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When you buy a car, one of the most important factors is durability, i.e. how long the vehicle will likely last.  Car search engine iSeeCars recently analyzed and ranked the cars that people have kept for 15 years or more. For its report, iSeeCars looked at more than 929,000 vehicles to determine which models are […]

The post 10 Cars That People Keep for 15 Years or More appeared first on Clark Howard.

Social media did not disappoint when it came to satirical coverage of the event

Iqbal and Aurangzeb stress the need for utilising existing infrastructure for digitisation

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Students wearing face masks walk along a street amid smoggy conditions in Lahore on November 21, 2023. — AFP

RAWALPINDI: As intense smog continues to choke residents across Punjab, the provincial government on Tuesday ordered the closure of public and private schools and a...

Outside view of the Nadra's mega center in Peshawar. — APP/FileNadra says its funding relies on issuance and renewals.Concerns raised over fake CNICs for Afghan nationals. Nadra assures committee it monitors data leaks closely.

ISLAMABAD: The National Database and...

"Unlike most celebrity endorsements which end with a few supportive words on social media and perhaps some appearances on friendly cable news networks, Musk has devoted significant time and energy to making the case for Trump directly to voters," Ohio-based political consultant Shane Harris wrote in an essay for the Association of Mature American Citizens.

Election Day is finally here, the polls are open and the news media are in frantic mode. There's a little serenity around, though. Millions of Americans already have cast their votes early by mail or in person -- and likely glad that they did.

More than 50% of U.S. Christians admit to consuming sexually explicit material and 22% say they do so weekly, according to an evangelical research firm.

Activist investor Elliott Investment Management has taken a more than $5 billion stake in Honeywell International and is calling for the conglomerate to split into two separate companies.

Max Verstappen suggests he won't change his aggressive driving this weekend at the Brazilian Grand Prix as he bids for a fourth successive Formula 1 title.

Most election postmortems highlight the issues that played badly for Vice President Kamala Harris and were advantageous to President-elect Donald Trump: inflation, chaos on the world stage and uncontrolled immigration.

The numbers are trickling in, and between the presidential elections of 2020 and 2024, President-elect Donald Trump saw dramatic increases in support at the ballot boxes from Hispanics, youth and Black people -- traditionally all voters who stick with Democrats. This has the Democrat Party trembling in its big black boots.

More Love More Power is part of our Contemporary Christian Music Library.

President-elect Donald Trump must end yo-yo government.

The majority of intelligent Americans and Washington Times readers are overjoyed and relieved that Clinton-Soros puppet Kamala "Hillary" Harris was defeated by Donald Trump ever so decisively.

As Washington Commanders rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels was trying to lead his team in a comeback in the final minutes against the visiting Pittsburgh Steelers, the scene inside Northwest Stadium was a sea of towels. Gold "Terrible Towels."

Will Venable is a busy man these days. The new manager of the Chicago White Sox is learning his way around the organization. He is talking to his new players and working with the front office on its offseason plans.

Anti-abortion advocates say there is still work to be done to further restrict access to abortion when Republican Donald Trump returns to the White House next year.

Nico Hischier and the New Jersey Devils open the season in Prague against the Buffalo Sabres, two more games will take place in Finland this fall and the 4 Nations Face-off is a four-team February appetizer to the main event as the league and players embrace hockey's international roots.

The SUSTAIN EU-ASEAN project aiming at establishing a more sustainable and integrated research and innovation cooperation between the EU and the ASEAN region in the areas of climate action, resource efficiency and raw materials has now published its first project newsletter.

This first issue of the SUSTAIN EU-ASEAN Newsletter contains information about the outcomes from the first project Networking and Cluster Session that took place on 23 January 2014 in Bangkok, Thailand, as well as features a news item about the forthcoming sessions scheduled for 28 Match 2014 in Brussels, Belgium. More can be found in the Newsletter available here.

The SUSTAIN EU-ASEAN coordinating action will focus on climate action, resource efficiency and raw materials issues and will aim to enhance collaboration between researchers in the EU and the ASEAN region. Addressing these issues in a coherent way is vital for sustainable development that leads to economic prosperity, social cohesion and environmental integrity. Both regions have developed innovative ideas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to adapt to climate change, improve resource efficiency and manage raw materials.

A new policy brief featured a recent issue of Science for Environment Policy highlights a new study suggesting that the Aichi biodiversity targets, set by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, are unlikely to be achieved by 2020— despite some progress towards halting the global loss of biodiversity. The authors of the study call for policy responses to be strengthened if the ongoing loss of nature is to be stopped.

The loss of biodiversity affects the healthy functioning of ecosystems and the benefits they provide to people. The ongoing loss of the world’s natural diversity, which underpins all life, prompted Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in 2002 to pledge reductions in the global decline in biodiversity by 2010.

