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The dust picks up toxins as it passes over Chinese factories Yellow dust storm A huge cloud of choking dust is passing over South Korea as the first sand storm of the year blows in from China.South Korea has ordered schools to close and drivers in south-west Japan have been warned about low visibility from the dust clouds. Every spring brings "yellow dust" storms which blow sand from China's Gobi Desert over the Koreas and Japan. The dust storms have become more deadly each year as they pass over China's industrial zones picking up toxins. South Korea blames dozens...

Dust In West Up 500 Percent In Past Two CenturiesA dusty scene near Canyonlands in Utah. Dust in the West has increased by 500 percent since the 1800s. (Credit: Jason C. Neff, University of Colorado at Boulder) ScienceDaily (Feb. 25, 2008) — The West has become 500 percent dustier in the past two centuries due to westward U.S. expansion and accompanying human activity beginning in the 1800s, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder. List of major natural disasters in the United States Annual sedimentary layer Sediment records from dust blown into alpine lakes...

African Dust Storms May Cool Atlantic, Lessen HurricanesAn image, captured on Sept. 4, 2005, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard NASA's TERRA satellite, shows a massive dust storm (in yellow) blowing off the western coast of Africa over the Atlantic Ocean. Amato Evan, a researcher at the UW-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, has found a surprising link between hurricane frequency in the Atlantic Ocean and dust storms that periodically rise up from the Sahara desert and move west. Evan and others suggest that such atmospheric dust could be helping to "dampen" brewing hurricanes. (Credit: NASA/courtesy Amato Evan)...

Bird flu may be spread indirectly, WHO says By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor Thu Jan 17, 8:22 AM ET The H5N1 bird flu virus may sometimes stick to surfaces or get kicked up in fertilizer dust to infect people, according to a World Health Organization report published on Wednesday. The WHO team reviewed all known human cases of avian influenza, which has infected 350 people in 14 countries and killed 217 of them since 2003, and found that 25 percent of cases have no explanation. Most are passed directly from bird to people, they noted in their report,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Samples of rock dust retrieved from a comet called Wild 2 are forcing scientists to alter they way they think about these intriguing objects that streak through our solar system. A chemical analysis of the samples brought back to Earth by NASA's Stardust spacecraft showed that the comet is much more like an asteroid than scientists had expected. Comets are celestial bodies made of rock, dust and ice with characteristic tails of gas and dust streams that are formed in the solar system's distant, frigid reaches. A long-standing notion had been they were sort of a frozen...

Tiny Dust Particles From Asian Deserts Common Over Western United States ScienceDaily (Dec. 14, 2007) — It has been a decade since University of Washington scientists first pinpointed specific instances of air pollution, including Gobi Desert dust, traversing the Pacific Ocean and adding to the mix of atmospheric pollution already present along the West Coast of North America. Now a UW researcher is finding that dust from the Gobi and Taklimakan deserts in China and Mongolia is routinely present in the air over the western United States during spring months. "We are interested in Asian dust that comes across the...

TEREHOVA, Latvia (Reuters) - Optimists call it the end of the Iron Curtain. Pessimists fear a "Fortress Europe" or a wave of illegal immigration from December 21, when passports will be checked at fewer European borders. When the European Union's passport-free Schengen zone expands to include nine mostly former communist states, travelers in the EU will not need a passport to cross land and sea borders in an area about one-third the size of the United States, from Narva in Estonia to Narbonne in France. From next March the extended zone will also include airports in a total of 24...

Could alien life exist in the form of DNA-shaped dust? 18:09 10 August 2007 NewScientist.com news service Stephen Battersby 'Plasma crystals' that behave like life could exist in Saturn's rings, where the 'dust' would actually be fine ice grains, and the nourishing plasma would be supplied by the solar wind (Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)Tools Could alien life exist in the form of dancing specks of dust? According to a new simulation, electrically charged dust can organise itself into DNA-like double helixes that behave in many ways like living organisms, reproducing and passing on information to one another. "This came as...

Lunar dust 'may harm astronauts' By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News, Houston Lunar dust brought back to Earth from the Apollo 17 mission Scientists are investigating the possible threat posed to astronauts by inhaling lunar dust. A study suggests the smallest particles in lunar dust might be toxic, if comparisons with dust inhalation cases on Earth apply. Teams hope to carry out experiments on mice to determine whether this is the case or not. Nasa has set up a working group to look into the matter ahead of its planned return to the Moon by 2020. A team at...

The African source of the Amazon's fertilizer Sid Perkins In the winter months in the Northern Hemisphere, massive dust storms from the African Sahara waft southwest across the Atlantic to drop tons of vital minerals on the Amazon basin in South America. Now, scientists have pinpointed the source of many of those dust storms and estimated their dust content. ON THE WAY. Satellite photo shows dust (arrow), bound for the Amazon, blowing away from the Sahara's Bodélé depression. NASA The Amazonian rainforest depends on Saharan dust for many of its nutrients, including iron and phosphorus (SN: 9/29/01, p. 200: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20010929/bob9.asp)....

