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It is said confession is good for the soul, and so I shall ?fess up.? I love church hopping, all denominations, observing the diversity with which humankind worships divinity.
As a journalist, I discovered it was a wonderful way to learn how others think and who people are.
I have visited better than half the cathedrals in Britain, sung ?Amazing Grace? in the Plains, Ga., Baptist church with Jimmy Carter, and been blessed by Pope John Paul II in St. Peter?s Square among the throngs on Easter morning.
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When I was based in Moscow in the 1980s, there were frequent visits to Russian Orthodox Church services. I fondly recall circling outside a cathedral at midnight one Easter Sunday morning, cradling a candle in a frigid wind, chanting in Russian, ?Glory to God, Christ is risen. Truly, truly he has risen.? Such fortitude, joy, and faith amid the cold darkness.
My fascination with religious observances is truly ecumenical. I have recited my ?Allahu Akbars? in mosques from Britain to the Palestinian territories, across Iraq, and in Muslim Pakistan. I also keep a Jewish kippa, or yarmulke, in my desk.
Worship services offer unique windows on cultures that can sometimes appear veiled to foreigners. You can gauge the influence women have in a society by where they sit in synagogues, mosques, and churches. It?s pretty easy to discern the haves versus have-nots by where people sit, stand, or kneel in parishes, mosques, and temples.
Wherever people of any faith gather there usually surfaces an almost universal need for moments of contemplation, self-surrender. It is as if the adherents of any faith are welcoming a quiet respite from our constant obsession with egos and self.
Sometimes churches are good theater as well. But attending churches new to me is never less than a theological adventure.
My most recent sojourn into the world of worship was the ?glise ?vang?lique de Polyn?sie Fran?ais on the South Pacific island of Huahine, in French Polynesia, where I was vacationing.
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For one thing, I wanted to learn why a large majority of native Polynesians were Protestant in an overseas territory of largely Roman Catholic France. It turns out that in the early 19th century, British Protestant missionaries got there first.
Outside the small yellow church there were the ubiquitous signs of poverty endemic to tropical climes: peeling paint, spare amenities, and tired concrete. But that was not what I found inside this Polynesian church.
Glancing about at the congregants, I saw the same rich grace and beauty that Paul Gauguin discovered when he came to paint the ?innocents.? The young girls, adorned with creamy fresh blossoms in their straight black hair, giggled among themselves.
Western preconceptions of paucity and poverty dissolved amid a luxuriant palette of red, green, and cerulean sarongs worn by a congregation of largely middle-aged women. These were the descendants of the ?primitives? that the London Bible Society came to convert in the early 1800s.
A tolling bell signaled the start of the church service promptly at 9 a.m. Moments later in the pew behind me a woman with a hauntingly beautiful, throaty voice sang an a cappella solo of ?Abide With Me? in her native Tahitian tongue.
Other Protestant hymns followed in the same deep Tahitian voices summoning reminders of the island?s deep past.
The sermon?s tone seemed slightly revivalist to my wife, but I suspect hellfire and damnation don?t play that well in this Polynesian paradise.
And there remained this riddle. Less than 200 years ago, the Polynesians? ancestors were practicing cannibalism, infanticide, and human sacrifice. They were waging internecine warfare. So, how did they undergo such a total change of character and become, as described by anthropologist Mark Eddowes, the gentle, happy, loving, joyful Polynesian people of today?
Mr. Eddowes, of New Zealand, believes Polynesians were so decimated by tribal warfare and European diseases that they became highly receptive to Protestant missionaries preaching a merciful, loving God. The islanders eagerly embraced the missionaries? message: Do good to your enemies, showing them mercy. This new ethic, he says, produced the caring and generous congregants in whose midst we found ourselves.
Understanding some French, I hoped to follow some of the sermon but miscalculated. All 90 minutes of hymns, solos, and sermons were in Tahitian.
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But the language of communion was universal, albeit with a South Pacific twist. The traditional bread, representing the body of Christ, was a minced French baguette, and the wine, the blood of Christ, gave me a chuckle. With a quick gulp of watery coconut milk, I became a born-again Polynesian.
