One Degree Temperature Rise Causes 10-Percent Drop in Rice Output

A one degree Celsius rise in temperature at night may cause a 10-percent drop in rice output, an expert warns, calling on scientists to find drought-resistent rice seeds right now to deal with the impact of global warming in the future.

"In the past 20 years, temperature in Indonesia rose 0.3 degree Celsius, that`s why we need to anticipate possibilities in the future," Inez Loedin, chief of the molecular biology section of the biotechnology research and development center at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said at a national meeting on food and nutrition here on Tuesday.

Global warming would make water sources increasingly scarce, she said adding that to produce 1 kg of rice needed 2,000 to 3,000 liters of water.

She said global warming would also give rise to a more extreme and irregular season in which unpredictable floods and droughts would be on the increase.

"Farmers will no longer be able to make a prediction when they will grow rice so that they will suffer losses when the dry season comes earlier than harvest time. The dry season which comes one month earlier than usual will lead to harvest failures," she said.

She said El Nino which affected Indonesia in the 1997-1998 planting season led to widespread harvest failures, prompting the country to import up to 5.8 million tons of rice.

"In fact, the rice imports account for 20 percent of the total global rice trade," she said adding that in the past 10 years Australia faced frequent droughts.

The results of many surveys suggested that El Nino would affect Indonesia more frequently in the future, she said.

Earlier, LIPI Chief Umar A Jenie said Indonesia would face formidable challenges to meet rising food demands from its population of 247 million in 2015 and 261 million in 2020.

"Therefore, efforts must constantly be made to ensure food availability through various ways," he said.

The meeting was attended by Minister of Research and Technology Kusmayanto Kadiman and Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari who became keynote speakers.(*)

***Source: antara-lipi

New Global Soil Database

A new database on the world’s soils improves knowledge of the current and future land productivity as well as the present carbon storage and carbon sequestration potential of the world’s soils. It helps to identify land and water limitations, and assist in assessing the risks of land degradation, particularly soil erosion risks, said FAO today.

Derived from the soil database, FAO has produced a global Carbon Gap Map that allows for the identification of areas where soil carbon storage is greatest and the physical potential for billions of tons of additional carbon to be sequestrated in degraded soils.

Soil information has often been the one missing information layer, the absence of which has added to the uncertainties of predicting the potential for and constraints to food and fibre production as well as the capacity of soils to hold carbon and to act as a sink.

Until now, most efforts to use agriculture to manage greenhouse gases have involved above-ground sequestration, primarily through planting trees, since the amount of carbon that can be sequestered in this way is substantial. However, there is also growing interest in finding ways to increase carbon sequestration in soils. Soils are presumed to be the largest carbon reservoir of the terrestrial carbon cycle, although estimates of their magnitude vary widely. Soil can be a source or a sink for green house gases depending on land use management. For long-term sequestration, organic carbon must be stored in forms and in locations in the soil profile with slow turnover.

“The chemical and physical properties of soils also help to determine specific information about how well a soil will perform as a filter of wastes, as a home to organisms, as a location for buildings and as pool for carbon. The more information we have about soil properties, the more we can evaluate the quality of our natural resources all over the world and their potential to produce food now and in future scenarios of climate change” said Alexander Muller, FAO Assistant Director General for Natural Resources and Environment Management.

“Soil characterization data are a key piece of the picture of how an ecosystem work,” said Freddy Nachtergaele, FAO soil expert. “Soil properties also tell us whether the soil has the potential to store enough water to keep plants growing through a drought or to withstand a flood. Farmers’ knowledge of soil properties also forms the basis of managing fertilizer application efficiently thus reducing avoidable nutrient losses to the environment.”

Land Potential Assessment

FAO and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis combined recent regional and national updates of soil information worldwide and incorporated the FAO-UNESCO Soil Map of the World into a new Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD). Other partners such as The European Soil Bureau Network; the Institute of Soil Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and ISRIC World Soils contributed significantly to the information.

Soils as carbon stores

Different soils have different capacities to act as a store for carbon which has direct implications for capturing greenhouse gases. The world's soils hold more organic carbon (1500 Gt) than the atmosphere that contains about half this amount as CO2 (720 Gt), and the vegetation (600 Gt) combined. Thus, relatively small changes in the flow of carbon into or out of soils have significant effect on a global scale. In addition to predicting the effect of changing rainfall patterns under climate change scenarios, scientists require information on soil moisture storage capacities which are provided by this database.