The 2010 targets set by the CBD were missed. Consequently, a new set of goals to curb the loss of species and ecosystem services, supported by the 20 Aichi targets, were adopted by 193 nations in 2010. The Aichi targets, to be achieved by 2020, are part of the global Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020.

A global panel of 51 experts, drawn from a wide range of institutions, has recently assessed mid-term progress towards meeting these targets. They based their assessment on an analysis of 55 indicators (for example, extent of wetlands) selected from 163 potential indicators, which are key measures of the world’s biodiversity. They built statistical models for each indicator, based on their status in 2010 and data trends and then projected changes to the indicators by 2020. The value for each indicator in 2010 was then compared with the projected value in 2020 to assess progression towards the 2020 Aichi targets.

Read more in the original SEP policy brief. 

Original Study: 

Tittensor, D.P., Walpole, M., Hill, S.L.L. et al. (2014) A mid-term analysis of progress toward international biodiversity targets. Science 346 (6206): 241- 244. DOI:10.1126/science.1257 484

New research published with the support of the FP7 large-scale bioinformatics project Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON) and the Alien Challenge COST action reveals the importance of open data in the study and control of invasive alien species. The study was published online in open access in the journal Management of Biological Invasions.

Invasive alien species cause a wide variety of problems, including issues related to conservation; to human and animal health; to agriculture and to fisheries management. But how can science be useful to manage such potential issues?

"To advise policy makers and inform land managers on the dangers posed by and how to fight alien species we need to understand the invasion process. Ideally, we would like to be able to predict the causes, routes and progression of invasions." explains Dr. Quentin Groom, Botanic Garden Meise, Belgium.

Recently, several research groups have pioneered the process of "Horizon Scanning" for new alien species, also there have been parallel developments in the creation of dynamic ecological models to predict invasions. However, the greatest limitation to these advances is the lack of suitable data.

"The problem of invasive species is international and rapidly changing. Data are required from an extensive area, for many species and for a long period but what is currently available is patchy and often inaccessible. We argue for the importance of open data to tackle the problem of invasive alien species." explains Dr. Groom.

This new research reviews why access to data are so important to invasive alien species research and gives an overview of the reasons why data are unavailable to researchers. Currently access to data is patchy and is restricted in many ways:

• Legally, the use of restrictive data licensing blocks its use.
• Technically, many software systems don't adequately support sharing, particularly in their provision of unique identifiers.
• Culturally, data secrecy is the default position for most organizations.

Currently invasive species data is patchy and often restricted legally, through the use of restrictive data licensing. Credit: Peter Desmet

Gradually, data are becoming more accessible and attitudes towards data access are changing. The advent of data publications allows researchers to attract citations from their data, while simultaneously making their data accessible and discoverable.

The community of biodiversity observers is highly fragmented and the creation of a European biodiversity network will improve communication so that grassroots biodiversity surveyors will understand issues of data sharing, citation and licensing that are so critical for a rapid response to invasive species.

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Original Source:

Groom QJ, Desmet P, Vanderhoeven S & Adriaens T (2015) The importance of open data for invasive alien species research, policy and management. Management of Biological Invasions 6: in press. doi: 10.3391/mbi.2015.6.2.02

“We need to make sure that the hour of sunlight, of daylight, is in the evening so people’s mouths can be turned upwards in a smile,” Markey said in a recent video.

The post ‘More sun means more fun’: Markey makes another pitch for permanent DST appeared first on Boston.com.

The Trump administration is expected to pull back Biden's controversial directive that requires emergency rooms to provide abortions when necessary to stabilize a woman's health or life.

The post Anti-abortion advocates press Trump for more restrictions as abortion pill sales spike appeared first on Boston.com.

The post Halloween 2024 in Boston: Feasts, dance parties, drag shows, more appeared first on Boston.com.

Esmeralda, the last of the dogs to be adopted, is an 8-year-old dachshund mix.

The post One more dog left to adopt from batch of 27 that overwhelmed animal shelter appeared first on Boston.com.

Stop making excuses, procrastinators. Whether you overestimate your “natural talent”, complaining about “not having enough time” or being “too old to succeed anyway,” there is ... Read more

The post Seven Ways to Procrastinate Less and Do More appeared first on CMUSE.

"We're getting there. It's a long journey, it's a long season. Taking care of your body is important."

The post Jaylen Brown shares encouraging update on hip injury: ‘Felt a little bit more of that burst’ appeared first on Boston.com.

Under the federal law, nearly all hourly workers in the U.S. are entitled to overtime pay after 40 hours a week. But many salaried workers are exempt from that requirement — unless they earn below a certain level.

The post Biden administration finalizes rule to grant overtime for millions more salaried workers appeared first on Boston.com.