Electricity from trees

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Plants have long been known as the lungs of the earth, but a new finding has found they may also play a role in electrifying the atmosphere.

Scientists have long-suspected an association between trees and electricity but researchers from Queensland University of Technology (QUT), in Brisbane, Australia, think they may have finally discovered the link.

Dr Rohan Jayaratne and Dr Xuan Ling from QUT's International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health (ILAQH), led by Professor Lidia Morawska, ran experiments in six locations around Brisbane, including the Brisbane Forest Park, Daisy Hill and Mt Coot-tha.

They found the positive and negative ion concentrations in the air were twice as high in heavily wooded areas than in open grassy areas, such as parks.

Dr Jayaratne, who is also a member of QUT's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI), said that natural ions in the air were mainly created by ionisation due to two processes - radiation from the trace gas radon in air and cosmic radiation from space.

Radon is a by-product of the radioactive decay of radium which is present in minute quantities in rocks and is continually exhaled by the ground.

"Because radium is found in rocks and radon is soluble in water, ground water is particularly rich in radon," he said.

"Trees act as radon pumps, bringing the gas to the surface and releasing it to the atmosphere through transpiration - a process where water absorbed by the root system is evaporated into the atmosphere from leaves. This is especially prevalent for trees with deep root systems, such as eucalypts."

The QUT scientists estimated that, in a eucalyptus forest, trees may account for up to 37 per cent of the radon in the air when transpiration rates were highest.

Dr Jayaratne said though there was still a lot more research which needed to be done in relation to the role of ions, the findings, which were published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, have potentially important implications for the atmosphere, climate and human health.

"Although there is an established link between airborne particles and human health, the role of ions is largely unknown," he said.

"However, we do know that approximately one-half of the particles that we inhale during normal breathing are retained in our respiratory system and it has been shown that charged particles were more likely to be deposited in the lungs than uncharged particles.

"We do not believe that ions are dangerous - the danger comes from the pollutants. If there are no dangerous particles in the air to attach to the ions there is no risk of ill health."

###

Queensland University of Technology: http://www.qut.edu.au

Thanks to Queensland University of Technology for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 25 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/118597/Electricity_from_trees

andrej pejic naomi watts macaulay culkin steve jobs fbi safehouse brown recluse brown recluse

Adriana Lima: I Don?t Care If Baby Is a Boy or a Girl

"Boy or girl, we'll be excited either way," the Victoria's Secret stunner, 30, tells PEOPLE. "As long as our baby is healthy, we're happy!"

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/Vu251Tgg1gk/

sharia law ron paul new hampshire primary results amanda bynes molly sims hostess brands nh primary

Breakthrough Opens Door for 60Tb Hard Drives [Storage]

Seagate just shattered the record for storage density on hard drives by using a novel recording method to stuff 1 terabit into a square inch. That's nearly twice the old record. Hard drives are about to get huge. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/rZTJKbegRuA/breakthrough-opens-door-for-60tb-hard-drives

andrew bird lizzie borden lizzie borden iona taylor allderdice mixtape carmelo anthony pi day

North Korean triplets born thanks to "honey tonics"

[ [ [['Witnesses said the gunman pulled up on a black scooter', 7]], 'http://yhoo.it/GzwOIW', '[Related: New York police tighten security at Jewish sites]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['test Zimmerman for alcohol or drugs', 11]], 'http://yhoo.it/Gzn6VF', '[Related: White House says Trayvon Martin is local issue]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['Shortly after he wrapped up his victory remarks', 2]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/4-straight-romney-wins-washington-gop-caucus-1330835515-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/3/e9/3e9b0082c3c3111dcc19e3527ae94cc7.jpeg', '500', ' ', 'AP Photo/Steven Senne', ], [ [['best understands the problems of average Americans', 2]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/4-straight-romney-wins-washington-gop-caucus-1330835515-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/3/e9/3e9b0082c3c3111dcc19e3527ae94cc7.jpeg', '500', ' ', 'AP Photo/Steven Senne', ], [ [['Trayvon Martin', 7]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/white-house-stays-out-of-teen-s-killing-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120320/trayvonjquery.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery', 7]], 'http://yhoo.it/GB2RVy', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/os/152/2012/03/20/photo-1332257995646-4-0-jpg_171722.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AFP', ], [ [['A massive manhunt is underway in France on Monday', 4]], 'http://yhoo.it/Gzy0M9', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/d/b4/db49ba9fa9a9bb5b59d2503822dd212c.jpeg', '630', ' ', 'AP/Manu Blondeau', ], [ [['xxxxxxxxxxxx', 11]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/russian-grannies-win-bid-to-sing-at-eurovision-1331223625-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/1/56/156d92f2760dcd3e75bcd649a8b85fcf.jpeg', '500', ' ', 'AP', ] ]

