Stories tagged human
Can this be converted to energy savings?
Courtesy size8jeansEager to help the environment? Want to reduce fuel consumption? Well, according to a new study published in the journal Human Ecology, you can do your part by not stuffing so many calories into your face.
On average we Americans just eat too much. We consume about 1200-1500 more calories per day than is recommended. Not only that but most of the 3700 calories we do take in each day comes from junk and processed foods, and animal products, which use up a lot more fuel and resources to produce than simpler foods like potatoes, fruits and vegetables.
Conventional meat and dairy farming require large amounts of energy what with processing, packaging and long-distant distribution, so the study suggests a return to more organic, localized farming methods to help reduce energy usage. Of course, this means the end users – us – will have to reduce our intake of animal fat and processed foods, and shift to simpler, healthier diets, but the impact on fuel consumption would be tremendous.
But wait, there’s more.
The current health trend in the United State is in a rather dismal state. Many of us are overweight , diabetes is on the rise, and now we’ve got doctors recommending cholesterol-lowering drugs for children . A radical shift in our food production methods, and a reduction in our caloric intake such as the study suggests would not only solve some of our current energy woes, but the general health of the US population would benefit, too.
SOURCES AND INFO
ScienceDaily story
NY Times story: Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler
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Anthropologists have found the partially intact, 3.3-million-year-old skeleton of a 3-year-old Australopithecus afarensis, the ape-man species represented by "Lucy." Features of the skeleton will add to the scientific debate about whether afarensis, which walked upright, also climbed like an ape.
American universities (including University of California, San Francisco) are trying to create stem cell lines using cloned human embryos. (This is what South Korean researchers claimed to have done in 2004 and 2005; the lab later admitted that they'd fabricated their research.) Check the NPR story on who's in the business, how they're paying for it, and what the ethical issues are.
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