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Archive for December 25th, 2012
Rapid Environmental Changes May Have Help Drive Human Evolution
Posted by redOrbit: April Flowers on December 25th, 2012
RedOrbit: A research team from Penn State and Rutgers University found that roughly 2 million years ago in East Africa, a series of rapid environmental changes may be responsible for driving human evolution.
"The landscape early humans were inhabiting transitioned rapidly back and forth between a closed woodland and an open grassland about five to six times during a period of 200,000 years," said Clayton Magill, graduate student in geosciences at Penn State. "These changes happened very abruptly, with each...
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Marcellus natural gas production expanded in 2012
Posted by Associated Press: Kevin Begos on December 25th, 2012
Associated Press: This year was one of new records and new questions for the boom in Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling.
Previous doubts about the size of the vast resource were mostly put to rest, as data showed that the Marcellus became the most productive natural gas field in the nation, even though well drilling slowed substantially.
According to the federal energy reports Marcellus wells in Pennsylvania and West Virginia now produce 7 billion cubic feet of gas per day. That's about 25 percent of all shale...
Local Communities Stake Claim in Protecting Disaster-Prone Asia
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 25th, 2012
Inter Press Service: From her half-built house, Ari Haryani takes a few steps to reach a freshly cemented path that snakes through the narrow, dusty walkways of this resettlement village. The path offers the 36-year-old a route to safety in case the nearby Mount Merapi, Indonesia's most active volcano, erupts.
"It has given us some security," says the mother of three, referring to the path, one of the many features taking shape to aid this community of 380 homes. "We know what to do and where to run when there is...
Sinopec to research China shale gas development with ConocoPhillips
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 25th, 2012
Reuters: China's Sinopec Group and ConocoPhillips will research potentially vast reserves of shale gas in southwestern China over the next two years, state news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday.
Houston-based ConocoPhillips' will be a new entrant into a the sector in the world's top energy user, which is believed to hold the world's largest reserves of the gas. Shale gas is trapped in rocks and requires a technology called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to unleash.
The Sinopec Exploration Southern...