Mark Fitzpatrick, 15, is autistic and mentally disabled. He's also all about the social scene at school. High fives from classmates make his day, and he loves to share his favorite word: "Bam!" A kind classmate got to thinking: Mark would make the perfect Homecoming Prince.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41743465/vp/45134557#45134557
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Public release date: 2-Nov-2011
Share ] Contact: Michael Bernstein
m_bernstein@acs.org
202-872-6042
American Chemical Society
Concerns that global warming may have a domino effect unleashing 600 billion tons of carbon in vast expanses of peat in the Northern hemisphere and accelerating warming to disastrous proportions may be less justified than previously thought. That's the conclusion of a new study on the topic in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Christian Blodau and colleagues explain that peat bogs wet deposits of partially decayed plants that are the source of gardeners' peat moss and fuel hold about one-third of the world's carbon. Scientists have been concerned that global warming might dry out the surface of peatlands, allowing the release into the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and methane (a greenhouse gas even more potent than carbon dioxide) produced from decaying organic matter. To see whether this catastrophic domino effect is a realistic possibility, the scientists conducted laboratory simulations studying the decomposition of wet bog peat for nearly two years.
Far from observing sudden releases of greenhouse gases, they found that carbon release and methane production slowed down considerably in deeply buried wet peat, most likely because deeper peat is shielded from exchange of water and gases with the atmosphere. In connection with previous work, the study concluded that "even under moderately changing climatic conditions," peatlands will continue to sequester, or isolate from the atmosphere, their huge deposits of carbon and methane.
###
The American Chemical Society is a non-profit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society contact newsroom@acs.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 2-Nov-2011 Share ] Contact: Michael Bernstein
m_bernstein@acs.org
202-872-6042
American Chemical Society
Concerns that global warming may have a domino effect unleashing 600 billion tons of carbon in vast expanses of peat in the Northern hemisphere and accelerating warming to disastrous proportions may be less justified than previously thought. That's the conclusion of a new study on the topic in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Christian Blodau and colleagues explain that peat bogs wet deposits of partially decayed plants that are the source of gardeners' peat moss and fuel hold about one-third of the world's carbon. Scientists have been concerned that global warming might dry out the surface of peatlands, allowing the release into the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and methane (a greenhouse gas even more potent than carbon dioxide) produced from decaying organic matter. To see whether this catastrophic domino effect is a realistic possibility, the scientists conducted laboratory simulations studying the decomposition of wet bog peat for nearly two years.
Far from observing sudden releases of greenhouse gases, they found that carbon release and methane production slowed down considerably in deeply buried wet peat, most likely because deeper peat is shielded from exchange of water and gases with the atmosphere. In connection with previous work, the study concluded that "even under moderately changing climatic conditions," peatlands will continue to sequester, or isolate from the atmosphere, their huge deposits of carbon and methane.
###
The American Chemical Society is a non-profit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society contact newsroom@acs.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/acs-pcs110211.php
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Source: http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/2011/10/31/youre-invited/
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SERHANIYEH, Lebanon?? Syria has planted land mines along parts of its border with Lebanon, further sealing itself off from the world and showing just how deeply shaken Bashar Assad's regime has become since an uprising began nearly eight months ago.
Although Assad's hold on power is firm, the 46-year-old eye doctor is taking increasingly desperate measures to safeguard his grip on the country of 22 million people at the heart of the Arab world. A Syrian official confirmed to The Associated Press that troops were laying the mines, saying they were aimed at stopping weapons smuggling into the country during the uprising.
"Syria has undertaken many measures to control the borders, including planting mines," a Syrian official familiar with government strategy told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Witnesses on the Lebanese side also told the AP they have seen Syrian soldiers planting the mines in recent days.
Story: Syria's Assad warns of 'earthquake' if West intervenesOnly on msnbc.com
But the verdant mountains and hills along the frontier are used by refugees fleeing Syria's deadly military assault on protesters and by Syrians who have jobs and families on the Lebanese side. The decision to plant mines ? terrifying weapons that often maim their victims if they don't kill them ? suggests the regime is trying to contain a crisis that is spinning out of its control.
The mines also are the latest sign that Syria is working to prevent Lebanon from becoming a safe haven for the Syrian opposition as the uprising continues and the death toll mounts. The U.N. says about 3,000 people have been killed by security forces since March.