Walter Rodgers is a former senior international correspondent for CNN.
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Women take birth control pills in order to restrict the size of their people and also get far from the horrible 'hand to mouth' period of poverty. Some of the women might have side-effects from using these supplements, including nausea, headaches, bleeding between periods, breast pain or decreased libido. In such cases a woman should consult her physician, who can recommend her to change her brand to a supplement that's a different dose of hormones. Birth control pills which contain estrogen may also boost the risk of blood clots lansoprazole-sideeffects.com. Women above age thirty-five, and people who smoke or have high blood pressure, have an elevated risk of heart attack after taking birth control pills. These drugs aren't safe for ladies who've blood clots, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, severe migraines, heart problems or swing. There have been cases of girls being prone to higher risk of breast cancer. Doctors also assistance that women who've breast cancer shouldn't take these pills, as they could affect the development of tumor tissue. Some clinical tests have also indicated that birth control pills have adverse influence on the feeling and sex in some women. Some of the girls stopped having sex because of the consumption of these supplements. Although researchers haven't found any facts of deformed labor due to using these pills, a lot has been published on the issue. Doctors' propose that breast-feeding women should not take these drugs, as hormones may decrease milk production.Although oral contraceptives or birth control pills are a powerful and easy method of avoiding unwanted pregnancy, it's often wise to consult a doctor before starting with the program.
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Fertilizer use responsible for increase in nitrous oxide in atmospherePublic release date: 2-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Robert Sanders rsanders@berkeley.edu 510-643-6998 University of California - Berkeley
Greenhouse gas rise has isotopic fingerprint of nitrogen-based fertilizer
University of California, Berkeley, chemists have found a smoking gun proving that increased fertilizer use over the past 50 years is responsible for a dramatic rise in atmospheric nitrous oxide, which is a major greenhouse gas contributing to global climate change.
Climate scientists have assumed that the cause of the increased nitrous oxide was nitrogen-based fertilizer, which stimulates microbes in the soil to convert nitrogen to nitrous oxide at a faster rate than normal.
The new study, reported in the April issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, uses nitrogen isotope data to identify the unmistakable fingerprint of fertilizer use in archived air samples from Antarctica and Tasmania.
"Our study is the first to show empirically from the data at hand alone that the nitrogen isotope ratio in the atmosphere and how it has changed over time is a fingerprint of fertilizer use," said study leader Kristie Boering, a UC Berkeley professor of chemistry and of earth and planetary science.
"We are not vilifying fertilizer. We can't just stop using fertilizer," she added. "But we hope this study will contribute to changes in fertilizer use and agricultural practices that will help to mitigate the release of nitrous oxide into the atmosphere."
Since the year 1750, nitrous oxide levels have risen 20 percent from below 270 parts per billion (ppb) to more than 320 ppb. After carbon dioxide and methane, nitrous oxide (N2O) is the most potent greenhouse gas, trapping heat and contributing to global warming. It also destroys stratospheric ozone, which protects the planet from harmful ultraviolet rays.
Not surprisingly, a steep ramp-up in atmospheric nitrous oxide coincided with the green revolution that increased dramatically in the 1960s, when inexpensive, synthetic fertilizer and other developments boosted food production worldwide, feeding a burgeoning global population.
Tracking the origin of nitrous oxide in the atmosphere, however, is difficult because a molecule from a fertilized field looks identical to one from a natural forest or the ocean if you only measure total concentration. But a quirk of microbial metabolism affects the isotope ratio of the nitrogen the N2O microbes give off, producing a telltale fingerprint that can be detected with sensitive techniques.
Archived air from Cape Grim
Boering and her colleagues, including former UC Berkeley graduate students Sunyoung Park and Phillip Croteau, obtained air samples from Antarctic ice, called firn air, dating from 1940 to 2005, and from an atmospheric monitoring station at Cape Grim, Tasmania, which has archived air back to 1978.
