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Egypt mainly known for its giant monuments like Cheops and Sphinx is once again in news. According to the latest news the walls of these monuments contains millions of marine fossils. These marine fossils are entirely intact and preserved in the walls.

The study was conducted by Ioannis Liritzis et.al, from the University of Aegean and University of Athens. Researchers suggest that the monuments are made from stones carved out of natural stone. According to Ioannis Liritzis et.al “The observed random emplacement and strictly homogenous distribution of the fossil shells within the whole rock is in harmony with their initial in situ setting in a fluidal sea bottom environment.”

Researches chiseled out small samples from the Sphinx Temple, Cheops, the Valley Temple, the Osirion Shaft, Khefren, the Temple of Seti I at Abydos, Osirion at Abydos and Qasr el-Sagha at Fayum. These samples were taken for mineralogy analysis and chemical composition and structure.

With the help of radioactivity measurements and X-ray diffraction researchers were able to find the composition of the samples. The result of these analysis showed that the primary building material consists of white and black granite, pinky granite sandstones and different types of limestone. Limestone mainly contained number of nummulites gen shell fossils. Journal of Cultural Heritage have accepted to publish these findings.

Giving example of Cheops, researchers told that 40% of the whole building stone rock was constituted by the shell fossils of nummulites gen. Nummulites were very simple marine organisms with the literal meaning “little coins”. These shells lived around 55.8 to 33.9 million years ago in Eocene period and are commonly found in limestone of Egypt.

The main argument presented by Ioannis and team is that the stones used for the construction of the monuments instead of cast in molds they are carved out of the natural stone. And the reason behind this argument is the undamaged and random distribution of shell fossils within the stone. Secondly X-ray pattern shows absences of lime, which is ought to be present in case of cast stones. They also pointed out that in ancient Egyptian paintings, text or sculptures there is no references of casting tools like buckets or molds.

You may be cheated at the name of oxygen bars as you are offered bayberry, peppermint, cranberry, wintergreen and breathe mints. Actually all of these things are consisting of just the oxygen flavors not the real oxygen. These oxygen bars were introduced in USA in late 90s. Since then it has become a favorite trend of the US population.

Presently, the situation is so severe that most of the customers are coming to these oxygen bars expecting that there they can have their deserving share of oxygen through the plastic tube that is duly inserted into their nostrils. Most of the customers opt for the flavored oxygen.

Do These Oxygen Bars Really Help?

As the fans of the oxygen bars state that these bars have some benefits such as reducing stress, increasing energies, lessening the effects of hangovers, sinus problems and headaches. It also helps in relaxing the body.

Factually, it doesn’t have any proven health benefits as far as research studies are concerned. According to experts, we can live with the 21% oxygen that is present in the atmosphere. It is suggested by the American Lung Association, there are no apparent health benefits of inhaling oxygen at oxygen bars.

Even it can be harmful for some patients who are suffering from diseases like heart disease, congestive heart failure, asthma. They need to have medicated oxygen regulated in their body carefully. In case they inhale oxygen excessively then it can be harmful for them.

This loss of glaciers could lead to loss and change in supply of drinking and irrigation water, leading to more falling rocks, and destroy the European ski industry.
On an average around 3 percent of Alpine glacial ice is lost every year, according to Roland Psenner, a fresh water scientist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. That corresponds to around 3.3 feet (1 meter) of ice thickness.

Ten percent of the ice was gone in the record-breaking heat of 2003. Around seven percent was gone in 2006 according to Psenner.
“If the melting goes on at this pace, glaciers will be gone by 2030 to 2050—except some high-altitude sites in the French, Swiss, and Italian Alps,” he wrote in an email to National Geographic News.

Yet another Warning!

Lonnie Thompson is a glaciologist at the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University. He says that the loss of glacier ice in the Alps is consistent with global trends. It is the same story all over the world.

“At all these sites it’s the same story. Not only are the glaciers retreating, they are accelerating in the rate at which they are retreating,” Thompson said. “That’s very consistent with what’s going on with the glaciers in the Alps.”

That Alpine glaciers are melting fast is old news to European ski resorts, which are watching the multimillion-dollar winter tourism trade trickle away.
Cause for Melting

Global warming along with the greenhouse gases seems to be the main cause of the melting glaciers. Studies also suggest that Alpine glaciers almost disappeared at least once in the past 10,000 years.
This melting trend is consistent with the projections that were made based on warming occurring due to increase in greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.

It is important to note that the past glacial melting occurred when atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) were 280 parts per million. Today’s carbon dioxide levels are approaching 385 parts per million.

The pre-Aztec city of El Tajin, which is located on Mexico’s Gulf coast, is famous for its temple pyramids and the intricately carved relics. Acidic air pollutants that are being pumped out by oil-drilling platforms and power stations along the coast are slowly ruining these carvings, according to Humberto Bravo, an air pollution specialist.

“The deterioration is alarming … and could cause irreparable damage to monuments that are an important part of our cultural heritage,” said Bravo of the University of Mexico’s Center for Atmospheric Sciences.

El Tajin was built in what is now considered the state of Veracruz by the Totonac, a civilization that reached the peak in early 9th to the early 13th century A.D. Major of El Tajin city name refers to the names for the Totonac god of thunder that still remains unexcavated. The most famous building prevalent in the site is an elaborate niche-studded pyramid.

