General Awareness

ENVIRONMENT - August 2019

Aug 2019

Mar 15, 2021

Climate Change: 'Forever Plant' Sea grass Faces Uncertain Future

The green, underwater meadows of Posidonia seagrass that surround the Balearic Islands are one of the world's most powerful, natural defences against climate change.
A hectare of this ancient, delicate plant can soak up 15 times more carbon dioxide every year than a similar sized piece of the Amazon rainforest.
But this global treasure is now under extreme pressure from tourists, from development and ironically from climate change.
Posidonia oceanica is found all over the Mediterranean but the area between Mallorca and Formentera is of special interest, having been designated a world heritage site by UNESCO over 20 years ago.
Here you'll find around 55,000 hectares of the plant, which helps prevent coastal erosion, acts as a nursery for fish, but also plays a globally significant role in soaking up CO2.
These seagrass meadows are the champion of carbon sequestration for the biosphere.

Mar 14, 2021

Japan-Australia Start Production of Hydrogen from Brown Coal

A Japanese-Australian venture has started producing hydrogen from brown coal. Japan and Australia have collaborated for a $500 million pilot project which aims to show that liquefied hydrogen can be produced commercially and can be safely exported overseas.
The countries have planned to create the first international supply chain for the liquefied hydrogen. In the next they also planned for shipping a cargo on the first liquefied hydrogen carrier of the world. The project will produce the hydrogen by reacting coal with oxygen and steam under high heat and pressure with carbon dioxide & other gases as the by-products.
The project is located in the Brown Coal Reserves in the state of Victoria and is run by Kawasaki Heavy industries. This project is significant because it will help Japan to meet its "net zero emission" target by 2050. Japan, which is the fifth largest energy consumer of the world, has aimed to boost the annual hydrogen demand by ten times amounting to 20 million tonnes by 2050. It is equal to 40 percent of the current power generation in the country.

Mar 10, 2021

Earth's Hidden Layers

Scientists have detected the signs of a hidden structure inside the core of Planet Earth. This sign has the potential to change the long-standing narrative of what lies at the centre of Earth. This layer is being termed as the 'fifth layer'.
As per the long-standing narrative, there exists four layers namely; crust, mantle, outer core and inner core. The scientists have also spotted reportedly some changes in the structure of iron within the inner core. These changes suggest that a new 'boundary line' is stretching for about 650 kilometres from the centre of the Earth.
Researchers are getting the sign of fifth layer for more than a decade. However, the detection was proved near to impossible. The researchers are suspecting about the fifth after the study the travel time data of the seismic waves which are travelling inside the Earth. The data was captured by the International Seismological Centre. Following the data, the scientists and researchers used their new algorithm in order to search and discover the evidence of changes in the structure of the inner core of the Earth. Though it is difficult to detect the minute changes, the researchers somehow demonstrate that two separate cooling events occurred in the history of the planet.

Mar 09, 2021

New Bird-like Dinosaur Identified in Spain

A new genus and species of troodontid dinosaur that lived 66 million years ago at the very end of the Cretaceous period has been identified from an isolated bone found in Catalonia, Spain.
Tamarro insperatus lived in what is known as the Ibero-Armorican Island during the latest Maastrichtian age of the Cretaceous period, about 200,000 years before the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.
Tamarro insperatus was a type of troodontid (Troodontidae), a group of bird-like theropod dinosaurs that includes kiwi-size (i.e. 0.8 kg for Mei long) to rhea-size species (i.e. 47 kg for Troodon formosus).
The discovery of Tamarro insperatus in the latest Maastrichtian deposits from southern Pyrenees represents the first unequivocal bone evidence of this group of small-sized non-avian theropods in Europe, and confirms the occurrence of troodontids in the theropod faunal assemblage of that continent.

Mar 08, 2021

Delhi among Top 3 States with most Contaminated Sites in India

According to the Central Pollution Control Board data, the national capital stands third on the list of states and Union territories with most contaminated sites.
There are 112 sites in India contaminated by toxic and hazardous substances. Besides, there are 168 sites that may be contaminated but require investigation and confirmation.
Odisha tops the list with 23 contaminated sites, followed by Uttar Pradesh (21) and Delhi (11).
According to the Union Environment Ministry, 'Contaminated Sites' are delineated areas in which the "constituents and characteristics of the toxic and hazardous substances, caused by humans, exist at levels and in conditions which pose existing or imminent threats to human health and the environment.

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