Urge to create plan for treating waste batteries in Mexico

Jose Antonio Guevara Garcia, says that in Mexico there is still a delay in the trafficking of waste batteries

While in other regions of the world as the European Community legislation exists governing the use and disuse of batteries, and Mexico is still a delay in the matter, warned the specialist José Antonio Guevara García.

The member of the Research Laboratory of Bioinorganic and Bioremediation, Faculty of Basic Science, Technology and Engineering at the Autonomous University of Tlaxcala, said that therefore there is an urgent need to develop a plan or model of waste management control of these systems energy.

In a speech on 'Current status of the batteries in Mexico: prevention of pollution today or mass decontamination in the future', in Cuajimalpa Unit of the Metropolitan Autonomous University, the expert provided an overview of the status of these devices in Mexico and the world.

He said the main health problems that generate waste batteries in humans are damaging the brain, kidneys and developing fetuses, as well as nervous and reproductive systems, stomach paralysis, anemia and changes in levels cholesterol.

Based on studies from the National Institute of Ecology, Guevara García added that the battery consumption in the country increased 13 times for the period 1996-2007, and spent two thousand from 500 to 32,000 900 tonnes. In terms of consumption per capita, rose from 5.2 batteries per inhabitant in 1996 to 12.6 cells per inhabitant in 2002.

According to the Mexican Association of BC Cells (Amexpilas), the Mexican market for that product for 2004 was 228 million, representing a thousand 980 million pesos, referred to the specialist.

The chemical industry also announced that the 600 million batteries sold directly in Mexico, every year 200 million (33.3 percent) are illegal devices, so we felt it appropriate to recall that in the national territory and not There are manufacturing these items.

In the past seven years in Mexico, estimated, 35 000 have been discarded 500 tons of batteries.

While from 1960 to 2003 have been released in Mexico 635 000 tons of batteries, of which 30 percent (190 thousand tons) correspond to toxic substances, according to the National Ecology Institute.

Thanks to INFORMADOR.COM

Earthquake 'collapse' to Japan

Japan's economy will slow significantly this year after the earthquake of March and the government needs to redistribute items of expenditure to rebuild the affected areas of the northeast and ensure faster growth next year, the OECD said on Thursday.

Gross domestic product would grow 0.8% this year, well below the 1.7% previously estimated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, due to damage caused by the disaster of 11 March.

Then, the economy would expand by 2.3% in 2012, more than the 1.3% projected earlier, as gains speed reconstruction, the OECD estimated in a report.

Government spending to rebuild damaged infrastructure is inevitable, but the government must show fiscal discipline and at some point will have to raise the sales tax to 20% from 5% now, according to the OECD.

"The immediate impact of the horrendous disaster would be great yse extend beyond the areas devastated by the earthquake and tsunami," the report said.

"However, the experience of recent disasters in Japan and other countries suggests that the negative impact in the short term económicaserá production followed by a rebound as rebuilding takes hold," he added.

Japan is facing its worst crisis since the Second World War after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami with waves up to 10 meters high struck the northeast coast, leaving 28.000 people dead or missing and causing radioactive leaks at plant nuclear.

The government estimates the damage in only 300.000 million, in what would be the costliest natural disaster in history.

The Government presented in Parliament next week extra budget of 4 trillion yen (48.500 million dollars) to remove debris and build temporary housing.

THANKS TO CNNEXPANSION

MIT scientists solve the mysterious problem of Molyneux

In 1688, the Irish scientist William Molyneux posed in a letter toJohn Locke the following problem: if a person blind from birthbecomes the adult view and see a cube and a sphere, geometric shapes used to know and name recognition thanks to the touchWould it be able to tell by sight what I know identify with their hands? An affirmative answer, according to Molyneux, we meanthat a concept-independent innate sense "of certain concepts,such as the sphere.

Three centuries later, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology (MIT) have the problem of Molyneuxconseguidoresolver studying a group of Indian children born blind,aged between 8 and 17, who had recovered his sight after anoperation. As they explain in the journal Nature NeurosciencePawas Sinha and his colleagues, subjects initially failed to recognize the look immediately to what previously had beentouched with your hands, indicating that the brain does not create asingle representation of things relating different types of sensory information in this case, visual and tactile. However, acquired thisskill at an amazing speed in a few days of practice, suggesting thatour brain has more plasticity than previously thought even after the first years of life.

Thanks to Muyinteresante

Penguins: disturbing decline in population in Antarctica

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States has just published a report which revealed alarmingfigures on penguin populations in Antarctica. According to thisstudy the root cause of this is climate change, which affected the amount of krill available, the main food of penguins.

The Adélie penguin populations and Chinstrap PenguinsenAntártida come dragging in recent years a disturbing rate ofannual decline of 2.9% and 4.3% respectively. And to extrapolatethis to a longer-term analysis, the result is even worse: somecolonies have been reduced to 50% the number of individuals inthe past 30 years.

The clearest result of this drastic population decline is thereduction of one of their main food source, krill (crustacean). Theamount of krill in the sea has been declining in the 80's and isestimated to have come down between 75% and 80% in the Antarctic Peninsula due to ecosystem changes resulting fromglobal warming.

Thanks to BLOGVERDE

Saolas: create a nature reserve in Vietnam to save these mysterious cattle

For those who never heard of him, the saola is considered theworld's strangest mammals. Only 19 years ago that the specieswas discovered by Western science and are virtually unknownsince it does not survive in captivity. Today the cattle, which islisted as critically endangered, Vietnam will have a protected areain the Natural Park Saola "which is expected to recover itspopulation.

The saolas belong to the family of cattle and are related toantelopes and cows. MontañasAnnamitas live only in Vietnam andLaos, low tropical forest ecosystem that years ago was intended to protect because of the high degree of vulnerability of biodiversity.Like many other animals of their main threats are poaching.Currently it is estimated that the population can go from a fewhundred specimens (at best) until just a few dozen (at leastoptimistic forecasts.)

With this new "Saola Natural Park, located in Quang Nam, east ofVietnam opens a protected corridor that will connect to the Xe SapNational Park in Laos.

Source: WWF

THANKS TO BLOGVERDE

Invasive clams in Great Lake

Several factors tend to alter an ecosystem, and while many of themare related by the action of man, sometimes resulting from a sudden increased occurrence of invasive species that tend to alterthe pre-existing balance, affecting the quality of life native speciesand creating conditions that can cripple even the creatures that live there.



This is exactly what is happening in the U.S. Lake deGreat Lake,where a myriad of fish species are being affected by the advance and rapid reproduction of two invasive species of clams (Zebraand Quagga Type) causing the destruction of algal populations.

There are several factors which caused this sudden invasion froma link to changes in Lake Michigan to the migration of thesespecies reproduced rapidly due to a marked contrast in theamount of food found in Great Lake.

These species of clams have a rather small, so their diet is mainly based on small algae and other unicellular organisms calleddiatoms.

Via: Science Dail

Thanks to BLOGVERDE

The earthquake in Japan: the most expensive natural disaster in history

The violent earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11 could cost 140,000 million euros ($ 200,000 million) to the third world economy, the highest bill so far for a natural disaster, according to a Thursday bank Goldman Sachs.

"We believe the total cost of damage caused by the earthquake (and tsunami) March 11 could rise to 16 trillion yen,"wrote Goldman Sachs economists.

This bill will be higher than the Kobe earthquake in 1995 (9.6 trillion), considered so far by Goldman Sachs as a "natural disaster" most devastating in economic terms.

The calculation is, however, lower than official estimates by the Japanese government, under which the disaster could cost 200,000 million euros to Japan's economy.

THANKS TO UNIVERSAL