CONAHEC News and Information

Revolutionary device creates electricity from snowfall
Friday, May. 03, 2019

Scientists from University of California, Los Angeles and McMaster University have invented a first-of-its-kind nanogenerator that can generate electricity using falling snow.

The thin device works by harnessing static electricity: positively-charged, falling snow collides with the negatively-charged silicone device, which produces a charge that’s captured by an electrode.

“You separate the charges and create electricity out of essentially nothing,” Richard Kaner, who holds UCLA’s Dr. Myung Ki Hong Endowed Chair in Materials Innovation, said in a press release.

This Is Why Canadian Universities Don't Have College Admissions Scandals
Tuesday, Apr. 30, 2019

A decade ago, Janice Aurini interviewed 41 upper-middle-class parents in Canada and asked whether they had a preference for where their children earned a university degree. One woman named Grace said her kid wanted to go to medical school, but she didn’t care where because it’s not as if the patients would care. Grace elaborated, “I don’t know anybody who goes to the doctor’s office and looks at what school they graduated from and what marks they got, right?” 

U.S. measles outbreak triggers quarantine at two Los Angeles universities
Tuesday, Apr. 30, 2019

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A nationwide measles outbreak has led health officials to quarantine dozens of people at two Los Angeles universities, officials said on Thursday. 

The quarantine affects the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) and comes as the United States battles the highest number of measles cases since the country declared the virus eliminated in 2000. 

U.S. measles outbreak triggers quarantine at two Los Angeles universities
Friday, Apr. 26, 2019

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A nationwide measles outbreak has led health officials to quarantine dozens of people at two Los Angeles universities, officials said on Thursday. 

The quarantine affects the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) and comes as the United States battles the highest number of measles cases since the country declared the virus eliminated in 2000. 

Ozone depletion, explained
Friday, Apr. 26, 2019

Human activity has damaged this protective layer of the stratosphere and while ozone layer health has improved, there's still much to be done.

Over the past 30 years humans have made progress in stopping damage to the ozone layer by curbing the use of certain chemicals. But more remains to be done to protect and restore the atmospheric shield that sits in the stratosphere about 9 to 18 miles (15 to 30 kilometers) above the Earth's surface.

Rising global temperatures are creating bubbling, methane lakes you can light on fire
Thursday, Apr. 25, 2019

Thousands of flammable lakes are popping up all over Alaska and Siberia. That's because rising global temperatures are creating these thermokarst lakes as well as the perfect storm for our changing climate.

If you stab this frozen lake in the right place you can light it on fire. But it's not the water that's flammable, it's actually what's bubbling up from the lake floor. These aren't your average lakes. They're called thermokarst lakes and they're filled with highly flammable methane gas. 

16 signs we're in the middle of a 6th mass extinction
Thursday, Apr. 25, 2019

The phrase "mass extinction" typically conjures images of the asteroid crash that led to the twilight of the dinosaurs. 

Upon impact, that 6-mile-wide space rock caused a tsunami in the Atlantic Ocean, along with earthquakes and landslides up and down what is now the Americas. A heat pulse baked the Earth, and the Tyrannosaurus rex and its compatriots died out, along with 75% of the planet's species. 

'No authority': New Mexico governor tells militia to stop arresting migrants at border
Tuesday, Apr. 23, 2019

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday lashed out at members of a militia group who are stopping migrants at the border, declaring "regular citizens have no authority to arrest or detain anyone."

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico has demanded that Lujan Grisham and New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas investigate the militia organization, United Constitutional Patriots. Some of the group's members are armed.

Trying to reduce your carbon footprint? Don't fall for these myths
Tuesday, Apr. 23, 2019

Since Earth Day's founding nearly 50 years ago, April 22 has been an occasion for people to reflect on how they can treat the environment better. In recent years, with scientists around the world issuing increasingly urgent warnings about the scale of climate change and the shrinking window of time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the focus has been on reducing our climate footprint.

Extinction Rebellion activists glue themselves to Jeremy Corbyn's fence as London protests continue
Wednesday, Apr. 17, 2019

Four environmental activists have glued and chained themselves to a fence outside Jeremy Corbyn's home in an apparent attempt to force him to commit to tackling climate change.

The Extinction Rebellion protesters, who glued themselves to one another before using a chain to attach to the fence, proclaimed they were all supporters of the Labour leader but wanted his party to go further than declaring a "climate emergency".

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