All U.S. Fish Tested Positive for Mercury

In a new study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), every single fish tested from 291 freshwater streams across the United States was found to be contaminated with mercury.

“This study shows just how widespread mercury pollution has become in our air, watersheds and many of our fish in freshwater streams,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that builds up in the food chain at ever higher concentrations in predators such as large fish and humans. It is especially damaging to the developing nervous systems of fetuses and children, but can have severe effects on adults, as well. The pollutant enters the environment almost wholly as atmospheric emissions from industrial processes, primarily the burning of coal for electricity. It then spreads across the plant and settles back to the surface, eventually concentrating in rivers, lakes and oceans, where it enters the aquatic food chain.

The number one cause of human mercury poisoning in the United States is the consumption of fish and shellfish.

Researchers tested the water, sediment and fish of the 291 streams between 1998 and 2005. Fish tested were mostly larger species near the top of the food chain, such as largemouth bass.

All fish were contaminated with mercury, more than 66 percent of them at levels higher than those set by the Environmental Protection agency as a “level of concern for fish-eating mammals,” according to Reuters. More than 25 percent of the fish were contaminated at levels higher than those set as the threshold for human consumption.

The study is the first to focus on mercury contamination of streams, rather than lakes, reservoirs, wetlands or oceans. The researchers found the highest mercury concentrations in fish from the coastal blackwater streams of the Southeast. Apparently the combination of pine forests and wooded wetlands found in these regions transforms mercury very effectively into its more toxic organic form (methylmercury). Mercury concentrations were also high in streams fed from areas with a history of mining.

China Employs Weather Modification

China’s air force deployed a “magic-like” range of chemicals and technology to clear Beijing’s smoggy air for a grand parade marking the 60th anniversary of Communist China, state media said on Thursday.

Female soldiers of the People's Liberation Army march in the National Day parade. When President Hu Jintao reviewed troops, he glided past, protruding from the open roof of a 21-foot-long limousine.

Chemists and officials worked for weeks on the country’s most ambitious ever attempt at weather modification, with air force technicians fanning out across the region to help teams operate complex equipment, the official Xinhua agency said.

The evening before the parade chemicals were fired into the hazy skies, and a light rain washed the city clean.

Surrounding provinces had already been loading clouds with silver iodide and dry ice, to try and force rain to fall before it reached Beijing, the report added.

“Only a handful of countries in the world could organise such large-scale, magic-like weather modification,” said Cui Lianqing, a senior air force meteorologist who said the parade operation was the largest in China’s history.

Contingency plans allowed for the teams to use one kind of chemicals to bring down rain in the parade area, and another to hold it off, he told Xinhua.

China has been researching cloud seeding and other weather manipulation techniques since the 1950s, but in the past has met with mixed success.

The opening to last year’s flagship Olympic Games fell on a day when skies looked hazy despite a raft of anti-pollution and weather manipulation measures.

And a deluge in 2005 forced a hasty last-minute venue change for an outdoor ceremony featuring top Chinese leaders, even after organisers had been promised China could guarantee dry weather.

Cui said this year’s plans dwarfed those for the Olympics, but despite their success he said there was still room for further improvements.

“The technology we have mastered so far could only allow us to modify the weather to a limited extent,” he told Xinhua.

“There are many uncertainties up in the sky.”

Antarctic Ice Melting at Record Pace

The most detailed satellite information available shows that ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica are shrinking faster than scientists thought and in some places are already in runaway melt mode, a new study found.

“Dynamic thinning of Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheet ocean margins is more sensitive, pervasive, enduring and important than previously realized,” researchers wrote in the paper published online Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

Using 50 million laser readings from a NASA satellite, scientists for the first time calculated changes in the height of the vulnerable but massive ice sheets and found them especially worse at their edges. That’s where warmer water eats away from below. In some parts of Antarctica, ice sheets have been losing 30 feet a year in thickness since 2003, according to the study.

Some of those areas are about a mile thick, so they’ve still got plenty of ice to burn through. But the drop in thickness is speeding up. In parts of Antarctica, the yearly rate of thinning from 2003 to 2007 is 50 percent higher than it was from 1995 to 2003.

