Book review essay: Perspectives on environmental ethics

Most introductory texts in environmental ethics (and philosophy in general) are anthologies, and there are advantages to this approach. No philosopher is an expert on all aspects of the field, especially if practical concerns such as climate change, population, biodiversity and globalization are addressed. Moreover, if a course is taught by a single professor, an anthology exposes students to different positions on controversial topics written by their advocates, not merely mediated through the professor’s worldview. Another advantage is that students have to grapple with challenging material that was written for professionals and academics, not just students

American Mass Media and Sustainable Development

The American mass media overwhelmingly promote a consumer culture, while paying scant attention to the effects this culture has on the environment. American film and television, especially, is reaching more and more people worldwide, thus promoting wasteful overconsumption on a global scale by encouraging people to abandon traditional, sustainable lifestyles and to aspire to an unsustainable consumerist lifestyle. Hollywood has produced many highly successful movies addressing major social issues, including environmental issues such as chemical pollution, nuclear radiation, and global warming, yet it fails to tie these concerns to the consumerist behaviour that is at the root of these problems. Although it may be too much to expect the American mass media to actively promote sustainable development, it is surely irresponsible to promote consumerism as if it had no adverse environmental consequences. Of course, ultimate power rests with the consumer, without whom there would be no audience to make moves for: but the decision about which movies to make, and where to release them, is in the hands of production companies. They have responsibilities not only to present generations but also to future ones

Dual turbopump liquid hydrogen feed system experience

Design and development of dual turbopump liquid hydrogen feed syste

Late-successional and old-growth forests in the northeastern United States: Structure, dynamics, and prospects for restoration.

Abstract Restoration of old-growth forest structure is an emerging silvicultural goal, especially in those regions where old-growth abundance falls below the historic range of variability. However, longitudinal studies of old-growth dynamics that can inform silvicultural and policy options are few. We analyzed the change in structure, including stand density, diameter distribution, and the abundance of large live, standing dead, and downed dead trees on 58 late-successional and old-growth plots in Maine, USA, and compared these to regional data from the U.S. Forest Inventory and Analysis program. Structural dynamics on the late-successional plots reflected orderly change associated with density-dependent growth and mortality, but dynamics on the old-growth plots were more variable. Some plots experienced heavy mortality associated with beech bark disease. Diameter distributions conformed poorly to a classic exponential distribution, and did not converge toward such a distribution at the plot scale. Although large live trees showed a broad trend of increasing density in regional forests, recent harvesting patterns offset a considerable fraction of those gains, while mean diameter was static and the number of large dead trees was weakly declining. Even though forests of the northeast are aging, changes in silviculture and forest policy are necessary to accelerate restoration of old-growth structure

Regulation of Francisella Tularensis Virulence

Francisella tularensis is one of the most virulent bacteria known and a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Category A select agent. It is able to infect a variety of animals and insects and can persist in the environment, thus Francisella spp. must be able to survive in diverse environmental niches. However, F. tularensis has a surprising dearth of sensory and regulatory factors. Recent advancements in the field have identified new functions of encoded transcription factors and greatly expanded our understanding of virulence gene regulation. Here we review the current knowledge of environmental adaptation by F. tularensis, its transcriptional regulators and their relationship to animal virulence

A Modified Magnitude System that Produces Well-Behaved Magnitudes, Colors, and Errors Even for Low Signal-to-Noise Ratio Measurements

We describe a modification of the usual definition of astronomical magnitudes, replacing the usual logarithm with an inverse hyperbolic sine function; we call these modified magnitudes `asinh magnitudes'. For objects detected at signal-to-noise ratios of greater than about five, our modified definition is essentially identical to the traditional one; for fainter objects (including those with a formally negative flux) our definition is well behaved, tending to a definite value with finite errors as the flux goes to zero. This new definition is especially useful when considering the colors of faint objects, as the difference of two `asinh' magnitudes measures the usual flux ratio for bright objects, while avoiding the problems caused by dividing two very uncertain values for faint objects. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data products will use this scheme to express all magnitudes in their catalogs.Comment: 11 pages, including 3 postscript figures. Submitted to A