Insults fly in the dust of Doha By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor (Filed: 26/07/2006) Hopes that anything will be salvaged from the wreckage of the Doha Round were fading last night as Europe and the US traded bitter accusations and recriminations, with each blaming the other for the collapse of the key trade talks. US trade representative Susan Schwab accused the EU of lying after Peter Mandelson claimed it was America's intransigence that caused the failure of the globalisation talks. Peter Mandelson In turn, Mr Mandelson, the European trade commissioner, repeated his allegations about the US and appealed over Ms...

Dust clouds transport bacteria from Africa around the world Ian Sample Thursday May 25, 2006 Giant clouds of dust whipped up by desert storms in Africa can carry infectious organisms to other continents, scientists claim today. Despite being blown more than three miles high and exposed to radiation from the sun, strains of bacteria and fungi survived and were able to grow when they returned to Earth, researchers found. Among 40 tests of air samples taken in the mid-Atlantic, 24 revealed living microbes, including 26 colonies of bacteria and 83 fungi. They included strains capable of causing disease in humans,...

U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Jorge Chavez, 447th Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron Vehicle Maintenance Flight mechanic, removes a roller on a loader. U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Will Ackerman Airmen Keep Fleet Rolling Through Dust, Mud A team of U.S. Air Force mechanics overcome heat, mud and the challenge to obtain replacement parts, to keep more than 300 vehicles running. By U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Will Ackerman 447th Air Expeditionary Group SATHER AIR BASE, Iraq, May 16, 2006 — Working on vehicles in the desert presents challenges. Mechanics sometimes have to scrape off layers of dirt...

Cloud of scholarly dust rises over ancient footprints claim Tuesday, April 25, 2006 BRADLEY T. LEPPER Are the footprints of surprisingly ancient Americans preserved in 40,000-year-old volcanic ash in southern Mexico? In December, an article in the journal Science cast a cloud of doubt over that claim. The authors, Michael Waters and Paul Renne, argue that the ash dated to 1.3 million years ago, much too old for humans on this continent, and that the so-called footprints were nothing more than marks made by the tools of modern workers quarrying the stone with crowbars. Now, Silvia Gonzalez, an archaeologist from...

BEIJING - Beijing will use artificial rainmaking to clear the air after a choking dust storm coated China's capital and beyond with yellow grit, prompting a health warning to keep children indoors, state media said If oil prices surge to record highs, what affect will this have on the US dollar? The huge storm blew dust far beyond China's borders, blanketing South Korea and reaching Tokyo. The storm, reportedly the worst in at least five years, hit Beijing overnight Sunday, turning the sky yellow and forcing residents to dust off and hose down cars and buildings. Hospitals reported a jump...

Seasonal Sandstorms: a Survival Guide Satellite images released by the Korea Meteorological Administration of sandstorms that blanketed the nation between 4:30 a.m. Saturday (top) and 11 a.m. on Sunday. As the annual sandstorms are blown into Korea from the arid wastes of Mongolia, the annual health questions emerge. Are an itchy nose and itchy ears a sign of danger? Will sunglasses protect the eyes? The Chosun Ilbo has the lowdown on surviving seasonal sandstorms. First of all, bear in mind that you inhale as much as three times more dust than normal when the sandstorms descend. And the dust contains...

Tiny amounts of salt and dust trapped in the Antarctic ice sheet for the last 740,000 years shed new light on changes to the Earth's climate. The results, published this week in the journal Nature, come from the team who extracted a 3 km long ice core from Dome C, high on East Antarctica's plateau - the oldest continuous climate record obtained from ice cores so far. Since reporting in 2004 that the Earth experienced eight climate cycles (each consisting of an ice age and warm period) the team have been analysing the chemical impurities in the cores to unravel...

Residents Rightfully Ask - Who should pay to clean my pool? Who should pay to get the coil-damaging dust out of my A/C unit at my home? Who should pay my water bill to clean up all this dust in my Yard? We have heard of no good faith offer to compensate homeowners for the cost of cleaning up the dust by the developers that caused it. Will attorney fees be added to the developers clean up costs? Affected homeowners group is looking at filing class-action suit for dust damages. Irresponsible builders and inaction by city leaders who have been...

Dust clouds continue to roll as city & state PM10 regulations are ignored. Citizens working with city to help correct the problem -concerns over health and real estate values. City good standing with other Valley cities in jeopardy as DHS becomes problem for CVAC efforts to meet state and federal dust control mandates. Citizens on patrol of the city find that most developers ignoring most if not all PM10 standards, including wholesale violations at projects west and upwind of the city. This site's opinion is that these problems are because of cozy relationship between city council and the developers and...