Devastating floods in the Balkans dig up landmines

Last week, the Balkan region experienced precipitation levels equivalent to three months, provoked the biggest floods in living memory. There are hundreds of isolated people waiting for help, thousands were forced to leave their homes and possessions behind and the authorities realize at least 44 dead. However, this may not be the bottom line as the water level continues to rise in some areas.

The Prime Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, declared a State of emergency already in many cities around the country, including the capital, Belgrade. Also in Bosnia has been declared a State of national emergency, refers to Mashable.

One of the most complicated situations we live in Obrenovac, South of Belgrade, where after four days of intense rain, there are still people who are waiting for help on the roofs of houses and buildings. The bad weather affection also to the production of electricity, and there are many people without power for several days, at a time when Serbia's electrical production reduced by 40% and was forced to increase imports, agudizando the financial problems of the country.

In Bosnia the situation is too dramatic. Almost a third of the country was affected by the floods. One of the places most affected is the city of Doboj, where floods and landslides have caused at least 27 deaths. In total, there are about 150,000 homes without electricity in Bosnia.

In addition to rescue all the people isolated and restore electricity to thousands of homes, one of the main concerns of the authorities of both countries is related to landmines, left by the war in the former Yugoslavia, which did not explode and were now exposed by floods and landslide, constituting a danger to civilians.

The rains caused some flooding in Austria and Croatia. Several European Union countries, as well as Russia, are participating in the efforts of aid to Serbia and Bosnia.

Extreme rainfall observed in the Balkans is consistent with verified occurrences in other parts of the globe, which indicate that the planet is warmer as a result of the high emissions of greenhouse gases. As a result, large floods have become more severe and frequent. In recent years, countries such as Germany, Poland and Czech Republic have experienced degrees of abnormal rainfall and floods.

Fotos: Associated Press/Marshall

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Portuguese is the fourth most used language of Twitter

When we launched the Green Savers, three and a half years ago, we always have about us we extend to Facebook and Twitter, once the technology is one of the most powerful tools of social inclusion â€" and that allows us to reach more people and help more easily, to change mentalities.

Today, social networks are a privileged means to convey information related to sustainability, citizenship or good environmental practices. And in Portuguese, as Gnip data, an American company which examined various data since 2006 and concluded that the language of Luís Vaz de Camões and Jorge Amado is the fourth most used in this social network â€" Gnip data analyzed the language that users put as the main in your profile.

The graph below gives an account of the great popularity of Twitter in global terms, but also gives us to understand the amount of conversations in Portuguese in this social network. The Portuguese language only loses to England's (first), Japanese (second) and Spanish (third) in the global ranking. The following are the Indonesian, Arabic, French, Turkish, Russian and Korean.

This painting also explains how the major events impact the Twitter service. The huge increase in users who have selected the Arabic as preferred language, for example, coincided with the events of the last few years in the Middle East.

In percentage terms, taking into account all the languages used Twitter, the Portuguese rose of 0.03% in 2006 to the 0.31% (2007), 0.52% (2008), 1.48% (2009), 2.55% (2010), 4.26% (2011), 6.02% (2012). In 2013, this percentage dropped to 5.10%.

The English, with 51.02%, continues to be the main language used on Twitter, followed by Japanese (14.8%), Spanish (13.43%), Portuguese (5.10%) and Indonesian (3.25%).





Foto: JefferyTurner/Creative Commons

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The slow death of walking without purpose

Walking has become a luxury in the West. There are few people who can do it, given the congestion and all means of transport which have at their disposal. In this way, walk, regardless of distance, turned into a planned activity or recreation. Or for health reasons and to keep fit. However, there is one other thing that the walks provide: time to think.

Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Thomas De Quincey, Friedrich Nietzsche or Vladimir Nabokov are some of the great world writers who appreciated a good walk and used this time to reflect on life and thinking these thoughts, which resulted in his works.

But it is not necessary to be a writer or a great thinker to cherish a good walk. But a hike in particular, the distance between the corner of the street and the nearest coffee shop. The journey of contemplation without a defined purpose.

May in the United Kingdom, is the National month of hiking and a book of Frederic Gros, launched recently, entitled "the Philosophy of Walking", is the subject of some discussion among the British. Last week, a Stanford University study highlights the benefits that a short walk, even if it's on a treadmill at home or the gym, promotes the creative thinking, says the BBC.

"There's something special about pace of walking and thinking, which seem to synchronize. Walking requires some attention, but provides many moments to think. I believe that once the blood begins to flow to the head, the brain starts to work more creatively, "says Geoff Nicholson, author of" The Lost Art of Walking ".

Nicholson is a writer who lives in Los Angeles, a city where cars have primacy. But there are many other cities where do a simple walk to be a Herculean task. Kuala Lumpur, for example, capital of Malaysia. Anyone who wants to walk in this city must have a great patience and nerves of steel. The tours end up mysteriously. The bustling streets must be traversed without the help of treadmills. And the simple act of walking down the street can cause bewilderment of residents.

But even in cities that appear to have been built for the cars there is fruit for those who choose to ramble. "Most of my hiking are made in the city â€" in Los Angeles things are scattered. Therefore, there is plenty to look at. Is urban exploration. I'm always looking for narrow streets and alleys strangers ", indicates Nicholson.

But not everyone is prepared to wait. There are many who consider hiking as long dead, an obligation to move from one side to the other without accomplishing anything useful, at a time when time seems to be increasingly precious. As such, this time is used to the fullest and it is increasingly common to see people walking and doing something else at the same time. Many walk and talk on a cell phone at the same time or send messages, view email or social networks. And accidents with pedestrians distracted by mobile devices are increasing.