The HWSD provides improved soil information worldwide particularly needed in the context of the Climate Change Convention and post Kyoto Protocol instruments for soil carbon measurements and carbon trading. It can also be used by agronomists, farm experts and scientists in planning the sustainable development of agricultural production and will improve land degradation assessments, environmental impact studies and sustainable land management options.

The database will also serve to guide policies aimed at addressing land competition issues concerning food, energy and biodiversity.

***www.fao.org

Behaviour of Plastics and Elastomers

The relationship between wear and surface hardness obtained for metals would predict a comparatively poor behavior for polymers. However, their special structural features give rise to properties that can play a special role in wear.

The viscoelastic deformation behavior is characterized by time-, temperature- and velocity-dependent deformation processes. Relatively low levels of hardness and strength, high plasticity, low thermal conductivity, and high thermal expansion are effects of the weak secondary bonding forces between the macromolecules and their coiled structures. In particular, the low tendency to adhesion gives polymers their good slip characteristics with steels as the sliding partners — in the absence of additional abrasive particles — because of the low frictional forces involved, and the slip system is characterized by additional emergency running properties. Polyamide and PTFE occupy the prime positions here as they possess good cohesive linkage properties compared with other unreinforced polymers.

If abrasive sliding stress is present, the dependence on hardness known for metals cannot really be depicted in the same way. It has been demonstrated that polymers exhibit a good relationship between wear resistance and crack propagation energy, or even between wear and the product of tensile strength and fracture strain.

Due to their material properties, polymers have proved successful where streams of small particles cause impact stress in addition to sliding wear, i.e., with abrasive impact wear and with erosive attack. Although polymers generally have poor resistance to abrasive sliding attack, their ductility, especially of elastomers, leads to a behavior superior to that of metals when the impacting component is dominant. Their behavior therefore differs significantly depending on the angle of impact. The material becomes heated due to internal friction, which can lead to complete failure at high jet intensities.

The preferred elastomers include the polyurethanes and synthetic rubbers because of their outstanding resistance to wear. In polyurethanes, greater resistance is found in the hardness range 70 – 95 Shore A, whereas normal grades of rubber reach their optimum between 50 and 70 Shore A. It is not possible to separate the influencing factors systematically with respect to tribological behavior because of the large number of additives, types of rubber, and applications.

If, for rubber and C 60 H steel, the amount of wear relative to St 37 steel is plotted versus the impact angle and the hardness of the jet material then, it is possible to show the very different wear behavior of these two materials.

Abrasion and Erosion - An Introduction

Practical experience with industrial equipment, machinery, and plant has shown that components have only limited service lives. Damage and ultimate failure of the component can occur as a result of changes in the material that originate at the surface, even if the components are designed such that long-term action of the forces alone causes neither fracture nor undue deformation.

If the reactions responsible for the damage are of electrochemical or predominantly chemical nature, the term corrosion is normally used, whereas mechanical damage to the surface of the component is defined as wear.

Attempts to avoid a loss of material due to wear, or at least to reduce the loss, concentrate on making the affected surface more resistant to wear. This can be achieved by mechanical, thermal, or thermochemical treatment of the surface or by applying or depositing metallic coatings.

Under some circumstances the wear conditions can be changed by design measures so that the danger for the affected component surface is eliminated or reduced to a tolerable level.

With few exceptions (e.g., running-in of bearings), wear in engineering means an undesired change that causes very high costs every year; in a highly developed, industrialized country this can amount to ca. 1 – 2 % of the gross national product [1].

Excluding the contribution from the automobile sector, the proportions occurring in the various branches of industry can be divided up approximately as shown in Table (1). From this, it can be seen that the plant construction typical of the chemical industry plays an insignificant role, and wear is correctly known as "the problem child of mechanical engineering" [2].

Wear, friction, and lubrication are described under the term tribology as the science of the study, industrial application, and modification of the phenomena and processes occurring between surfaces which are acting against each other and moving relative to one another; this includes boundary surface interactions between solids, and between solids and their gaseous or liquid surroundings.

Since at least two components of a system are involved in wear, it is not a pure material characteristic, but only a system characteristic. Wear itself is generally understood as progressive loss of material from the surface of a solid body caused by mechanical action, i.e., contact and relative motion with a solid, liquid, or gaseous phase.