This center also has many temple pyramids, palaces and courts for playing a ritual Mesoamerican ball game that is sometimes compared to basketball. Now the carvings depicting the game are eroding at an alarming rate, according to Bravo.

Bravo and his colleagues spent many years to increase the effects of polluted air and acid rain on El Tajin’s soft limestone buildings. They found that the erosion may have been caused due to contaminants like chlorine, sulfates and nitrates in the air from power stations and oil refineries.

They also claim that the erosion is caused due to acid rain because of the sulfuric acid and nitric acid that reacts with the calcium carbonate to form gypsum that just flakes off. Acid rain is caused when the pollutants in the air mix with water droplets in a cloud. The pollution is then carried down to earth along with the rain.

“The Vera Cruz region has some of the highest acid levels in the air in Mexico,” Bravo said.

Common Problem

Other scholars expressed similar alarm at the detrimental effects of pollution on El Tajin.

“The art of El Tajin is crucial to our understanding of the ancient history of the Gulf coast,” said John Machado, a pre-Columbian art historian at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, California.

“It gives evidence of a powerful and complex civilization that had broad interaction with Mesoamerican cultures in both central Mexico and Maya-controlled regions but still cultivated its own unique Veracruz style and iconography.”

“The loss of these images would be devastating to the cultural heritage of the area,” said Machado, who has done extensive research at El Tajin. But the problem of pollution affects archaeological sites throughout Mexico.

The sources of degradation vary, said Maria Lourdes Gallardo, chief conservator at the main Aztec temple, Templo Mayor, in Mexico City. “The pollutants … in the archaeological zone of Templo Mayor … range from the smog to water filtrations underground,” Gallardo said.

“We found that there had been a significant change in the rate of pollutants derived from sulfur, which had reduced to a great extent, compared to an increase in the quantity of chloride and heavy metal pollutants.”

The site has Olmec-style bas-relief carvings that can be dated back to 700 B.C. in granodiorite, a rock that is harder than limestone.

The MSC Napoli, a 68,000-ton (62,000-metric-ton) container ship, has already spilt around 220 tons (200 metric tons) of light fuel oil from it’s engine room, creating a five-mile-long slick on the sea surface just off the southwest coast of the United Kingdom.

The Napoli was sliced open on January 18 during a heavy storm, and initial efforts to tow the ship to Portland Harbor were stymied by severe structural damage. So the British Maritime and Coastguard Agency decided to beach the ship in Lyme Bay, part a wildlife-rich area near Sidmouth in Devon. The salvage crews are working around the clock to remove containers and pump oil off the ship.

The most pressing concern is the ship’s 3,900-ton (3,500-metric-ton) store of heavy fuel oil, used to drive the boat. “If this leaks out, then it will be a very serious incident,” said a spokesperson from the country’s Environment Agency.

Wild Life Endangered

The location’s 95 miles (153 kilometers) of coastline is home to rich and varied flora and fauna. If the oil reaches the shore, then it could threaten some rare species like the pink seafan (a coral) and specialized niche environments such as the maerl beds.

Marine biologist Robin Crump added that “heavy fuel oil has a smothering effect, killing creatures like limpets and barnacles.”

The Environment Agency has been taking water and shellfish samples from the entire stretch of coast and will be monitoring the effects of the pollution carefully over the coming days and weeks. If the heavy oil does leak, then previous experience indicates that wildlife could be affected for a number of years.

“It depends on the type of oil and the weather conditions, but it will probably take between five and ten years to recover,” Crump said.

Toxin’s

In addition to the oil hazard, around 200 of the ship’s 2,323 containers have fallen overboard. About 160 of the containers are said to contain hazardous material like pesticides and insecticides. Two of these, containing perfume and battery acid, were among those that plunged into the sea.

“This has increased the environmental damage by creating lots of litter and damage, making the clean-up operation much more difficult,” said Sophia Exelby from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

Complex Operation

Many experts also fear that poor weather will hamper the delicate heavy-oil recovery operation, which is expected to last around a week.

“The cold weather means that the oil has a treacle-like consistency and has to be warmed up before it can be pumped off,” said Farooq Mulla, a spokesperson for the Environment Agency.

The process of removing the ships containers and the oil that is containes in them is a tedious process. This whole process could take around an year to be complete.

This is perhaps the first time that global warming has caused the reduction of pollution. This melting sea ice in the Arctic is allowing the ocean waters to soak more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The retreating ice has increased the amount of co2 soaked in to around 3 times more.

Nick Bates belonging to the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences and colleagues calculated the amount of CO2 uptake in the Arctic Ocean from the measurements made from the Chuckchi Sea and Canada basin in 2002 and 2004. It has been found that CO2 uptake from the atmosphere increased mainly during the summer months, when the sea ice was in the least levels.

“Sea ice acts as a barrier to gas exchange,” says Bates.

It is presently calculated that the entire Arctic Ocean is now able to absorb around 66 million tonnes of CO2 per year. If there is a continued ice-melt, then it could increase the absorption by another 20 million tonnes per decade.

The bleak side of the argument is that this is not enough to get rid of the affects of global warming, because presently the emission world wide are around 30 billion tonnes per year.