Ecological Footprint: Bringing Sustainability to the Planet EARTH

In today’s world, where humanity is already exceeding planetary limits, ecological assets are becoming more critical. Each country has its own ecological risk profile; many are running ecological deficits, with Footprints larger than their own biological capacity. Others depend heavily on resources from elsewhere, which are under increasing pressure.

In some areas of the world, the implications of ecological deficits can be devastating, leading to resource loss, ecosystem collapse, debt, poverty, famine and war.

Footprints indicate how much "nature" is available for a defined population to use, compared to how much it needs to maintain its current activities. Obviously, the size of a footprint will vary depending on the volume and different types of natural resources consumed by a population, which will in turn depend on lifestyle choices, income levels, and technology. Therefore, footprints provide compelling evidence of the impacts of consumption.

The Ecological Footprint is a complex sustainability indicator that answers a simple question: How much of the Earth’s resources does your lifestyle require? Using existing, official statistics that quantify the resources people consume and the waste they generate. The Ecological Footprint is a resource accounting tool that helps countries understand their ecological balance sheet and gives them the data necessary to manage their resources and secure their future.

According to latest Footprint Analysis, humanity is exceeding its ecological limits by 39%. Or, put another way, we would need to have over one third more than the present biocapacity of Earth to maintain the same level of prosperity for future generations.

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Review Article - Changing the Life Style with Green Ideas

You may not be able to reduce global warming, end pollution and save endangered species single-handedly, but by choosing to live an earth-friendly lifestyle you can do a lot every day to help achieve those goals.

And by making wise choices about how you live, and the amount of energy and natural resources you consume, you send a clear message to businesses, politicians and government agencies that value you as a customer, constituent and citizen.

Green Building Materials:

Environmentally conscious home owners can buy hand-hewn wood beams or rough sawn lumber such as oak, cherry, maple or pine, many of which are aged to a density and hardness that you cannot find in new lumber. Reclaimed or salvaged lumber can be used to build walls, as support beams or in roof construction. Many green companies specialize in obtaining building materials from older homes that are about to be torn down or dismantled. Instead of filling up landfills, previously used lumber is put back into new construction.

To provide solar power, solar companies install large, flat panels on top of roofs, and each panel contains grids of solar cells. It works best in wide, open locations that get plenty of sun. Some systems can store energy for use at night or on cloudy days.

Green Flooring Materials:

Green floors are typically made from renewable or recycled products. These non-toxic flooring materials are said to be safe for the environment and for people, and can be installed in an eco-friendly manner without harmful gas emissions.

Bamboo Flooring: Bamboo is a grass, not a wood. It renews itself every 3 to 5 years. Inexpensive bamboo is generally younger and not very durable, so ask for premium bamboo, made from adhesives that do not contain formaldehyde. Bamboo can be nailed, glued, stapled or floated, and comes in horizontal or vertical patterns. Do not install in areas that get wet.

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Gaia Hypothesis

The Gaia hypothesis, a hypothesis put forward to explain a number of paradoxes about life and the earth, was first formulated in the 1960s by the independent research scientist James Lovelock. Until 1975 it was almost totally ignored. An article in the New Scientist of February 15th, 1975, and a popular book length version of the theory, published as The Quest for Gaia, began to attract scientific and critical attention to the hypothesis. Championed by certain environmentalists and scientists, it was vociferously rejected by many others, both within scientific circles and outside of them.

The Gaia hypothesis forms part of what is scientifically referred to as earth system science, and is a class of scientific models of the geo-biosphere in which life as a whole fosters and maintains suitable conditions for itself by helping to create an environment on Earth suitable for its continuity. The first such theory was created by Lovelock, who was working with NASA when he developed his hypotheses in the 1960s. He wrote an article in the science journal Nature, before formally publishing the concept in the 1979 book Gaia: A new look at life on Earth. He hypothesized that the living matter of the planet functioned like a single organism and named this self-regulating living system after the Greek goddess Gaia, using a suggestion from the novelist William Golding

Review Article - Cancer

Cancer is a class of diseases or disorders characterized by uncontrolled division of cells and the ability of these cells to invade other tissues, either by direct growth into adjacent tissue through invasion or by implantation into distant sites by metastasis. Metastasis is defined as the stage in which cancer cells are transported through the bloodstream or lymphatic system. Cancer may affect people at all ages, but risk tends to increase with age. It is one of the leading causes of death in developed countries.Cancers are caused by a series of mutations. Each mutation alters the behavior of the cell somewhat.

The following closely related terms may be used to designate abnormal growths:

• Neoplasia and neoplasm are the accurate, scientific names for this group of diseases as defined in the first paragraph above. This group contains a large number of different diseases; the usual classification is listed below. Neoplasms can be benign or malignant.
• Cancer is a widely used word that is usually understood as synonymous with malignant neoplasm. Occasionally, it is used instead of carcinoma, a sub-group of malignant neoplasms. Because of its overwhelming popularity relative to 'neoplasia', it is used frequently instead of 'neoplasia', even by scientists and physicians, especially when discussing neoplastic diseases as a group.
• Tumor in medical language simply means swelling or lump, either neoplastic, inflammatory or other. In common language, however, it is synonymous with 'neoplasm', either benign or malignant. This is inaccurate since some neoplasms usually do not form tumors, for example leukemia or carcinoma in situ.