Analysis of N2O levels in the Cape Grim air samples revealed a seasonal cycle, which has been known before. But isotopic measurements by a very sensitive isotope ratio mass spectrometer also displayed a seasonal cycle, which had not been observed before. At Cape Grim, the isotopes show that the seasonal cycle is due both to the circulation of air returning from the stratosphere, where N2O is destroyed after an average lifetime of 120 years, and to seasonal changes in the ocean, most likely upwelling that releases more N2O at some times of year than at others.
"The fact that the isotopic composition of N2O shows a coherent signal in space and time is exciting, because now you have a way to differentiate agricultural N2O from natural ocean N2O from Amazon forest emissions from N2O returning from the stratosphere," Boering said. "In addition, you also now have a way to check whether your international neighbors are abiding by agreements they've made to mitigate N2O emissions. It is a tool that, ultimately, we can use to verify whether N2O emissions by agriculture or biofuel production are in line with what they say they are."
Changes in fertilizer use can reduce N2O emissions
Limiting nitrous oxide emissions could be part of a first step toward reducing all greenhouse gases and lessening global warming, Boering said, especially since immediately reducing global carbon dioxide emissions is proving difficult from a political standpoint. In particular, reducing nitrous oxide emissions can initially offset more than its fair share of greenhouse gas emissions overall, since N2O traps heat at a different wavelength than CO2 and clogs a "window" that allows Earth to cool off independent of CO2 levels.
"On a pound for pound basis, it is really worthwhile to figure how to limit our emissions of N2O and methane," she said. "Limiting N2O emissions can buy us a little more time in figuring out how to reduce CO2 emissions."
One approach, for example, is to time fertilizer application to avoid rain, because wet and happy soil microbes can produce sudden bursts of nitrous oxide. Changes in the way fields are tilled, when they are fertilized and how much is used can reduce N2O production.
Boering's studies, which involve analyzing the isotopic fingerprints of nitrous oxide from different sources, could help farmers determine which strategies are most effective. It could also help assess the potential negative impacts of growing crops for biofuels, since some feedstocks may require fertilizer that will generate N2O that offsets their carbon neutrality.
"This new evidence of the budget of nitrous oxide allows us to better predict its future changes and therefore its impacts on climate and stratospheric ozone depletion - for different scenarios of fertilizer use in support of rising populations and increased production for bio-energy," said coauthor David Etheridge of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research in Aspendale, Victoria.
Finding the fingerprint of fertilized microbes
Boering was able to trace the source of N2O because bacteria in a nitrogen rich environment, such as a freshly fertilized field, prefer to incorporate nitrogen-14 (14N), the most common isotope, instead of nitrogen-15 (15N).
"Microbes on a spa weekend can afford to discriminate against nitrogen-15, so the fingerprint of N2O from a fertilized field is a greater proportion of nitrogen-14," Boering said. "Our study is the first to show empirically from the data at hand alone that the nitrogen isotope ratio in the atmosphere and how it has changed over time is a fingerprint of fertilizer use."
Just as telling is the isotope ratio of the central nitrogen atom in the N-N-O molecule. By measuring the nitrogen isotope ratio overall, the isotope ratio in the central nitrogen atom, and contrasting these with the oxygen-18/oxygen-16 isotope ratio, which has not changed over the past 65 years, they were able to paint a consistent picture pointing at fertilizer as the major source of increased atmospheric N2O .
The isotope ratios also revealed that fertilizer use has caused a shift in the way soil microbes produce N2O. The relative output of bacteria that produce N2O by nitrification grew from 13 to 23 percent worldwide, while the relative output of bacteria that produce N2O by denitrification typically in the absence of oxygen dropped from 87 to 77 percent. Although the numbers themselves are uncertain, these are the first numerical estimates of these global trends over time, made possible by the unique archived air dataset of this study.