Video: Inside Syria: Underground network of cyber activists keeps revolution alive (on this page)A Syrian man whose foot had to be amputated after he stepped on a mine just across from the Lebanese village of Irsal on Sunday was the first known victim of the mines, according to a doctor at a hospital in Lebanon where the man was treated. The doctor asked that his name not be published out of fear of repercussions because of the sensitivity of the case.
Vali Nasr, a Middle East expert and former State Department official in the Obama administration, also said the mining shows Assad is taking every measure to choke off opposition to his family's 40-year dynasty.
"Mining the borders is a way of tightening the noose. It cuts off flow of people both ways, and is also a warning to neighbors not to interfere," Nasr told the AP.
He said the move also betrays fears that countries may want to move beyond the economic sanctions already in place to send support to the opposition by land.
"The next step after sanctions could be more active material support for the opposition which would have to come over the borders," Nasr said.
Assad already has warned world powers ? fresh from their victory over Moammar Gadhafi in Libya ? that the entire Middle East will go up in flames if there is any foreign intervention in his country. Assad regularly plays on fears that he is a bulwark against regional turmoil, sectarian violence and Islamic extremism.
Syria is indeed a regional nexus, bordering five countries with which it shares religious and ethnic minorities and in the case of Israel, a fragile truce that is key to regional stability.
Syria's web of alliances also extends to Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement and Iran's Shiite theocracy.
But the regime's crackdown has resulted in the most severe international condemnation the Assad dynasty has seen in decades. Sanctions from the European Union and the U.S. are chipping away at the ailing economy and many leaders have called on Assad to step down. Turkey, until recently an ally, has opened its borders to anti-Assad activists and breakaway military rebels.
The 22-nation Arab League has been trying to help end the bloodshed, and Syria's state-run news agency said late Tuesday that Damascus had agreed to the league's plan on the crisis. There were no details on what the plan entailed. But an official announcement was expected Wednesday at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo.
There was no immediate sign of Syria mining the Jordanian, Iraqi or Turkish borders, although most of Turkey's 545-mile (880-kilometer) frontier with Syria already has been heavily mined since 1950s.
Syria and Lebanon share a 230-mile (365-kilometer) border, although it appears the land mines have been planted in two main areas in and around the restive province of Homs, which has endured some of the worst bloodshed. The mines have been seen in Homs province just across the border from Serhaniyeh, Lebanon, and in the Baalbek region bordering Homs and the Damascus countryside.
Homs has seen violent clashes between Syrian troops and army defectors ? a real concern for a regime that counts on the loyalty of its armed forces. Some 20 soldiers were reported killed over the weekend in Homs. The border villages also are inhabited mostly Sunni Muslims. Syria is predominantly Sunni, although Assad and the ruling elite belong to the tiny Alawite sect.
Three residents of the Lebanese border village of Serhaniyeh showed an AP reporter a long sand dune barrier on the frontier where they said Syrian troops laid mines. Ahmed Diab said several trucks carrying about a 100 soldiers arrived Thursday and spent the entire day planting mines on the side of the barriers that faces toward Lebanon.
Story: UN: Syria complex bolsters suspicion of nuke ambitions"Since they planted the mines, no one dares to go to the border line," Diab said as he sat on his motorcycle near his home that overlooks parts of Homs province.
Many Syrians cross the border into Lebanon regularly, including some 5,000 who have fled to Lebanon since the crisis began in March. Some of them are dissidents who feels a relative sense of security in Lebanon ? but that might be changing. There have been at least three cases this year of Syrian dissidents being snatched off the streets in Lebanon and spirited back across the border, Lebanese police say.
The abductions have raised alarm among some in Lebanon that members of the country's security forces are helping Assad's regime in its crackdown on anti-government protesters, effectively extending it into Lebanon.
Syria had direct control over Lebanon for nearly 30 years before pulling out its troops in 2005 under local and international pressure. But Damascus still has great influence, and pro-Syrian factions led by the militant group Hezbollah dominate the government in Beirut.
There also have been reports of Syrian troops crossing into Lebanon to pursue dissidents. In September, the Lebanese army said Syrian soldiers briefly crossed the frontier and opened fire at people trying to flee the violence in Syria.
A senior Lebanese security official confirmed that Syrian troops are planting mines on the Syrian side of the border, but said Beirut will not interfere with actions on Syrian territory.
___
Associated Press writers Elizabeth A. Kennedy in Beirut and Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45114788/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The United States is planning to bolster its military presence in the Gulf after it pulls out its remaining troops from Iraq, the New York Times reported in its online edition on Sunday.
