Peanut Butter News

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(CNN) — A tanker ship loaded with oil in the Port of Port Arthur, Texas, collided with two barges being towed by a tug boat, resulting in a spill of about 450,000 gallons of crude, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

No injuries were reported, but a 50-block area around the port was evacuated out of caution, as the tanker was carrying a type of oil containing sulfide.

Full Story at msnbc.com

BEIJING – China announced plans Thursday to cut its carbon emissions by up to 45 percent as measured against its economic output — a commitment from the world’s largest polluter that builds momentum ahead of a widely anticipated climate conference in Copenhagen next month.

The announcement comes a day after President Barack Obama promised the U.S. would lay out plans to substantially cut its greenhouse gas emissions at the summit.

Full Story at Yahoo! News

DURANGO, Colo. – The sun had just crested the distant ridge of the Rocky Mountains, but already it was producing enough power for the electric meter on the side of the Smiley Building to spin backward.

For the Shaw brothers, who converted the downtown arts building and community center into a miniature solar power plant two years ago, each reverse rotation subtracts from their monthly electric bill. It also means the building at that moment is producing more electricity from the sun than it needs.

“Backward is good,” said John Shaw, who now runs Shaw Solar and Energy Conservation, a local solar installation company.

Good for whom?

Full Story at msnbc.com

The recently launched Herschel Space Telescope has just returned glowing pictures of our own Milky Way galaxy in infrared light.

The European Space Agency mission (with contributions from NASA) lifted off in May on a quest to observe the universe in long-wavelength infrared light. The telescope used two instruments simultaneously to snap the new Milky Way photos in five different ranges, or “colors,” of infrared light, which is invisible to human eyes.

“Herschel’s infrared vision lets us sense the feeble heat from some of the coldest objects in the cosmos,” said Paul Goldsmith, the project scientist for the mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Full Story at CNN.com

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) — India on Wednesday launched a second satellite to study oceans.

The cube-shaped Oceansat-2 will monitor the interaction between oceans and the atmosphere, as part of climate studies, according to the country’s main space agency.

The satellite, launched from India’s southeast coast, carried six nanosatellites from European universities as auxiliary payloads, said the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). It also is equipped with two solar panels projecting from its sides, for generating power and charging batteries.

India says it has the world’s largest constellation of remote-sensing satellites — 16, including Oceansat-2. They produce images for uses such as agriculture, rural development, water resources, forestry and disaster management.

Full Story at CNN.com

Delicious,” he says, kissing the tips of his fingers on one hand, making the universal sign for good tasting food.

William tells me he went out on a boat with some friends a few days ago and shot the whale. I’m not sure how I feel about this.

Welcome to Greenland. On this remote but enormous island subsistence whale hunting is allowed.

This was just the memorable start to an extraordinary journey.

Cameraman Neil Bennett and I had traveled to the small town of Tasiilaq in southeastern Greenland to meet up with the Arctic Sunrise, a ship belonging to the environmental group Greenpeace. Read Neil’s blog on filming in challenging conditions

Full Story at CNN.com

His latest concept — to launch a camera into near-space using a weather balloon, a cell phone, hand warmers and a drink cooler — fell flat when he sent out an e-mail message to dozens of his classmates, asking for help.

Unfazed, Yeh managed to find one friend willing to chip in. And on September 2, the go-it-alone pair floated a balloon-camera high enough into the atmosphere to photograph the curvature of the Earth and the deep black of space, all on a lunch-money budget of $148.

Full Story at msnbc.com

DALLAS – Agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug, the father of the “green revolution” who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in combating world hunger and saving hundreds of millions of lives, died Saturday in Texas, a Texas A&M University spokeswoman said. He was 95.

Borlaug died just before 11 p.m. Saturday at his home in Dallas from complications of cancer, said school spokeswoman Kathleen Phillips. Phillips said Borlaug’s granddaughter told her about his death. Borlaug was a distinguished professor at the university in College Station.

Full Story at CNN.com

Water is the most abundant resource on the planet, yet less than one percent of the Earth’s freshwater supply is readily available to drink, according to the World Health Organization. Lack of accessible or clean drinking water, exacerbated by drought, is crippling communities in many developing countries.

“In your lifetime, my lifetime, we will see water be a really scarce, valuable commodity,” Kamen says.

Those are scary words from the man whose creations include the Segway personal motorized scooter and the Luke (as in Skywalker) prosthetic arm. But the forward-thinking inventor and his team at DEKA Research in Manchester, New Hampshire, aren’t sitting around waiting for the world’s wells to dry up.

Full Story at msnbc.com

LOS ANGELES – Two firefighters were killed Sunday when their vehicle rolled down a mountain side amid the intense flames of a wildfire that threatened 12,000 homes. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urged those in the fire’s path to get out as the blazes rained ash on cars as far away as downtown Los Angeles, spreading in all directions in dry conditions.

Firefighters fixed their attention on the blaze’s fast-moving eastern side where flames lapped at the foot of the vital communications and astronomy center of Mount Wilson, and on the northwestern front, where the two firefighters were killed on Mount Gleason near the city of Acton.

Full Story at CNN.com

Still, patients became sick with bacterial infections after checking in. Some died.

“I never saw anything change. I saw things getting worse,” Torress-Cook said.

Torress-Cook eventually joined Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, in California, where as director of epidemiology and patient safety, he changed the rules and slashed the number of patients who become infected.

Torress-Cook is part of a growing movement in medicine that no longer accepts hospital-acquired infections as inevitable complications. Every year, such infections sicken 1.7 million and kill 99,000 people in the United States.

At Pacific Hospital, Torress-Cook doesn’t go after all bacteria, just the dangerous ones.

Full Story at msnbc.com

On the Fourth of July, the United States celebrates its independence with picnics, parades and of course, fireworks such as these seen exploding above the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. In honor of the holiday, we’ve cobbled together a collection of nature’s best fireworks displays.

Click the “Next” button above to get an eyeful of red-hot volcanic eruptions, dazzling lightning storms, scorching forest fires and more.