If All Modern Gadget Running On Petrol

What if everything ran on gas? Then again, what if everything didn't? 

This one is a really smart ad, but for the fact that I never remember what it's advertising. Also, I really want a gas-powered handphone as it will solve the crappy battery problems.

Global Warming Effects On Greenland's Ice

Across Greenland's vast white landscape, small teams of researchers from around the world are searching for clues about the potential effects of global warming on Greenland's ice. They're measuring the movement of glaciers, the density of the snow pack, the thickness of the ice and more, trying to gauge how much will melt and when.

Greenland's Inuit people have been witness to the rapidly changing landscape. The Inuit have countless terms in their language to describe ice in all its varieties, and its disappearance directly affects their lives. 

Associated Press photographer Brennan Linsley recently spent some time on the massive Arctic island, documenting the researchers, the residents, and the varied ice that dominates the landscape.

The midnight sun illuminates an iceberg, among the many shed daily into the sea from the Jakobshavn Glacier, on July 19, 2011 in Ilulissat, Greenland. Greenland is the focus of many researchers trying to determine how much its melting ice may raise sea levels. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley) 

Floating ice, left over from broken-up icebergs shed from the Greenland ice sheet, nearly covers the seafront in Ilulissat, Greenland, on July 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)  

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Alaska Applied Physics Laboratory Ice Station

A few months ago, Reuters photographer Lucas Jackson was invited to the 2011 Applied Physics Laboratory Ice Station (APLIS), a temporary camp built out of plywood on Arctic sea ice. Far north of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, the camp housed a couple dozen members of the British, Canadian, and U.S. navies and employees of the Applied Physics Laboratory.

Jackson spent two days at the camp, watching its residents conduct tests on underwater and under-ice communications and sonar technologies. He kept his camera equipment warm and functional with chemical hand warmers whenever possible. 

Collected here are some chilly images from Jackson's trip to the far north last March. 

The moon rises over Arctic ice near the 2011 Applied Physics Laboratory Ice Station north of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, on March 18, 2011. (Reuters/Lucas Jackson) 

Equipment packed for an assignment to the Arctic, arranged on a table in the living room of Reuters photographer Lucas Jackson, in New York, on March 16, 2011. (Reuters/Lucas Jackson)

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Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Anniversary

2011 mark the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. On April 26, 1986, a series of explosions destroyed Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 station and several hundred staff and firefighters tackled a blaze that burned for 10 days and sent a plume of radiation around the world in the worst-ever civil nuclear disaster. 

More than 50 reactor and emergency workers were killed at the time. Assessing the larger impact on human health remains a difficult task, with estimates of related deaths from cancer ranging from 4,000 to over 200,000. The government of Ukraine indicated early this year that it will lift restrictions on tourism around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, formally opening the scene to visitors. It's expected, meanwhile, that a 20,000-ton steel case called the New Safe Confinement (NSC), designed as a permanent containment structure for the whole plant, will be completed in 2013.

Nowadays, Nuclear Power Plant is known as sophisticated and complex energy systems ever designed. However, any complex system, no matter how well it is designed and engineered, cannot be deemed failure-proof. There are trades to be made between safety, economic and technical properties of different reactor designs for particular applications. Since Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, many involved now consider informed consent and morality should be primary considerations.

For me, it is time that we in Malaysia to embrace nuclear energy as a cornerstone of the carbon-free revolution the world needs to address climate change and long-term energy security in a world beyond fossil fuels. Advanced nuclear power that provides the technological key to unlocking awesome potential of these energy metals for the benefit humankind and for the ultimate sustainability of our global society.

Bring in the nuke now...

Repairs are carried out on the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine on October 1st, 1986, following a major explosion in April 1986 which, according to official statistics, affected 3,235,984 Ukrainians and sent radioactive clouds all over Europe. (ZUFAROV/AFP/Getty Images) 

A military helicopter sprays a decontaminating substance over the region surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power station a few days after its No. 4 reactor's blast, the worst nuclear accident of the 20th century. (STF/AFP/Getty Images) 

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Artificial Reefs Around The World

For years now, governments around the world have been sinking large pieces of outdated or damaged equipment into the ocean, turning them into artificial reefs. Subway cars, naval ships, tanks and more rest on the sea floor, making homes for sea life and attracting divers. Artists have been busy as well, erecting underwater sculptures and memorials. 

I still remember that during my early years, maybe somewhere in between of 1988-1990, government used to show propaganda documentary about how artificial reef out of used tires were made. There artificial reef then dump to Malaysian ocean for fish to used as their new home. 

Interestingly, my mom said not only old tire can be made as artificial reef, as there are lots of others thing can be use. Me, being a rebel kid at that time, I'm not agreed to my mom. I believe fish would be scared of man made structure and not treat it as their home. Hahahaa...

Collected here are images from the past few years of some of these man-made reefs, both big and small. 

Divers swim above the former missile-tracking ship Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary off Key West, Florida May 21, 2010. Algae and sponges are already growing on exterior surfaces of of the 523-foot-long vessel and more than 113 different species of fish are now calling it home. The artificial reef was intentionally sunk May 27, 2009. (Reuters/Don Kincaid/Florida Keys News Bureau) 

The Oriskany, a decommissioned aircraft carrier, was towed 24 miles off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, Wednesday, May 17, 2006, to form an artificial reef. (AP Photo/U.S. Navy/Jeffrey P. Kraus)  

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Nigeria Oil And Gas Industry

For over 50 years now, the extraction of crude oil and natural gas from Nigeria's Niger Delta has meant wealth for a privileged few but has exacted heavy costs on residents and the environment. Nigeria is the world's 8th largest producer of crude oil, yet remains one of its poorest nations. An estimated 70 percent of its 150 million residents live below the poverty line.

The environment is paying a steep price as well. An estimated 500 million gallons of oil have spilled into the delta, the equivalent of roughly one Exxon Valdez disaster per year. A number of factors have contributed to these disasters like poor construction and maintenance, lax regulation, militant attacks, and petroleum thieves, not to mention government instability and abuse of power. According to cables released by WikiLeaks, Shell Oil claimed to have planted staff in all of Nigeria's main ministries, gaining access to key government decisions. 

You'll be shocked to find how oil is mined in Nigeria. The oil and gas industry is known for its high standard in safety for human and environment but it is not the case in Nigeria. Nigerian extract crude oil just like some backyard personal DIY project. Gathered here are some scenes from Nigeria's long, disastrous relationship with the crude oil industry. 

A boy standing in a canoe holds a hose to siphon oil from a spillage site on a river in Bodo community in Ogoni region of the Niger Delta, on June 10, 2010. (Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye)

Oil flows past a sunken boat in a creek near an illegal oil refinery in Ogoniland, outside Port Harcourt, in Nigeria's Delta region, on March 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) 

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