Free Republic

In November 2022, four eminent scientists issued a theoretical physics paper, “Nitrous Oxide and Climate.” It proves that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s “war on nitrous oxide” to achieve Net Zero Emissions (NZE) by 2050 threatens to cause a significant collapse in the world’s food supply.The article’s four authors are eminent men in their field, so their analysis and opinion deserve to be taken very seriously: (1) C.A. de Lange, a physicist at Vrije Universiteit, in Amsterdam; (2) J.D. Ferguson, an M.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, with a specialty in developing computer models of the effect...

When Vito Oliveri first tried nitrous oxide in his twenties he didn't expect a legal drug that gives a quick high to temporarily paralyze him and his fiancée years later, leaving them unable to walk their four dogs. As recently as early last year, Oliveri, 34, who lives in Portland, Oregon, near some of the best ski resorts in the US, would often ski or take trips to the lakes with his fiancée, Emily Shuford, 30. "I'd typically be on the mountain on a Monday like today, but we just can't. Emily uses a cane and I probably can't walk...

Emissions of the greenhouse gas commonly known as laughing gas are soaring. Can we cut emissions from its greatest anthropogenic source? I In the world's effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the source of our food is coming into the spotlight. There's good reason for that: Agriculture accounts for 16 to 27% of human-caused climate-warming emissions. But much of these emissions are not from carbon dioxide, that familiar climate change villain. They're from another gas altogether: nitrous oxide (N2O). Also known as laughing gas, N2O does not get nearly the attention it deserves, says David Kanter, a nutrient pollution researcher...

... Though biofuels have been touted for their ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, assessing the environmental impact of bioethanol requires including greenhouse gas emissions related to the crops needed for its production. And "the carbon balance of ethanol relative to gasoline isn't as good as it was originally anticipated," Tyler Lark, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison told AFP. In 2005, Congress passed a "Renewable Fuel Standard," which required transportation fuel to include a volume of biofuel that increased over time. The law was further expanded in 2007. As a result, 2.8 million additional hectares of corn were...

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) are studying whether inhaling a gas called nitric oxide can help treat patients with COVID-19, or even prevent people from getting the disease. Although nitric oxide is widely used to treat patients with respiratory failure, MGH is the only hospital in the United States, and one of the few in the world, studying it for the treatment of COVID-19, according to the CDC. (MGH is conducting one of the studies in cooperation with teams in Alabama and Louisiana.) Get breaking news alerts and updates about the coronavirus outbreak across New England in your inbox....

Police executed a search warrant on Ulrich G. Klopfer’s Women’s Pavilion abortion clinic in South Bend, Indiana, seizing documents and other property on Wednesday, March 19, 2014. Police from the St. Joseph County Special Victims Unit participated in the raid. It is unknown exactly what kind of documents or other evidence the search warrant allowed police to take. According to news reports, the police apparently made copies of the seized documents and returned the originals to Klopfer on Thursday. Klopfer has faced a complicated tangle of legal issues in recent months. klopfer4Klopfer’s troubles began when volunteers with Indiana Right to...

MOJAVE - Progress on rocket engine technology continues at XCOR Aerospace, as the company this week announced the successful completion of the first round of testing of its new 56-pound thrust rocket engine, the XR-3E17. The new engine is a direct descendant of the company's first "Tea Cart" engine, which debuted in 2000 and has been used as a demonstration model of the company's capabilities. "We needed a more updated engine," said Aleta Jackson, co-founder of the company, which is based at the Mojave Air and Space Port. The new engine provides nearly four times the thrust of the original...

Climatologists find familiar fluctuations in Pacific's past - test. “During past ice ages the tropical Pacific Ocean behaved rather as it does today in an El Niño event, bringing downpours to some places and drought to others.” Thus began a 2002 article Nature magazine (12 Jul 2002) For example, it could explain the low atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, during the last ice age. It is not clear whether this was a cause or a consequence of the difference in global climate, but such decreases would have lowered global temperatures still further,...

Fertilisers washing into lakes could increase methane emissions, potentially undoing progress in addressing climate change. The biggest human influence on climate change and global warming is the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Now research published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography Letters is the first to show how the size of lakes and the nutrients in their waters from fertilisers are contributing to that influence. "Our research pioneers a new way of determining the global atmospheric effect of lakes using satellite information on lake greenness and size distribution," said Professor John Downing. "Our research team assembled the largest...

Just in time for the holidays, an industrywide shortage of canned whipped topping, such as Reddi-wip, appears to be looming after a fatal explosion at a Florida nitrous oxide plant in late August stunted the supply chain. Conagra Brands, the Chicago-based food manufacturer that makes Reddi-wip, confirmed Monday that its supply of nitrous oxide — a propellant for aerosol toppings — was affected by the blast. Spokeswoman Lanie Friedman said stores still have the product in stock, but supplies may be limited in the peak holiday season, when consumers are indulging in pies, hot chocolate and other desserts that call...

Newest menace to the globe: Laughing Gas Some dentists use Laughing Gas for its analgesic effects instead of local anaesthetics. It’s supposed to prevent pain when they get close to your nerves. I’ve never had the pleasure of such a treatment and my dentist prefers the modern “slight discomfort” version of the poke and needle variety. Of course, that’s miles ahead of the procedure I experienced in my early years when the dentist appeared to use a hammer drill to lay bare the live nerves of my teeth—without any analgesic at all. But I’m getting sidetracked. This post is about...

A new study by MIT has revealed that the quantities of nitrous oxide (N2O), otherwise known as laughing gas, being released by the world's oceans has been dramatically underestimated. Heightened levels of N2O have the potential to seriously influence the health of our planet's ozone layer, as the gas is around 300 times more potent than the more prevalent menace of carbon dioxide emissions.

Nitrous oxide (N20) emissions could almost double by 2050 if more aggressive action is not taken, undermining global efforts to curb climate change, the United Nations’ Environment Program (UNEP) said on Thursday. Commonly known as the “laughing gas”, nitrous oxide exists naturally in the atmosphere in trace amounts. However, it is the third most potent greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and methane due to human activities such as agriculture, fossil fuel combustion, wastewater management and industrial processes. …

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Nitrous oxide emissions caused by human activity have become the largest contributor to ozone depletion and are likely to remain so for the rest of the 21st century, a US study has concluded. The study by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency said efforts to reduce chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere over the past two decades were "an environmental success story. ... Emissions and production of those substances are regulated under the 1987 Montreal Protocol. But the treaty excludes nitrous oxides, which are emitted by agricultural fertilizers, livestock manure, sewage treatment, combustion and certain other industrial processes....

New research at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston suggests that ancient Chinese herbal formulas used primarily for cardiovascular indications including heart disease may produce large amounts of artery-widening nitric oxide. Findings of the preclinical study by scientists in the university's Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases (IMM) appear in the Sept. 15 print issue of the journal Free Radical Biology & Medicine. Nitric oxide is crucial to the cardiovascular system because it signals the inner walls of blood vessels to relax, which facilitates the flow of blood through the heart...

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. -— A psychologist who has spoken out on eating disorders and other issues was arrested after she collapsed in a supermarket, allegedly after inhaling propellant from whipped cream cans. Lisa G. Berzins, who has been interviewed on television and in newspapers and successfully lobbied for a state law regulating claims by weight loss businesses, was arrested on a warrant Friday charging her in the May 29 incident. Berzins, 49, has written and lectured on eating disorders, female development, sex roles and self-esteem, according a speaker's biography from the American Psychological Association. She has visited schools in a...