[ [ [['French police stepped up the search',17]], ', '0' ], [ [['Seeking to elevate his candidacy back to a general', 8]], '28660934', '0' ], [ [['The tragic story of Trayvon Martin', 4]], '28647343', '0' ], [ [['Karzai will get a chance soon to express', 8]], '28630306', '0' ], [ [['powerful storms stretching', 8]], '28493546', '0' ], [ [['basic norm that death is private', 6]], '28413590', '0' ], [ [['songwriter also saw a surge in sales for her debut album', 6]], '28413590', '1', 'Watch music videos from Whitney Houston ', 'on Yahoo! Music', 'http://music.yahoo.com' ], [ [['keyword', 99999999999999999999999]], 'videoID', '1', 'overwrite-pre-description', 'overwrite-link-string', 'overwrite-link-url' ] ]

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/north-korean-triplets-born-thanks-honey-tonics-140330363.html

blue ivy carter photos purple squirrel blade runner close encounters of the third kind norovirus ann coulter beyonce and jay z baby

Android: Can an app improve social skills?

Android app is designed for socially awkward people. The AwkTalk app, winner of a competition, lets students with Android-based machines meet and rate each other's social skills.?

Undergraduate students at the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Science at University of California, Irvine, have built an?Android?app to help students through social awkwardness.

Skip to next paragraph

The app is called AwkTalk developed by students for AppJam, a competition to build the best mobile app in one week. The theme for the competition was self improvement and the team "Socially Awkward Anteaters" won the $1,000 first prize in the competition with the app.

"We were all aware that many of our colleagues in the fields of computer science and engineering (ourselves included) lack excellent socials skills," the overview of the project says.

The app helps students find a place to meet face to face where they'll participate in a timed discussion and then rate the other person's social skills. Find more information about the app on the team's website: http://appjam.roboteater.com/team10.php.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/hcCyAuWYvAw/Android-Can-an-app-improve-social-skills

larry ellison go ask alice go ask alice john mccarthy john mccarthy lumpectomy robin williams

The Anthology! - MOMENTUM: Making Waves in Sexuality ...

?

We?ve gone and done it. Because organizing a conference just isn?t quite enough work for your intrepid organizers (that would be us, Tess and Dee, we?re waving at you), we decided to add another project to fill up our spare time. Of course, we wanted it to be something amazing, and since we have a group of amazing presenters, who also happen to be writers, we decided to put together the first MOMENTUM anthology. Thankfully a lot of our presenters thought this was a smashing idea, and generously wrote essays based on their 2012 sessions. So you can take the con home with you! Or if you missed it, for whatever reason, you can download the book on Amazon and read all about it. It?s the next best thing to being there!

MOMENTUM, the conference, deals with a plethora of issues that revolve around the themes of sexuality, feminism and relationships. In today?s climate, with a veritable war on women happening all around us -the Rush vs Sandra brouhaha, Susan G. Komen and the Planned Parenthood nightmare, worries about the availability of birth control, and some newspapers pulling Gary Trudeau?s dead on Doonesbury strips dealing with compulsory transvaginal ultrasounds prior to abortions ? events like MOMENTUM become even more crucial.