[1] BMFT-Report: Damit Rost und Verschleiß nicht Milliarden fressen, BMFT, Bonn 1984.
[2] B Genath

***source

PT PUSRI urge Regulation about Distribution of Subsidized Fertilizer

PT PUSRI, as the oldest and the biggest industrial fertilizer in Indonesia, won't distribute subsidized fertilizer to the area having not regulation about distribution of subsidized fertilizer. PT PUSRI won't take a risk if they are blamed by the governmentcause distribute fertilizer as an illegal thing. They hope that all province can fulfill this wish.***

FreeRice to support victims of Cyclone Nargis

Rice generated by the award-winning Internet word game FreeRice will soon be going to help feed survivors of the cyclone which hit Myanmar in May.

The rice will be distributed to many of the 755,000 people that WFP aims to reach with its relief operation in the country. Two rice consignments for Myanmar have been paid for by YUM! and Unilever, the latest companies to help fund the FreeRice initiative.

Through FreeRice.com, online players ranging from school children to office workers donate 20 grains of rice to WFP every time they get a right answer.

FreeRice’s creator John Breen estimates that up to 500,000 people play the vocabulary-expanding online game every day. So far, players have won over 36 billion grains of rice for the hungry – that’s enough for 3.75 million meals.

Rice has already been donated to WFP programmes in Uganda, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. It has fed refugees, schoolchildren, pregnant women and mothers.

Time's top websites of the year

The FreeRice website, launched in October 2007, continues to win recognition as an innovative web phenomenon. It has just been selected by Time magazine as one of the top 50 websites of the year.

Time.com allows users to vote for their favourite site among those selected. If you want to vote for FreeRice.com, you can do so here.

FreeRice creator John Breen recently picked up a second award for the ground-breaking web initiative. The award, presented on May 16, came from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. On January 7, FreeRice won the best website prize in the charity category of the Yahoo! UK & Ireland Finds of the Year Awards.

With interest in the FreeRice vocab game as strong as ever, John and WFP are hoping to reach the target of 4 million meals for the hungry by the end of the summer.*(wfp.org)

The Importance of Staving Off a Magnesium Deficiency

The latest government study shows a staggering 68% of Americans do not consume the recommended daily intake of magnesium.

Even more frightening are data from this study showing that 19% of Americans do not consume even half of the government’s recommended daily intake of magnesium. This article is an excerpt from the book "Transdermal Magnesium Therapy" by Mark Sircus AC., OMD.

'Studies show that as many as half of all Americans do not consume enough magnesium. Magnesium deficits have been tied to allergies, asthma, attention deficit disorder, anxiety, heart disease, muscle cramps and other conditions.' - Massachusetts Institute of Technology ...

You can follow the complete article by Mark Sircus Ac., OMD from naturalnews here.

Subsidized Fertilizer in Indonesia will be Stable

Oil price's increasing also impacted to the farmers in Indonesia. So that, Indonesian government take a policy to increase estimate for subsidized fertilizer.

Indonesian government estimating for subsidized fertilizer around 14.7 quintillion, in order to stabling fertilizer's basic price. This estimation used for fertilizer's stock about 7.2 million in 2008.

Indonesian government determine basic price for fertilizer type Urea 1,200 rupiah each kilogram. For NPK 1,750 rupiah each kilogram, ZA about 1,050 rupiah each kilogram and for SP-36 1,550 each kilogram.

In 2008, Indonesian Government consider for fertilizer's stock about 4.3 million ton Urea, 800.000 ton SP-36, 700.000 ton ZA, 900.000 ton NPK and 345.000 ton organic fertilizer.***

Perahu Bidar Race at Sungai Musi

Palembang City Anniversary celebrated on June 17th, 2008 by Government of Palembang with Perahu Bidar race and Perahu Hias contest, took place on Musi River, Palembang.

Perahu Bidar race followed by 19 contestants coming from Palembang region and outer. And for Perahu Hias Contest, followed by 17 contestants from Palembang region and 7 contestants from outer.

Perahu Bidar Race is started from Dermaga 35 Ilir and finished at Benteng Kuto Besak Square, passed through 800 metres long distance.***[]

Use It or Lose It

Words used the most evolve the slowest. Researchers have traced how past tense forms of English verbs have died out since the time of Beowulf. Only one persists as a rule: adding “-ed” to denote the past tense (so-called regular verbs).

The investigators catalogued all the irregular verbs they came across, such as “sing”/“sang,” as well as those that have since been regularized (such as “slink,” which is now “slinked” but 1,200 years ago was “slunk”). Only 98 of the 177 irregular verbs they found have not been regularized, and given two verbs, if one was used 1/100 as frequently, it evolved 10 times faster.