###
Boering's colleagues include D. M. Etheridge, P. J. Fraser, P. B. Krummel, R. L. Langenfelds, L. P. Steele and C. M. Trudinger of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research; D. Ferretti of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in Wellington, New Zealand; K-R. Kim of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Seoul National University in Korea; and T. D. van Ommen of the Australian Antarctic Division in Tasmania. Park is now at Seoul National University, while Croteau is at Aerodyne Research, Inc., in Billerica, Mass.
The work was supported by UC Berkeley's Atmospheric Sciences Center, NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Program, the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, the Brain 21 Korea Program, a Korean government research grant through Seoul National University, and the Australian government's Cooperative Research Centres Programme.
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Fertilizer use responsible for increase in nitrous oxide in atmospherePublic release date: 2-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Robert Sanders rsanders@berkeley.edu 510-643-6998 University of California - Berkeley
Greenhouse gas rise has isotopic fingerprint of nitrogen-based fertilizer
University of California, Berkeley, chemists have found a smoking gun proving that increased fertilizer use over the past 50 years is responsible for a dramatic rise in atmospheric nitrous oxide, which is a major greenhouse gas contributing to global climate change.
Climate scientists have assumed that the cause of the increased nitrous oxide was nitrogen-based fertilizer, which stimulates microbes in the soil to convert nitrogen to nitrous oxide at a faster rate than normal.
The new study, reported in the April issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, uses nitrogen isotope data to identify the unmistakable fingerprint of fertilizer use in archived air samples from Antarctica and Tasmania.
"Our study is the first to show empirically from the data at hand alone that the nitrogen isotope ratio in the atmosphere and how it has changed over time is a fingerprint of fertilizer use," said study leader Kristie Boering, a UC Berkeley professor of chemistry and of earth and planetary science.
"We are not vilifying fertilizer. We can't just stop using fertilizer," she added. "But we hope this study will contribute to changes in fertilizer use and agricultural practices that will help to mitigate the release of nitrous oxide into the atmosphere."
Since the year 1750, nitrous oxide levels have risen 20 percent from below 270 parts per billion (ppb) to more than 320 ppb. After carbon dioxide and methane, nitrous oxide (N2O) is the most potent greenhouse gas, trapping heat and contributing to global warming. It also destroys stratospheric ozone, which protects the planet from harmful ultraviolet rays.
Not surprisingly, a steep ramp-up in atmospheric nitrous oxide coincided with the green revolution that increased dramatically in the 1960s, when inexpensive, synthetic fertilizer and other developments boosted food production worldwide, feeding a burgeoning global population.
Tracking the origin of nitrous oxide in the atmosphere, however, is difficult because a molecule from a fertilized field looks identical to one from a natural forest or the ocean if you only measure total concentration. But a quirk of microbial metabolism affects the isotope ratio of the nitrogen the N2O microbes give off, producing a telltale fingerprint that can be detected with sensitive techniques.
Archived air from Cape Grim
Boering and her colleagues, including former UC Berkeley graduate students Sunyoung Park and Phillip Croteau, obtained air samples from Antarctic ice, called firn air, dating from 1940 to 2005, and from an atmospheric monitoring station at Cape Grim, Tasmania, which has archived air back to 1978.
Analysis of N2O levels in the Cape Grim air samples revealed a seasonal cycle, which has been known before. But isotopic measurements by a very sensitive isotope ratio mass spectrometer also displayed a seasonal cycle, which had not been observed before. At Cape Grim, the isotopes show that the seasonal cycle is due both to the circulation of air returning from the stratosphere, where N2O is destroyed after an average lifetime of 120 years, and to seasonal changes in the ocean, most likely upwelling that releases more N2O at some times of year than at others.
"The fact that the isotopic composition of N2O shows a coherent signal in space and time is exciting, because now you have a way to differentiate agricultural N2O from natural ocean N2O from Amazon forest emissions from N2O returning from the stratosphere," Boering said. "In addition, you also now have a way to check whether your international neighbors are abiding by agreements they've made to mitigate N2O emissions. It is a tool that, ultimately, we can use to verify whether N2O emissions by agriculture or biofuel production are in line with what they say they are."
