Monday, November 03, 2003

What is Terra City? Terra City is the first book published by Human Wisdom (November 2002). Without any intention of being sensational, this book is simply one of a kind. Its style, its approach, its content and its findings, everything in it makes it different from any other book. The book begins with an original analysis of our individual lives and human society as a whole, seeking an answer to a simple question - Can they be better, and how? The result of this analysis is both astonishing and refreshing. Not only that the lives and society of all human beings can and should be incomparably better, but the way to reach such an outstanding achievement is surprisingly enjoyable and fulfilling, and what’s more, totally within our reach. The most intriguing and beautiful part of this transformation for the better is described in the pinnacle of the book - a visionary global project without precedent called Terra City, in which every thinking being on the planet is invited to take part and contribute to solving the very problems we face as an individual, a country and a human society. The last chapter of Terra City presents the succession of thoughts and facts that led to the idea of Human Wisdom and launches an invitation to each and every one to take part in this first concrete step in building a new and better life for each one of us and open the dawn of a Human Era on earth. (11/03/03) Natural Gas Crisis Kermit Schlansker writes: At the present time we are sitting on the edge of catastrophe. We are using 22 trillion cu ft of gas/year. Since production is insufficient to get through the winter, we are storing about 3 trillion cu ft during late spring and early fall and barely have enough gas to make it to spring again. Some gas wells deplete to 50% of initial production in a year's time. Therefore there must be constant drilling to keep up. Drilling is going deeper and farther offshore and costs are rapidly increasing. Presently we are getting about 15% of our gas from Canada. They are running low so any political decision to reduce the gas shipments would immediately cause a catastrophe here. Natural gas is one of the best replacements for gasoline, is the only cheap way of making hydrogen, and causes less pollution than coal in power plants. However any attempt to use gas for these purposes in the quantities that we need would immediately increase the depletion rate of gas to the crisis point. Economists are optimistically predicting that natural gas consumption in this country may soon increase from 22 trillion cu ft to 30 or more. Certainly the construction of new houses and shopping malls will greatly increase consumption. By 2020 shortages of heating oil and natural gas may cause many homes in the US to go unheated. (11/03/03) Medical Breakthrough inTransplant Surgery New Scientist -- A "designer" drug to stop the body rejecting organ transplants - without the major side-effects associated with existing drugs - has shown promise in mice and monkeys. The new drug, CP-690,550, targets an enzyme produced only in immune system cells. It should therefore not inadvertently harm other cells in the body as conventional drugs can. Transplanted organs are recognised by the recipient's body as foreign, which provokes an immune response. Current immunosuppressant drugs can quell this vigorous reaction, but they may also affect the body’s metabolism and lead to increased risks of diabetes, hypertension and even cancer. The new drug delayed the rejection of transplanted kidneys in monkeys for nearly 12 times longer than if they had no immunosuppressant therapy. And crucially, it did not seem to affect the monkeys’ metabolism. "They are very exciting results,"says Dominic Borie, director of transplantation immunology at Stanford University Medical Center, California, and one of the research team. "One is always suspicious. But so far we don’t see many problems." Some independent experts have praised the concept as "revolutionary". Borie is hopeful the drug may be useful in humans, as he says the monkey model used has proven to be good at predicting success in humans. (11/03/03) Real Solar Power! New Scientist -- The Sun is more active now than it has been for a millennium. The realisation, which comes from a reconstruction of sunspots stretching back 1150 years, comes just as the Sun has thrown a tantrum. Over the last week, giant plumes of have material burst out from our star's surface and streamed into space, causing geomagnetic storms on Earth. The dark patches on the surface of the Sun that we call sunspots are a symptom of fierce magnetic activity inside. Ilya Usoskin, a geophysicist who worked with colleagues from the University of Oulu in Finland and the Max Planck Institute for Aeronomy in Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, has found that there have been more sunspots since the 1940s than for the past 1150 years. Sunspot observations stretch back to the early 17th century, when the telescope was invented. To extend the data farther back in time, Usoskin's team used a physical model to calculate past sunspot numbers from levels of a radioactive isotope preserved in ice cores taken from Greenland and Antarctica. (11/03/03) Clone Burgers Are Safe! BBC Science -- Milk and meat from cloned animals will not need special approval or labelling for sale in the United States, the country's food regulator is likely to decide. Preliminary Food and Drug Administration findings suggest that products from healthy cloned animals are safe. The FDA is releasing a summary of findings on Friday before a public meeting on the subject. Consumer groups have objected to the sale of such products. Cloning animals is currently too expensive to be practical for food production, but farmers could clone top-quality animals for breeding. Offspring of those clones could then enter the food supply without labelling, the findings imply. "If we consider [products from clones] materially the same as traditional foods, the role for the FDA would be minimal," the agency's Dr Stephen Sundlof told the New York Times. (11/03/03) Drought Threatens African Life BBC Nature -- The spectre of famine and reliance on outside help could soon threaten large parts of Africa, scientists believe. They think increasing water scarcity may leave much of the continent not only thirsty, but without enough water to grow sufficient food for its needs. On present trends, they expect one in three of the world's people will be affected by water shortages in 2025. The annual crop loss across Africa could be as much as the entire grain harvest produced by the US and India. The scientists, from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), were speaking at the launch of the group's Challenge Programme on Water and Food. The programme is trying to find ways to improve the management of available water, and will work on technologies to increase crop yields while cutting the amount of water needed. ... CGIAR says water scarcity projections for Africa south of the Sahara suggest household water consumption there will by 2025 show the highest proportional increase of any world region. With "business as usual" policies and investments, the group says, the number of Africans without access to clean water will more than double to 401 million, though at worst the total could be 523 million people.  (11/03/03) 6:40:27 AM

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