Next to fall, they predict: “wed,” the past tense of which will regularize to “wedded.” The October 11 Nature published this study, as well as a similar one comparing soundalike words across Indo-European languages.***—Nikhil Swaminathan

Not So Neutral Neutron

The neutron may be electrically neutral overall, but physicists had thought it was actually positively charged at its center with an offsetting negative charge at its outer edge.

New results from three different particle accelerators suggest the neutron is even more complicated, with a negative charge both in its inner core and in its outer edge and with a positive charge sandwiched in between.

The findings could improve understanding of the strong force, which binds atomic nuclei together, as well as the inner workings of stars. It might also have applications in nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.

According to researcher Gerald Miller of the University of Washington, the neutron could prove even more complex as more data come in, as he describes in the September 14 Physical Review Letters.*** —Charles Q. Choi

Hole Shrinkage

Ozone in the stratosphere blocks deadly ultraviolet rays from the sun, but the past use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in aerosols and other products has thinned the protection. The damage is embodied by the infamous “ozone hole” that forms over the South Pole every Antarctic spring. (A hole is defined as a thickness of ozone less than 220 Dobson units—or less than 2.2 millimeters thick if the ozone resided at sea level at 0 degrees Celsius).

Measurements of the hole taken by the European Space Agency’s Envisat satellite do not necessarily mean that the ozone layer has begun recovering. Rather weather patterns allowed warm air to mix into the polar regions, thus limiting the problem.

Temperature below which ozone depletion occurs:
–78 degrees C

Percent that the ozone layer has thinned every year this decade: 0.3

Peak Antarctic ozone loss, in metric tons:
In 2006: 40 million
In 2007: 27.7 million

Minimum ozone depth in hole, in Dobson units:
In 2006: 100
In 2007: 120

Area of hole, in square kilometers:
In 2006: 28 million
In 2007: 24.7 million

Area of North America, in square kilometers:
24.25 million

SOURCE: European Space Agency announcement, October 3, 2007

1325 Palembang City Anniversary

Palembang is the oldest city in Indonesia, based on Kedukan Bukit Epigraphy (683 ac) founded at Bukit Siguntang, Palembang City. This Epigraphy told about place that called wanua, builded as capital of Sriwijaya Emperor on June 16, 683. Based on this, government authenticate every June 16, as Palembang City Anniversary.

If we discuss about Palembang City, we can correlate it with Sriwijaya Emperor, that ever made it as capital of Sriwijaya Emperor around 7th century till 12th century. On 17th century, Palembang City become capital of Kesultanan Palembang Darussalam, proclaimed by Pangeran Ratu Kimas Hindi Sri Susuhanan Abdurrahman Candiwalang Khalifatul Mukminin Sayidul Iman (populer as Kimas Hindi/Kimas Cinde). Kesultanan Palembang Darussalam eliminated by Dutch Government Colonizer on October 7th, 1823 and become on of Netherland Commision Agent.***[]

Killing the Kilogram

In September 2007, news reports proclaimed that the kilogram was mysteriously losing mass. Specifically, the reference cylinder, made 118 years ago and kept locked away under glass in France, appears to have lost 50 micrograms when compared with the average of dozens of copies.

Physicists have long recognized this kind of mass drift, however, which is why they have been seeking natural defi nitions for the kilogram [see “Weighty Matters”; SciAm, December 2006]. One possibility for a new defi nition would be the number of silicon atoms in a kilogram of pure silicon; another would rely on electrical power and quantum effects.***[]

Visa on Arrival to Visit Palembang City

Indonesia Government had granted visa on arrival favor to 52 countries to be able to purchase the visa on arrival facility upon their arrival in Indonesia’s designed “International Gateway” at 15 airports and 21 seaports, one of the airport is Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II International Airport Palembang, they are :

1. Argentina
2. Australia
3. Austria
4. Bahrain
5. Belgium
6. Brazil
7. Bulgaria
8. Cambodia
9. Canada
10. Cyprus
11. Denmark
12. Egypt
13. Estonia
14. Finland
15. France
16. Germany
17. Greece
18. Hungary
19. Iceland
20. India
21. Iran
22. Ireland
23. Italy
24. Japan
25. Kuwait
26. Laos
27. Liechtenstein
28. Luxembourg
29. Maldives
30. Malta
31. Mexico
32. Monaco
33. New Zealand
34. Norway
35. Oman
36. RRC
37. Poland
38. Portugal
39. Qatar
40. Saudi Arabia
41. Russia
42. South Africa
43. South Korea
44. Spain
45. Switzerland
46. Sweden
47. Surinam
48. Taiwan
49. The Netherland
50. United Arab Emirate
51. United Kingdom
52. United States of America

