on its users to manipulate their emotions.

The experiments sought to prove the phenomenon of “emotional contagion” — as in, whether you’ll be more happy if those in your Facebook news feed are.

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RESEARCH STUDY - Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks

It begins in the morning. The victim awakens feeling unwell. They’re without appetite. Their head aches. Sore throat. Fever. Chills.

What’s happening to the victim’s body isn’t dissimilar to other diseases that attack the immune system, but this one’s substantially more aggressive. “Exactly when and where you caught Ebola virus is unclear,”wrote Lancaster University lecturer Derek Gatherer. “It can take anywhere between two and 21 days from initial infection to the first symptoms. 

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(CNN) -- The World Health Organization says "drastic action is needed" to stop the deadly Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa. It has sent teams of experts to help locals deal with the epidemic and WHO plans to meet next week to discuss how to contain it.

With Ebola continuing to spread in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, bringing the epidemic under control will require a massive deployment of resources by governments in West Africa and aid organizations, according to the international medical organization Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which also warned that it has reached the limits of what its teams can do.

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Earth's surface oceans are quite apparent, even from satellite images of our blue marble, but now scientists have found oceans' worth of water are hidden deep in Earth's mantle, locked up in a mineral called ringwoodite. 
Credit: NASA/NOAA

npr.org - by L. Carol Ritchie - June 15, 2014

. . . Scientists have discovered evidence of a vast reservoir of water hiding up to 400 miles beneath the surface.

The discovery could transform our understanding of how the planet was formed, suggesting that Earth's water may have come from within, rather than from collisions with large, icy comets.

The water is trapped in a blue mineral called ringwoodite that sits in the mantle, a hot, rocky layer between the Earth's crust and outer core.

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CLICK HERE - STUDY - Dehydration melting at the top of the lower mantle

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Photo: UNHCR

unhcr.org - June 20, 2014

GENEVA, June 20 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency reported today on World Refugee Day that the number of refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people worldwide has, for the first time in the post-World War II era, exceeded 50 million people.

UNHCR's annual Global Trends report, which is based on data compiled by governments and non-governmental partner organizations, and from the organization's own records, shows 51.2 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2013, fully 6 million more than the 45.2 million reported in 2012.

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Image: The UAV Map, which will go live shortly, is inspired by Travel by Drone Map displayed above.

irevolution.net - June 18th, 2014 - Patrick Meier

Journalists and citizen journalists are already using small UAVs during disasters. And some are also posting their aerial videos online: Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), Moore Tornado, Arkansas Tornado and recent floods in Florida, for example. Like social media, this new medium—user-generated (aerial) content—can be used by humanitarian organizations to augment their damage assessments and situational awareness.

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Staff of the 'Doctors without Borders' ('Medecin sans frontieres') carry the body of a person killed by viral haemorrhagic fever, at a center for victims of the Ebola virus in Guekedou in April.  AFP / Getty Images

startribune.com - by Sarah Dilorenzo - June 20, 2014

DAKAR, Senegal — The Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa is "totally out of control," according to a senior official for Doctors Without Borders, who says the medical group is stretched to the limit in responding.

The outbreak has caused more deaths than any other of the disease, said another official with the medical charity. . .

. . . International organizations and the governments involved need to send in more health experts and increase public educationmessages about how to stop the spread of the disease, Bart Janssens, the director of operations for the medical group in Brussels, told The Associated Press on Friday.

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http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-control-doctors-without-borders-125337702.html

Conakry - A second spike in Ebola virus cases has panicked residents and health officials in Guinea, who fear a west African outbreak of the killer disease may now be out of control.

"Ebola cases are worrying. We do not know what to expect," Mamady Traore, a trader in the suburbs of the capital Conakry, told AFP on Thursday. "Sometimes you are told it has been [contained] and sometimes you hear it has reappeared in other towns and villages."

According to figures released by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday, a total of 398 cases...

Former US Vice President Al Gore
Anthony Harvey/Getty Images for Free The Children

It's time to accelerate the shift toward a low-carbon future

rollingstone.com - by Al Gore - June 18, 2014

In the struggle to solve the climate crisis, a powerful, largely unnoticed shift is taking place. The forward journey for human civilization will be difficult and dangerous, but it is now clear that we will ultimately prevail. The only question is how quickly we can accelerate and complete the transition to a low-carbon civilization.

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On Monday June 16, MSF's hospital in Farandallah was hit by two bombs.  Photo: MSF

Amidst Bombing of South Kordofan Village, MSF Facility Attacked

msf.org - June 17, 2014

NEW YORK/PARIS, JUNE 17, 2014– During an aerial attack on a Sudanese village, Sudan’s air force bombed and partially destroyed a hospital run by the international medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in the war-torn South Kordofan region Monday, depriving civilians of critical medical care, the organization said today.

Five wounded, one MSF staff member injured

As bombs struck the village of Farandalla on June 16, two hit the MSF hospital there. Five people were wounded in the village and one MSF staff member was injured at the hospital. MSF medical teams treated the wounded and organized the transfer of three severely injured patients to another hospital.

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Proposed expansion of a marine monument

President Obama wants to use his executive authority to expand the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, but he won't decide until after getting public input.

SOURCE: Interior Department. GRAPHIC: Patterson Clark. Published June 17, 2014.

washingtonpost.com - by Juliet Eilperin - June 17, 2014

President Obama announced Tuesday his intent to make a broad swath of the central Pacific Ocean off-limits to fishing, energy exploration and other activities.

The proposal, slated to go into effect later this year after a comment period, could create the world’s largest marine sanctuary and double the area of ocean globally that is fully protected.

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