These new measurements confirm what some of the more pessimistic scientists thought: The melting along the crucial edges of the two major ice sheets is accelerating and is in a self-feeding loop. The more the ice melts, the more water surrounds and eats away at the remaining ice.

‘Runaway effect’ in places
“To some extent it’s a runaway effect. The question is how far will it run?” said lead author Hamish Pritchard of the British Antarctic Survey. “It’s more widespread than we previously thought.”

“We were surprised to see such a strong pattern of thinning glaciers across such large areas of coastline,” he added, “and in some cases thinning extends hundreds of kilometers inland.”

In a statement, the British agency said the authors had found that the “dynamic thinning” of glaciers:

* now reaches all latitudes in Greenland;
* has intensified on key Antarctic coastlines;
* is penetrating far into the ice sheets’ interior;
* is spreading as ice shelves thin by ocean-driven melt.

Ice loss from many glaciers in both Antarctica and Greenland is greater than the rate of snowfall farther inland, the researchers added.

In Greenland, the research found that 81 of the 111 glaciers surveyed are thinning at an accelerating, self-feeding pace.

In Antarctica, some of the fastest thinning is on the west coast where Pine Island Glacier and the neighboring Smith and Thwaites glaciers are thinning by up to 30 feet a year.

‘It is alarming’
The study doesn’t answer the crucial question of how much this worsening melt will add to projections of sea level rise from man-made global warming.

Maps showing lower ice sheets Hamish Pritchard / British Antarctic Survey

Satellite readings allowed experts to measure surface height change over the ice sheets in Antarctica (right) and Greenland (left) from 2003 to 2008. Red shows lower levels, blue higher. Rapid lowering is concentrated on the ice streams and glaciers that drain West Antarctica and Greenland.
Some scientists have previously estimated that steady melting of the ice sheets will add about 3 feet, maybe more, to sea levels by the end of the century. But the ice sheets are so big it would probably take hundreds of years for them to completely disappear.

As scientists watch glaciers retreat or just plain collapse, some thought the problem could slow or be temporary. The latest measurements eliminate “the most optimistic view,” said Penn State University professor Richard Alley, who wasn’t part of the study.

The key problem is not heat in the air, but the water near the edge of the ice sheets, Pritchard said. The water is not just warmer but its circulation is also adding to the melt.

“We think that warm ocean currents reaching the coast and melting the glacier front is the most likely cause of faster glacier flow,” he said. “This kind of ice loss is so poorly understood that it remains the most unpredictable part of future sea level rise.”

“It is alarming,” said Jason Box of Ohio State University, who also wasn’t part of the study.

Worsening data, including this report, keep proving “that we’re underestimating” how sensitive the ice sheets are to changes, he said.

Close Approaching Earthquake Prediction?

Well, as skeptical as I am about this prediction of an earthquake to occur in California on this coming 18th of september which was sent to me by an anonymous source, I still find it a worthy video to post, if for no other reason than its entertainment value and in keeping with the spirit of keeping an open mind, which is part of the value of this site, DarkGovernment.com

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Nuclear Materials on the Highways

DOE Nuclear Material Transport Truck

The Department of Energy has been using tractor trailers to transport fissile and other nuclear materials for years, from what I have been told each vehicle carries armed guards, the driver, who also has access to a weapon and a “chase vehicle” which also carries armed employees of the DOE.

The idea of nuclear weapons being carted around in our highways, cities and neighborhoods doesn’t really put one’s mind at ease. However, the government has been transporting seriously dangerous stuff like enriched uranium and plutonium secretly without public warning. Through the Freedom of Information Act has forced the Department Of Energy to release color photos of the trucks used to transport weapons. According to FOE, these are the first of such pictures that have been released in many years.

Tom Clements, Southeastern Nuclear Campaign Coordinator with Friends of the Earth in Columbia, South Carolina made the following statement about the importance of the release of the photos.
“The trucks carrying nuclear weapons and dangerous materials such as plutonium pass through cities and neighborhoods all the time and the public should be aware of what they look like. Release of these photos will help inform the public about secretive shipments of dangerous nuclear material that are taking place in plain view.”