President Barack Obama said on October 21 that he had decided to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year and the paper said that U.S. military officers and diplomats worried that the withdrawal could bring instability to the region.
It said Washington was negotiating to maintain a combat presence on the ground in Kuwait and was considering deploying more warships in the area.
No one at the Pentagon was immediately available to comment.
The United States also wanted to expand its military ties with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, it said.
The proposal needed approval by GCC leaders who are due to meet in the Saudi capital Riyadh in December, the paper said.
(Editing by Louise Ireland)
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AMMAN (Reuters) ? Western powers would cause an "earthquake" in the Middle East if they intervened in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview published on Sunday, after protesters demanded outside protection from a crackdown that has killed 3,000 people.
Syrian officials were to hold more talks in Qatar with delegates of the Arab League, which wants to convene a dialogue in Cairo between the Syrian authorities and their opponents.
The League's two-week deadline for the planned dialogue to start expires Sunday, with Assad showing no signs of easing the crackdown, which is drawing increasing international outrage and criticism even from previously cautious Arab countries.
Syria, as Assad noted in his interview with Britain's Sunday Telegraph, sits at the heart of the volatile Middle East, where it borders Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan.
"It is the faultline, and if you play with the ground, you will cause an earthquake," he said. "Do you want to see another Afghanistan, or tens of Afghanistans?"
Assad's remarks signal determination to hang onto power against a popular uprising that repression has failed to crush.
Mass protests have also failed to dislodge him, creating an unstable stalemate, which could perhaps be upset by the impact of Western sanctions or any surge in army and police defections.
Syria, a mostly Sunni Muslim country of 20 million, is ruled with an iron fist by members of Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, who also dominate the military, key sectors of the economy and a pervasive security apparatus.
After Syrian security forces killed 40 anti-Assad protesters Friday, Arab ministers issued their strongest reaction yet.
The Arab League's committee on the Syrian crisis sent an "urgent message to the Syrian government expressing its severe discontent over the continued killing of Syrian civilians."
A Foreign Ministry source, quoted by state media, said the statement was "based on media lies" and urged the committee to "help restore stability in Syria instead of stirring sedition."
Saturday, security forces and pro-Assad militiamen killed at least 10 civilians, mostly in Homs, 140 km (85 miles) north of Damascus. At a big funeral for six of them in the city's Bab Amro district, mourners linked arms and sang old ballads.
"Tears are falling from the eye, my mother cries for Syria's youth," they chanted.
Syria has barred most international media, making it hard to verify conflicting accounts from activists and authorities.
Homs province, which borders Lebanon and is home to one of Syria's two oil refineries, is emerging as a center of armed resistance to Assad's rule after months of peaceful protests that often drew a violent response from security forces.
One activist group said fighters thought to be army deserters had killed 30 soldiers in clashes in Homs city and in an ambush in the northwestern province of Idlib Saturday.
INVOKING THE PAST
In the interview, Assad compared the unrest with the 1980s, when his father, Hafez al-Assad, crushed Islamist and leftist challenges to his rule, killing tens of thousands of Syrians.
Many thousands were killed in 1982 in Hama, a city where an armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood had made its last stand.
Opposition figures say Islamists played no part in starting the anti-Assad uprising that erupted in March.
Forty-one years of Assad family rule have stifled political party life and public debate in Syria, making it hard to predict how Syrians would vote if their country became a democracy.
Some argue that Islamists are unlikely to win power, citing secular traditions among Syria's majority Sunnis, who live alongside Christian, Alawite and Druze minorities.
Burhan Ghalioun, a main figure in the opposition Syrian National Council, formed in Istanbul in September, is a secular, Western-educated professor. The council also includes Islamists.
"We've been fighting the Muslim Brotherhood since the 1950s and we are still fighting with them," Assad said in the Sunday Telegraph interview, adding that Western countries "are going to ratchet up the pressure, definitely."
NATO military intervention in Libya played a decisive role in toppling Muammar Gaddafi, the third Arab leader to be overthrown after the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.
Western nations, which have been tightening sanctions on Syria to include the oil sector, have shown no appetite to repeat their Libyan operation in Syria, but demonstrators are increasingly calling for a "no-fly zone" to protect them.
"Any problem in Syria will burn the whole region," Assad warned. "If the plan is to divide Syria, that is to divide the whole region."
Syrian authorities have blamed the unrest on foreign-backed "terrorists" they say have killed 1,100 soldiers and police.
(Additional reporting by David Milliken in London; Editing by Alistair Lyon)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111030/wl_nm/us_syria
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