Environment news

• Flint water crisis prompts schools nationwide to test water for lead

  09-04-2016 17:59 via theguardian.com
  
  EPA data shows 278 schools and daycare centers across the country violated federal lead level requirements within past three yearsAnger and skepticism in Philadelphia over water testing
  Water operators use tests to downplay contaminationResponding to the crisis in Flint, Michigan, school officials across the country are testing classroom sinks and cafeteria faucets for lead, trying to uncover any concealed problems and reassure anxious parents. Just a fraction of schools and daycare centers nati
  
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• Rising oceans may pose a bigger threat than previously assumed

  09-04-2016 16:34 via feedproxy.google.com
  Of all the impacts of climate change, one stands out for its inexorable menace, writes Pete Dolack: rising oceans. And it's not just for distant future generations to deal with: new scientific studies show that people alive today may face 6-9 metres of sea level rise flooding well over a million sq.km including many of the world's biggest cities. So where's the emergency response?There is a possibility, a real danger, that we will hand young people and future generations a climate system that is
  
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• Russia's Gazprom says won't share its Europe-bound gas export monopoly - RIA

  09-04-2016 15:42
  Allowing Novatek and Russia's top oil producer Rosneft to export gas to Europe would not be in Russia's national interest, RIA news agency quoted Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom as saying on Saturday. "If we talk about our European (export) policy, about a single export channel, these are our national interests.
  
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• President Barack Obama Hails SpaceX's Rocket Landing Success at Sea

  09-04-2016 14:48
  
  SpaceX's stunningly successful rocket landing on a drone ship Friday (April 8) has won accolades from the highest office in the land, with President Barack Obama hailing the company's technological feat. "Congrats SpaceX on landing a rocket at sea," Obama wrote in a Twitter post after the rocket landing. SpaceX landed a Falcon 9 rocket booster on its drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You" after successfully launching an unmanned Dragon cargo ship filled with NASA supplies to the International S
  
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• How melting ice sheets are changing the way the Earth moves on its axis – video explainer

  09-04-2016 13:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Global warming is changing the way the Earth moves on its polar axis. A new Nasa study says that Melting ice sheets are affecting the distribution of weight on Earth, which is causing both the North Pole and the wobble, which is called polar motion, to change course. Scientists say the polar motion shift is harmless, but that it highlights the impact humans are having on the planet Continue reading...
  
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• Reusable rocket lands on sea platform

  09-04-2016 10:59 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The US aerospace company SpaceX successfully lands a reusable rocket on an ocean platform, after four previous attempts failed.
  
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• ‘We have a chance to show the truth’: into the heart of Chernobyl

  09-04-2016 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Three decades after the nuclear disaster, the concrete protecting the reactor is starting to crack. Yet people still live there – and a new virtual reality project will take many more inside the ‘death zone’At first they thought it was just a fire, then the chickens started to turn black. When it comes to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, everyone has a vivid detail that is snagged in the memory; the absurdities or the obscenities. It might be the local village that, once evacuat
  
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• Snakes in the bracken

  09-04-2016 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Big Moor, Derbyshire The glimpse resolved itself into a knot of plump, scaly flesh, two adders wound around each other“It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,” Brutus warned in Julius Caesar, “and that craves wary walking.” As I crossed the white dome of Big Moor, snakes were the last creatures on my mind. That morning’s blue skies had given way to dark, scudding clouds and a keen wind. Twelve hundred feet up, it felt too cold for snakes. I sank my chin in
  
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• SpaceX rocket booster makes breakthrough landing at sea

  09-04-2016 02:55
  By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on a NASA cargo run to the International Space Station on Friday, and its reusable main-stage booster landed on an ocean platform minutes later in a dramatic spaceflight first. The successful autonomous touchdown of the booster at sea marked another milestone for billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and his privately owned Space Exploration Technologies in the quest to develop a cheap, reusable rocket
  
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• Melting ice sheets changing the way the Earth wobbles on its axis, says Nasa

  09-04-2016 02:35 via theguardian.com
  
  ‘Dramatic’ shift in polar motion attributed to effects of global warming and the impact humans are having on the planetGlobal warming is changing the way the Earth wobbles on its polar axis, a new Nasa study has found.Melting ice sheets, especially in Greenland, are changing the distribution of weight on Earth. And that has caused both the North Pole and the wobble, which is called polar motion, to change course, according to a study published on Friday in the journal Science Advance
  
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• VIDEO: SpaceX lands rocket on ocean barge

  09-04-2016 00:57 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The private space company SpaceX successfully lands a rocket on a barge floating off the Florida coast.
  
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