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Daily Archives: August 23, 2010

Unusual Findings from long term study of enormous plastic patch floating in Atlantic

Follow up to previous posting on Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch, this new research – Economist [with links from additional sources]: “The amount of plastic produced around the world increased fivefold between 1976 and 2008, and the amount thrown away by Americans went up fourfold between 1980 and 2008. It is a reasonable assumption that, as the amount of discarded plastic increases, so will the problem of oceanic pollution. Reasonable but, as it turns out, wrong. For a 22-year-long study of the North Atlantic and the Caribbean, just published in Science, suggests things are not getting worse. Kara Law from the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and her colleagues have found that between 1986 and 2008 there was no increase in the concentration of plastic in the areas they looked at.”

Number of uninsured in California counties grew during recession

News release: “A new fact sheet from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, California’s Uninsured by County, provides detailed county-by-county estimates of the number of California residents who have lost health insurance during the economic downturn. Following on a statewide estimate published earlier this year, the new analysis finds that the number of Californians… Continue Reading

FDA Recall of Shell Eggs

Recall of Shell Eggs: “An outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis (SE) that has sickened hundreds of people across the country has led to a recall of shell eggs. On August 13, Wright County Egg voluntarily conducted a nationwide recall of shell eggs on 3 of its 5 farms. Further epidemiologic and traceback information led to Wright… Continue Reading

An Analysis of 2010 Short Sale Trends, Risks, and Opportunities

The Cost of Short Sales, CoreLogic Research Study – An Analysis of 2010 Short Sale Trends, Risks, and Opportunities Study, August 2010 “The objective of this study is to understand the actual costs of residential mortgage short sales (or short payoffs) to mortgage industry participants and the industry itself. A short sale is a real… Continue Reading

OPM – Federal Student Loan Repayment Program Calendar Year 2009, Report to the Congress

OPM: Federal Student Loan Repayment Program Calendar Year 2009, Report to the Congress, August 2010 “Overall for CY 2009, 36 Federal agencies provided 8,454 employees with a total of more than $61.8 million in student loan repayment benefits….Section 5379 of title 5, United States Code, authorizes agencies to establish a program under which they may… Continue Reading

Universal Periodic Review on Human Rights Submitted to UN by U.S.

“The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a new and unique human rights mechanism of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council aiming at improving the human rights situation on the ground of each of the 192 UN Member States. Under this mechanism, the human rights situation of all UN Member States is reviewed every 4… Continue Reading

A century of phytoplankton decline suggests that ocean ecosystems are in peril

Nature.com: “Marine phytoplankton — the vast range of tiny algae species accounting for roughly half of Earth’s total photosynthetic biomass — have declined substantially in the world’s oceans over the past century, researchers report in Nature this week. The findings add to concerns that climate change is dangerously altering marine ecosystems. Phytoplankton are the basis… Continue Reading