Climate Change: Water vapour

From a comment: “Although human activities have no direct effect on water vapour levels, temperature rises caused by human activity, do have an indirect effect in increasing quantities of water vapour in the atmosphere, thereby increasing global warming.”

clipped from www.bbc.co.uk Water Vapour is the biggest contributor to the ‘natural greenhouse effect’ and varies the most in the atmosphere. Cold air can hold little water and so the atmosphere over the polar regions contains very little water vapour. In contrast, air over the tropics is very humid and the atmosphere can contain up to 4% water vapour. It is this ‘positive feedback’ that makes water vapour important in climate change as a small increase in global temperature would lead to a rise in global water vapour levels thus further enhancing the greenhouse effect. Human activities have little impact on the level of water vapour in the atmosphere.

Ezqimo’s collection of favorite photos at Flickr

the last number I’ve heard was that Yahoo’s Flickr service receives over 2.000 new photos per minute these days… There is a special “most popular last 7 days” “photo stream” there that is simply awsome – sooo many great new photos each day. Quite dangerous, timewise… Addictive.

clipped from www.flickr.com Here are some of your favorite photos from other Flickr members.

7000 royalty free, high resolution stock photos

“Browse and search their photo gallery of over 7.000 royalty free, high resolution stock photos, templates and logos to use in your personal and educational design projects”

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Physical exercise can boost brain capacity

Judging by physical nature we are meant to be active and moving around during the day, but judging from what seems to be psychological nature, we are lazy, “conserving energy”. With our new tools, methods and ways of organizing society, this dilemma may prove so difficult that perhaps the virtual world is the only “rescue”, and we end up in jars with the body used as battery..? With a little extra research we will probably be able to keep the brain on top concentrated level with the blood circulation flowing well, simply by using impulses, without moving the body and spending energy “unnecessary”… Oh, I think I need to see Matrix again.

clipped from www.newscientist.com Simply walking sedately for half an hour three times a week can improve abilities such as learning, concentration and abstract reasoning by 15 per cent. There’s another reason why your brain loves physical exercise: it promotes the growth of new brain cells. Until recently, received wisdom had it that we are born with a full complement of neurons and produce no new ones during our lifetime. Fred Gage from the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, busted that myth in 2000 when he showed that even adults can grow new brain cells. He also found that exercise is one of the best ways to achieve this. In mice, at least, the brain-building effects of exercise are strongest in the hippocampus, which is involved with learning and memory. This also happens to be the brain region that is damaged by elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol. So if you are feeling frazzled, do your brain a favour and go for a run.

Why the 9 to 5 Office Worker Will Become a Thing of the Past

The Natural Productivity Cycle.
In your personal life, when attending to business or working on side projects, how often do you spend 8 consecutive hours in front of a computer? It doesn
’t make sense because we lose the ability to concentrate effectively within a few hours.
Everyone goes through alternating periods of high and low mental acuity.

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Cars are getting bossy when it comes to high-tech safety

The new push is for “active safety,”..Automakers and suppliers are racing to be first with pricey technology that keeps you in your lane, applies the brakes if you’re not quick enough and lets you leave cruise control on in bumper-to-bumper traffic. “The downside is that people will have the impression that the vehicle will save them no matter

read more | digg story

intel unveils worlds thinnest laptop, almost as skinny as razr

Codenamed the Intel Mobile Metro Notebook, this prototype was designed by Intel along with Ziba Design, and it’s a mere .7 inches thick and weighs just 2.25 pounds. It’s no dumb blonde, either, packed with Intel’s speediest and most efficient components, which will probably be plenty fast by the time this machine is manufactured, maybe even as soon

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The Open Coffee Club Movement

A round-up of the new global phenomenon that is Open Coffee. Around the world, tech entrepreneurs and investors are meeting regularly to drink coffee, network and hopefully do deals. No more of the old-school “please send us your executive summary before we’ll even talk to you”. A place to find opportunities.

read more | digg story

101 Essential Blogging Resources

Heaps and heaps of resources for bloggers, from domaining to communication to monetization to statistics tools. This is a must have bookmarked list…

read more | digg story

Cats More Lethal to Birds Than Wind Turbines

It takes 30-plus turbines to reach a kill rate of one bird per year. However you look at it, though, birds in the United States seem to die in turbine blades at a rate no higher than 40,000 a year. Deaths by dastardly domestic felines, on the other hand, number in the “hundreds of millions.” One less reason not to consider wind.

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Man who claims FBI is after him puts entire life online

“Elahi has documented nearly every waking hour of his life during that time. He posts copies of every debit card transaction, so you can see what he bought, where, and when. A GPS device in his pocket reports his real-time physical location on a map .”

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Greg Palast Has Roves Missing Emails

Greg Palast is in possession of the missing emails. He also points out what everyone else seems to be missing, that the attorney firings aren’t the real story, the 2004 election is.

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U.S. stops breeding chimps for research

This will spare some chimpanzees a life of up to 60 years in a laboratory. While it doesn’t help chimpanzees already living in laboratories, it is a monumental decision. The Chimpanzee population includes about 500 in laboratories and 90 more in a federal sanctuary for those deemed no longer needed for research.

read more | digg story

So neighbors steal your wi-fi net access, kill the connection or have fun

So you find out that everyone in on your block is using your network without your permission. Do you lock it down or…? Or maybe you want to have a little fun. A little creativity with squid and you could turn your everything they browse upside down (literally)

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WWF: Europe’s Dirtiest Power is in Germany

Germany is respected for leadership in the EU’s bold Energy Plan, including consideration of the nuclear energy option. So Angela Merkel must be cringing at WWF’s report (pdf) last week that 10 of the top 30 worst polluting power plants in Europe are located in Germany.

read more | digg story

The final days of Google

Back in the 1990s Bill Gates said the company that would eventually beat Microsoft probably had yet to be founded – some people believe that company is Google. But what about Google itself, who will kill Google? An interesting analysis of who is most likely to form “the next big thing”.

read more | digg story

Study finds hurricanes frequent in cooler periods.

Still a lot to learn… If we could just settle on the principle of not destroying, we’d save a lot of time and resources.

clipped from www.nytimes.com Over the last 5,000 years, the eastern Caribbean has experienced several periods, lasting centuries, in which strong hurricanes occurred frequently even though ocean temperatures were cooler than those measured today, according to a new study.

Oh well, here we go.

I will fit in my news clippings from several web services here, such as bookmarks from del.icio.us and ClipMarks, Digg news, and both audioblogs and microblogs. To comment on news stories that I “microblog” or “clip”, please comment on. You will find my collected favorite newsfeeds and blog feeds on my main site, ezqimo.com, which is the site where I actually “blog” (write my own stuff).