And started per 28 May 2007, Indonesia will be added its Visa on Arrival (VOA) favors to more 12 countries joined with previous 52 other favored countries according to the Directorate General of Immigration recent released paper. The 12 countries are

1. Algeria
2. People�s Republic of China
3. The Czech Republic
4. Fiji
5. Latvia
6. Libya
7. Lithuania
8. Panama
9. Romania
10. Slovakia
11. Slovenia
12. Tunisia

Tourists from those selected countries will not oblige to apply abroad for a visa but can purchase a visa on arrival at Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II International Airport. The fee for this visa, payable upon landing, is US$10 for a 7 day visa and US$25 for a 30-day visa. The official entry requirements for the issuance of a 30 or 7 days day visa-on arrival:

1. Passport must be from one of the countries listed above.
2. Passport must be valid for a minimum of 6 (six) months from the date of entry into Indonesia.
3. Payment of US$10 or US$25 must be paid at the gateway, depending on the length of visa required.
4. Onward or return tickets are compulsory.
5. Visitors must enter and exit through one of the 15 airports or 21 seaports officially approved as an “international gateway” by the Indonesian Immigration department.

There are 11 countries and territories are eligible for a “Visa Free” facility. Those holding valid passports from the following countries will be granted a non-extendable 30-day Visa-Free Short Visit Permit upon arrival at Sultan Mahmud Badarrudin II International Airport without charge:

1. Brunei Darussalam
2. Chile
3. Hong Kong SAR
4. Macau SAR
5. Malaysia
6. Morocco
7. Peru
8. Philippines
9. Thailand
10. Vietnam
11. Singapore

Others nationals that not granted with either visa on arrival favor nor visa free favor from Indonesia government may apply for tourist visa at Indonesia embassy abroad.***[]

***Source

Atmosphere of Uncertainty?

To support the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that current warming is anthropogenic, William Collins, Robert Colman, James Haywood, Martin R. Manning and Philip Mote assert in “The Physical Science behind Climate Change” that the mismatch between surface and tropospheric warming rates has now been resolved. This claim is not supported by actual observations.

According to the April 2006 Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) report, considerable disparity exists between the observed warming-rate patterns and those calculated by greenhouse models. Although the models predict that temperature trends will increase with altitude by 200 to 300 percent, the data from both weather balloons and satellites show the opposite.

This result does not deny the existence of a greenhouse effect from the considerable increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases. But it does suggest that present models greatly overestimate the effect’s magnitude and signifi cance.***Fred Singer - University of വിര്ജീനിയ

***Source

Bulk Industrial Chemicals

The bulk industrial chemicals category includes those chemicals and materials produced in the chemical industry in large quantities, typically using continuous processes although they may be manufactured in large batch equipment. The price of these chemicals tends to be a more important factor than their performance.

Both organic and inorganic chemicals can be produced on a large scale. Organic chemicals are materials that contain hydrogen and carbon atoms and sometimes other elements such as nitrogen, oxygen and halogens. Inorganic chemicals are generally considered to embrace all substances except hydrocarbons and their derivatives.

Petrochemicals are primarily organic chemicals made from hydrocarbon raw materials sourced from crude oil, natural gas or coal. Olefins (ethylene, propylene and butadiene) and aromatics (benzene, toluene, xylenes) are the primary building block chemicals to make petrochemical intermediates and final products.

Many petrochemicals are processed into polymers for use in plastics, resins, fibres, elastomers and coatings. Petrochemicals are also used to make a wide range of end-use products such as detergents, adhesives, solvents, plasticizers, lubricants, etc.

Fertilizers can be organic or inorganic materials which contain one or more of the primary plant nutrients and sometimes secondary or trace nutrients. The primary nutrients are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium while secondary nutrients are calcium, magnesium and sulphur.

If nitrogen is the main element, it is described as nitrogen fertilizer supplied as anhydrous ammonia or solutions containing nitrogen derived from ammonia. The ammonia can be directly applied to the soil or used to produce other compounds such as ammonium nitrate and urea. Ammonia can also be used in combination with phosphate rock and potassium to form N-P-K compound fertilizers.

Large volume inorganic chemicals are produced by the chemical industry. These include chlorine, caustic soda, titanium dioxide, and many carbonates, sulphates and halides.*