        Cancers are classified by the type of cell that resembles the tumor and, therefore, the tissue presumed to be the origin of the tumor. The following general categories are usually accepted:

• Carcinoma: malignant tumors derived from epithelial cells. This group represent the most common cancers, including the common forms of breast, prostate, lung and colon cancer.
• Lymphoma and Leukemia: malignant tumors derived from blood and bone marrow cells
• Sarcoma: malignant tumors derived from connective tissue, or mesenchymal cells
• Mesothelioma: tumors derived from the mesothelial cells lining the peritoneum and the pleura.
• Glioma: tumors derived from glia, the most common type of brain cell
• germ cell tumours: tumors derived from germ cells, normally found in the testicle and ovary
• Choriocarcinoma: malignant tumors derived from the placenta.
• Malignant tumors are usually named using the Latin or Greek root of the organ as a prefix and the above category name as the suffix. For instance, a malignant tumor of liver cells is called hepatocarcinoma; a malignant tumor of the fat cells is called liposarcoma. For common cancers, the English organ name is used. For instance, the most common type of breast cancer is called ductal carcinoma of the breast or mammary ductal carcinoma. Here, the adjective ductal refers to the appearance of the cancer under the microscope, resembling normal breast ducts.
• Benign tumors are named using -oma as a suffix. For instance, a benign tumor of the smooth muscle of the uterus is called leiomyoma (the common name of this frequent tumor is fibroid). This nomenclature is however somewhat inconsistent, since several "malignant" tumor growths also have this suffix in their names, e.g. neuroblastoma, lymphoma and melanoma...........................................................

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Review Article - Vitamin

The word vitamine was coined by the Polish biochemist Casimir Funk in 1912. Vita in Latin is life and the -amine suffix is for amine; at the time it was thought that all vitamins were amines. This is now known to be incorrect.
A Vitamin is an organic molecule required by a living organism in minute amounts for proper health. An organism deprived of all sources of a particular vitamin will eventually suffer from disease symptoms specific to that vitamin. The term vitamin does not encompass other essential nutrients such as dietary minerals, essential fatty acids, or essential amino acids, nor is it used for the large number of other nutrients that merely promote health, but are not strictly essential. Vitamins function in a wide variety of capacities within the body. The most prominent function is as cofactors for enzymatic reactions. The distinguishing feature of the vitamins is that they generally cannot be synthesized by mammalian cells and, therefore, must be supplied in the diet. With few exceptions the body cannot manufacture or synthesize vitamins.  Vitamins and minerals are substances that are found in foods we eat. However, there are a few vitamins that we obtain by other means: for example, microorganisms in the intestine - commonly known as gut flora - produce vitamin K and biotin, while one form of vitamin D is synthesized in the skin with the help of natural ultraviolet sunlight. Vitamins are essential to the normal functioning of our bodies. They are necessary for our growth, vitality, and general well-being.  When it comes to vitamins, each one has a special role to play. For example:

• Vitamin D in milk helps your bones.
• Vitamin A in carrots helps you see at night.
• Vitamin C in oranges helps your body heal if you get a cut. 

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Viruses Can be Used as Battery

Professors Yet-Ming Chiang, Angela Belcher and Paula Hammond from MIT proudly stand with a battery-building virus they have engineered. The virus is on a glass slide held by Belcher, center.

Donna Coveney, MIT

 In Cambridge, Massachusetts, scientists have discovered that some viruses can be helpful in an unusual way. They are putting viruses to work, teaching them to build some of the world’s smallest rechargeable batteries.

Viruses and batteries may seem like an unusual pair, but they’re not so strange for engineer Angela Belcher, who first came up with the idea. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, she and her collaborators bring together different areas of science in new ways. In the case of the virus-built batteries, the scientists combine what they know about biology (the study of living things), technology and production techniques.

Many batteries are already pretty small. You can hold A, C and D batteries in your hand and the coin-like batteries that power watches are often smaller than a penny. However, every year, new electronic devices like personal music players or cell phones get smaller than the year before. As these devices shrink, ordinary batteries won’t be small enough to fit inside.

The ideal battery will store a lot of energy in a small package. Right now, Belcher’s model battery, a metallic disk completely built by viruses, looks like a regular watch battery. But inside, its components are very small—so tiny you can only see them with a powerful microscope.

How small are these battery parts? To get some idea of the size, pluck one hair from your head (unless that seems too painful). Place your hair on a piece of white paper and try to see how wide your hair is—pretty thin, right? Although the width of each person’s hair is a bit different, you could probably fit about 10 of these virus-built battery parts, side to side, across one hair. These microbatteries (“micro” means very small) may change the way we look at viruses.

The battery — the silver-colored disk on the right side of the device — is being used to power an LED.

Eye Tracking for Mobile Control

"EyePhone" lets users browse through mobile phone menus at the blink of an eye.

A team at Dartmouth College has now created an eye-tracking system that lets a user operate a smart phone with eye movement.

Mobile eye tracking could be useful for all mobile phone users, says Dartmouth professor Andrew Campbell, who led the development of the new system, called EyePhone. But so far, little work has been done on eye tracking on mobile phones. This isn't surprising--keeping track of a gaze via a mobile phone is much more challenging than on a desktop computer because both the user and the phone are moving, and the surrounding environment is so changeable.