The contemplative hikes seem to be on the verge of extinction, as well as the opportunity to reflect on life and its aspects.

Foto: Redrock Junction/Creative Commons

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Anonymous Arabia installs fridge on the street for delivery of leftovers to charity

A citizen of the city of Hail, in Saudi Arabia, found an interesting idea to get food to people who need it most and who often have too shy to ask. Thus, this anonymous installed a refrigerator in your neighborhood â€" even in front of your House â€" encouraging people with more possessions to leave meals inside.

The idea came to the international media when the Saudi religious Sheikh Mohammad Al Araifi praised the Act on your Twitter account, adding a picture: "always said that people Hail are generous. A man put a refrigerator in front of the House for the leftovers; an indirect act of charity for those who need it most, "explained the religious, cited by the BBC.

According to the Gulf News, the idea was well received by the followers of Al Araifi on Twitter. "The idea should be adopted and all the great mosques of the country should put refrigerators to carry and distribute food," said one of the followers.

According to the Gulf News, the idea may be exported to Bahrain in June. "It's a great act of charity that can make people happy and satisfied. There's the food factor, but there is also a spiritual dimension, especially during the holy month in which people establish great acts of charity, "explained a citizen of Bahrain to the newspaper.

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Brazil: company that contaminated rivers ordered to provide water and food to families impacted

Imerys Rio Capim Caulim, mining company responsible for contamination of rivers Cururuperê and palm oil, in Pará, Brazil, will have to provide water and basic food baskets to all those affected by the tragedy. According to Folha de Sao Paulo, the Federal Court of Pará understood that Imerys was responsible for two leaks that left the waters of the rivers without conditions of use, due to contamination by mineral kaolin.

The area hit by the ore belongs to the Brazilian Navy, and the amount of families impacted by contamination was not informed.

Kaolin is a white ore, used in various industrial sectors-especially the role.

Now, Imerys will provide 80 gallons of water per month to households at a disadvantage, and a purse of € 25 ($ 77). The value of the power supply will be increased to €11,5 (US $ 35) per dependent minor, up to a maximum of €85 ($ 262).

The monthly payments to the families will be kept until the Imerys demonstrate, by technical studies, which impacted rivers returned to their natural characteristics.

It is recalled that, at the end of April, This River, in Braga, was the victim of an unloading of 20 cans of 15 liters of white paint. The ink will have been discharged, accidentally, by AKI store. See some of the pictures of This.

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Watch 13 billion years of cosmic evolution in just 3 minutes

A team of scientists created the most detailed computer simulation of the history of the universe, where in a few minutes it is possible to observe the 13 billion years of evolution of the cosmos.

Called Illustris, the numerical base model covers the 13 billion years of the universe, starting 12 million years after the Big Bang. The simulation was developed by American, German and British investigators of the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The model reveals the distribution and composition of various types of galaxies, clouds of explosive gas of the early universe and the mysterious black holes.

The Illustris covers the cosmic evolution in a cube with a side length of 350 million light-years with unprecedented resolution. "So far, no simulation was able to reproduce the universe at scales so big and so small at the same time," says Mark Vogelsberger, astrophysicist who led the creation of the simulation. Previous attempts to represent graphically the universe have been hampered by undeveloped computing techniques and by the complexities of the underlying physics.

As a result, the previous modeling programs were limited in terms of resolution or were forced to focus on small portions of the universe. The team of scientists devoted five years to create the simulation. The calculations required for the modelling took three months to be carried out, using 8,000 computational processing units working in parallel. If they had used a normal computer, the calculations would have taken more than 2,000 years to carry out.

Basically, the simulation works like a time machine, which allows back and forth in time of the universe. It is also possible to stop the simulation and observe the details of a single Galaxy or cluster of galaxies.

The team of researchers condensed the 13 billion-year history of the universe in a short video, where you can see the temperature, the gas density, speed of gases and other aspects of the cosmos.

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Anglo-Portuguese partnership creates packaging of detergent from plastic collected at sea

The first detergent packaging made from plastic collected of the seas and beaches will be introduced in supermarkets in the United Kingdom at the end of the month. The company responsible for the production of packaging is the Ecover, which manufactures and markets environmentally friendly cleaning products.

The aim of Ocean Bottle is alert to the dangers of long-term presence of this material on marine ecosystems, causing the death of fish and birds, threatening the balance of global ecosystems.

To produce this new packaging is made from recycled plastic, Ecover has joined efforts with Portugal's Logoplaste, producer of plastic packaging, to combine the debris taken from the ocean with plastic produced from sugarcane. Initially, only 10% of the new plastic packaging material will be removed from the sea, but in the future the Ecover hopes to increase the proportion.

When present in a marine environment, plastic takes hundreds of years to decompose, through the combination of the salt water with the Sun. The variable amount of plastic collected from the sea by Ecover means that this material had to be mixed with other recycled plastic to produce a robust material that supports a household cleaning product, referred to in the Guardian.

"The problem of plastic in the Ocean has a huge range â€" every year at least a million seabirds and 100,000 sharks, turtles, dolphins and whales die due to ingestion of plastic. There is no choice-we simply want to clean plastic for the good of everyone, "says Philip Malmberg, executive director of Ecover.

The mark should also launch this year a laundry detergent produced from algae oil, a more sustainable alternative to Palm oil, which is used today in most detergents.

Foto: EdinburghGreens/Creative Commons

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