This collection, begins with a foreword by a truly amazing and inspirational woman, Dr. Joycelyn Elders, that reads like a rousing call to action, something those of us who believe in MOMENTUM, can well relate to and ends with the hauntingly, beautiful poem by Leela Sinha, Easy Does It, that reflects on what would happen if we let pleasure be a guide. And in between that motivational start and reflective end, you?ll find the same diversity there is at MOMENTUM; stories about sex work and social justice, about the Pleasure Revolution, about the challenges of being a sex educator, about combating sexual abuse and violence within our communities, about senior sex and about sexual orientation and gender and much, much more.

We are so very proud of this book and so very grateful to the authors of the essays and to our co-editor, Inara De Luna, who can publish a mean e-book. Seek her out if you need assistance! Wait, don?t, we need her!

Now go, check it out on Amazon ? Momentum: Making Waves in Sexuality, Feminism, & Relationships - and pick it up for only $9.99. That?s a lot of smarts for ten bucks!

Source: http://momentumcon.com/2012/03/momentum-the-anthology/

purple squirrel blade runner close encounters of the third kind norovirus ann coulter beyonce and jay z baby droid 4

How to make a real estate investment marketing plan | what is a ...

How to make a real estate investment marketing plan

If you are a real estate investor and want to clinch a few lucrative deals, then you will have to evolve and put in place a sound real estate investment marketing plan. If you are haphazardly advertising and running after some real estate investment deals in an unplanned way, you will not succeed in seeing big profits in the tricky real estate business.

You definitely need a real estate investment marketing plan to be continuously successful in the real estate business. It is rather unfortunate that there are so many who enter real estate investing but without ant marketing plans and sales projections. It is only a small percentage of real estate investors who have real estate investment marketing plan to achieve success.

The real estate investment marketing plan must be very specific with time-bound targets. Putting your real estate marketing plan on paper will help you to review progress and apply necessary correctives when things go wrong. One of the advantages of having a real estate marketing plan is that it will help you delegate to others less important work and create time for you to play a more productive role and concentrate on key result areas to help overall success of the business. Many professionals opine that when you have a real estate investment marketing plan, you will notice the business goals are attained much faster.
?
Any successful real estate professional in today?s computer age will have to fully exploit all advantages the Internet offers. Real estate investment plan must include web presence to reach a huge buying audience. There are several web designers to advise about what you need to do with a website, how to set it up, what type of content required to draw visitors and increase search engine results. There is also ample scope for augmenting real estate business through online social networking sites.

Here are some useful tips that should form part of the real estate investment marketing plan:

1. Buy houses below full market value- taking pains to identify sellers who sell homes for less than the home?s full value. The successful real estate investor learns how to spot financially distressed home owners who have no choice but to sell for less than market value. The reasons may be many ? loss of employment, sudden transfer of job, marriage breaks-down and divorce, unforeseen emergency expenses etc.

2. There are other motivated sellers of real estate and you have to hunt for them! One real estate investment marketing plan that is simple and yet very effective ? door to door sales. With door to door prospecting you will buy and sell more homes quicker than any other method.

3. After identifying a motivated seller, you must imaginatively frame offers that provide benefits for both you and for the home seller. A good real estate investor quickly learns that there is a way impress on the motivated seller. The home owner is obviously in a tight spot and you can save him from a lot of embarrassment and, in most cases, give him at least a little cash to get a new start. You must use creative techniques like, leases, option and taking over mortgage payments.

4. You should be vigilant and watch out for public notices for the announcement of foreclosure sales. Meeting with a home owner right after they have received a notice, will provide you the opportunity to deal with a very motivated seller. Other public notices that provide buying opportunities include probate, divorce and bankruptcy. You can follow the Homes for Sale listings both in your local newspapers as well as the Internet site.

5. Never make a purchase hurriedly till you have carefully determined exactly how you will sell to realize the projected profits. If you plan holding it as a long term investment, calculate if the monthly rental income is enough to cover the monthly mortgage payment. Think over if you can do some renovation and sell the property for a much higher value.

if you want to read a rilated article about

March 19, 2012 ?Tags:?How to make a real estate investment marketing plan ?Posted?in:?Real Estate Investment

Source: http://whatisa-investment.com/real-estate-investment-marketing/

occupy oakland occupy oakland morgellons disease arik armstead sag awards red carpet torrey pines nhl all star game 2012