Tag • #water

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Mars may not have had liquid water long enough for life to form

news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 4 April - 19:39

Image of a grey-colored slope with channels cut into it.

Enlarge (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona )

Mars has a history of liquid water on its surface, including lakes like the one that used to occupy Jezero Crater , which have long since dried up. Ancient water that carried debris—and melted water ice that presently does the same—were also thought to be the only thing driving the formation of gullies spread throughout the Martian landscape. That view may now change thanks to new results that suggest dry ice can also shape the landscape.

It’s sublime

Previously, scientists were convinced that only liquid water shaped gullies on Mars because that’s what happens on Earth. What was not taken into account was sublimation , or the direct transition of a substance from a solid to a gaseous state. Sublimation is how CO ₂ ice disappears ( sometimes water ice experiences this, too).

Frozen carbon dioxide is everywhere on Mars, including in its gullies. When CO ₂ ice sublimates on one of these gullies, the resulting gas can push debris further down the slope and continue to shape it.

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The true cost of El Salvador’s new gold rush

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Thursday, 4 April - 04:00 · 1 minute

Seven years ago, El Salvador banned all mining for metals to protect its water supply. But now the government seems to be making moves to reverse the ban – and environmental activists are in the firing line

On the afternoon of 17 May 2023, in the rural El Salvador state of Cabañas, Vidalina Morales’s mobile phone rang. It was her 33-year-old son, Manuel, but his voice sounded strange. “They have me here in the police station,” he said. He’d been arrested while playing football with friends on a local field. Morales tried to breathe. This had long been her worst fear: that her loved ones would be targeted on account of her work.

Morales, 55, is one of the most visible leaders of the Salvadoran environmentalist movement. About 5ft tall and slight, with long black hair wrapped into a sensible bun, she often wears the blouses and long skirts traditional to rural Salvadoran women. As the president of a development organisation in Cabañas called the Association for Social and Economic Development ( Ades ), she is also familiar with the halls of power. In March 2017, she and her colleagues, after years of activism, won a national ban on metal mining , the first such ban in the world. Mining posed an existential threat to the Salvadoran water supply. Worldwide, the industry often overrides local laws and regulations and leaves violence and environmental destruction in its wake. For Salvadorans, a ban was the only way to protect their resources.

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Zimbabwean president declares state of disaster due to drought

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 3 April - 20:14

Emmerson Mnangagwa says country needs $2bn of aid as severe dry spell caused by El Niño afflicts southern Africa

Zimbabwe has declared a national disaster over a drought caused by the climate event known as El Niño and President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said the country needs $2bn in aid to help millions of people who are going hungry.

The severe dry spell is wreaking havoc across southern Africa.

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Cracking geysers: the world’s most thrilling hot springs – in pictures

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 3 April - 06:00

They can be sacred, space-like, healing or heart-shaped – and anywhere on Earth. Even war can’t get between people and natural springs, as Greta Rybus shows in her latest photobook

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One in three UK water workers verbally abused amid sewage fury, GMB finds

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 3 April - 05:00

Exclusive: public anger over river pollution affecting employee safety, union survey suggests

Water industry workers say they have been physically assaulted and feel unsafe working alone for fear of attack amid a public backlash over sewage dumping.

More than one in three UK water employees have been verbally abused at work, according to a survey of almost 1,300 staff conducted by the GMB union.

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Thames Water owner bond slumps to record lows amid uncertainty over firm

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Tuesday, 2 April - 11:06

Fall to 14.4p comes after shareholders said they were unwilling to inject further funds

A bond issued by Thames Water’s parent company has fallen to record lows as the embattled company scrambles to secure its future, and the government signalled it is “ready to step in if necessary”.

The £400m bond, issued by the water supplier’s parent company, Kemble, has slumped to only 14.4p after shareholders indicated that they were unwilling to inject further funds into the heavily indebted utility company.

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‘Headaches, organ damage and even death’: how salty water is putting Bangladesh’s pregnant women at risk

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Tuesday, 2 April - 04:00

As rising sea levels and extreme weather contaminate drinking water sources, doctors are seeing alarming numbers of women with serious health problems including pre-eclampsia

Photographs by Farzana Hossen

In the small, crowded ward of the Upazila Health Complex in Dacope, new and expecting mothers lie exhausted beneath fans that spin noisily above their heads. There are no dividers in the maternity room shared by more than 20 women, so visiting husbands are ushered out by nurses when someone needs attending to.

Sapriya Rai, 23, has pre-eclampsia and is being monitored at the Upazila Health Complex

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UK at risk of summer water shortages and hosepipe bans, scientists warn

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Monday, 1 April - 10:59

Hot and dry conditions could force measures despite country experiencing wettest 18 months since records began

Why is the UK facing water shortages despite record rainfall?

The UK could face water shortages and hosepipe bans if this summer is hot and dry, despite having experienced the wettest 18 months since records began.

Leading scientists have said that because the UK is not storing its water properly, the country is vulnerable to the “all or nothing” rain patterns being experienced more frequently due to climate breakdown.

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Boat Race organisers ask defeated Oxford crew to clarify sickness claims

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Sunday, 31 March - 11:52

Oxford men’s team ‘had a few guys go down with E coli strain’
Thames Water under pressure over ‘so much poo in the water’

Organisers of the Boat Race have contacted Oxford to seek further clarity on the cause of the sickness bug that struck down several members of their men’s team.

Cambridge triumphed in the women’s and men’s Blue races on Saturday following an unusually high-profile buildup to the historic event, after River Action UK found dangerously high levels of E coli bacteria on the River Thames course.