Changes in fertilizer use can reduce N2O emissions
Limiting nitrous oxide emissions could be part of a first step toward reducing all greenhouse gases and lessening global warming, Boering said, especially since immediately reducing global carbon dioxide emissions is proving difficult from a political standpoint. In particular, reducing nitrous oxide emissions can initially offset more than its fair share of greenhouse gas emissions overall, since N2O traps heat at a different wavelength than CO2 and clogs a "window" that allows Earth to cool off independent of CO2 levels.
"On a pound for pound basis, it is really worthwhile to figure how to limit our emissions of N2O and methane," she said. "Limiting N2O emissions can buy us a little more time in figuring out how to reduce CO2 emissions."
One approach, for example, is to time fertilizer application to avoid rain, because wet and happy soil microbes can produce sudden bursts of nitrous oxide. Changes in the way fields are tilled, when they are fertilized and how much is used can reduce N2O production.
Boering's studies, which involve analyzing the isotopic fingerprints of nitrous oxide from different sources, could help farmers determine which strategies are most effective. It could also help assess the potential negative impacts of growing crops for biofuels, since some feedstocks may require fertilizer that will generate N2O that offsets their carbon neutrality.
"This new evidence of the budget of nitrous oxide allows us to better predict its future changes and therefore its impacts on climate and stratospheric ozone depletion - for different scenarios of fertilizer use in support of rising populations and increased production for bio-energy," said coauthor David Etheridge of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research in Aspendale, Victoria.
Finding the fingerprint of fertilized microbes
Boering was able to trace the source of N2O because bacteria in a nitrogen rich environment, such as a freshly fertilized field, prefer to incorporate nitrogen-14 (14N), the most common isotope, instead of nitrogen-15 (15N).
"Microbes on a spa weekend can afford to discriminate against nitrogen-15, so the fingerprint of N2O from a fertilized field is a greater proportion of nitrogen-14," Boering said. "Our study is the first to show empirically from the data at hand alone that the nitrogen isotope ratio in the atmosphere and how it has changed over time is a fingerprint of fertilizer use."
Just as telling is the isotope ratio of the central nitrogen atom in the N-N-O molecule. By measuring the nitrogen isotope ratio overall, the isotope ratio in the central nitrogen atom, and contrasting these with the oxygen-18/oxygen-16 isotope ratio, which has not changed over the past 65 years, they were able to paint a consistent picture pointing at fertilizer as the major source of increased atmospheric N2O .
The isotope ratios also revealed that fertilizer use has caused a shift in the way soil microbes produce N2O. The relative output of bacteria that produce N2O by nitrification grew from 13 to 23 percent worldwide, while the relative output of bacteria that produce N2O by denitrification typically in the absence of oxygen dropped from 87 to 77 percent. Although the numbers themselves are uncertain, these are the first numerical estimates of these global trends over time, made possible by the unique archived air dataset of this study.
###
Boering's colleagues include D. M. Etheridge, P. J. Fraser, P. B. Krummel, R. L. Langenfelds, L. P. Steele and C. M. Trudinger of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research; D. Ferretti of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in Wellington, New Zealand; K-R. Kim of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Seoul National University in Korea; and T. D. van Ommen of the Australian Antarctic Division in Tasmania. Park is now at Seoul National University, while Croteau is at Aerodyne Research, Inc., in Billerica, Mass.
The work was supported by UC Berkeley's Atmospheric Sciences Center, NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Program, the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, the Brain 21 Korea Program, a Korean government research grant through Seoul National University, and the Australian government's Cooperative Research Centres Programme.
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Flickr user Eric Fischer has done something very interesting. By accessing the geolocation information in photos uploaded to Flickr and Picasa, he’s been able to map out the locations that tend to be photographed by locals and those that tend to be photographed by tourists.
Blue dots are for locals (people who have taken pictures in a city over a period of a month or more), red are for tourists (people who took pictures in a city for less than a month) and yellow dots represent photos of undetermined origin.
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Public release date: 2-Apr-2012
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