Singapore: Fastest walkers in the world

From airports to public housing, Singapore has achieved many firsts. Now, the bustling city has landed a less welcomed honour - its pace of life is literally the fastest. According to an international study by a British psychology professor, renowned for his quirky experiments, Singapore left 34 other cities including Madrid, Guangzhou, New York and London, trailing in its wake as the "fastest-moving city".

The results of Singapore's brisk walkers showed an increase of over 30% when compared to a similar study by an American academic in 1994, which had also established that pedestrians' speed of walking provides a reliable measure of the pace of life in a city. It also said that people in fast-moving cities have higher rates of coronary heart disease.

In the current test, European cities dominated the top 20 rankings, which included three Asian cities with Guangzhou coming in fourth while Tokyo ranked 19th. Overall, the pace of life in the world has risen by 10% between 1994 and now, with Asian cities registering the highest increase. "The pace of life in our major cities is now much quicker than before. This increase in speed will affect more people than ever, because for the first time in history, the majority of the world's population are now living in urban centres," said Prof Wiseman. He also told British newspaper The Times: "What happens is that as people get more stressed and hurried, they spend less time with their friends, they don't have time to exercise, they eat poorly and they drink and smoke more. It's these factors that build up to cause the risk."

- Here's an anecdote : there is a relatively long tunnel connecting the North-East Line and the East-West Line at the Outram interchange MRT station. A few years back, around 2000 or thereabouts, at my usual walking speed, I was faster than the average commuter in the tunnel. Just a few months back, when I happened to take the same route again, I realized that *everyone* was walking as fast as myself - or even faster.

Everyone was practically walking at "top speed". Any faster and they would be running! I was wondering what it would take to go faster. I concluded that I would *really* have to start running (I am the exact average height for my age group, so I'm neither short nor tall). Actually, there was a handful of people who were *really* RUNNING! I shrugged, slowed down and, observed the hordes in amazement.

Perhaps, a few years later, *everyone* will be RUNNING to switch trains at the Outram interchange tunnel. Or they will get stress-induced heart attacks before that. You know, whichever comes first.

2 dead, 2 injured in Singapore refinery blaze

channelnewsasia.com (backblog) :

A fire at US oil giant ExxonMobil's refinery at Pulau Ayer Chawan on Jurong Island early Thursday [3 May 2007] left two workers dead and two others injured. The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said the incident occurred at about 1.15am. When firemen arrived at the scene, the blaze was raging at an overhead exchanger of a distillation column that processes crude oil. The fire was put out in half an hour.

ExxonMobil Singapore Refinery Manager Steve Blume said the company is sorry about the accident and is greatly saddened by the tragic event. ExxonMobil says it has shut down one of the two crude distillation units (CDUs) at the refinery, following the fire. A spokesman says the affected CDU has a capacity of 115,000 barrels per day. The other CDU, with a capacity of 185,000 barrels per day, continues to operate.

(2007-06-05 15:49:56 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Honeybee die-off threatens food supply

peakoil.com -> news.yahoo.com :

Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of the nation's honeybees could have a devastating effect on America's dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet.

Honeybees don't just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have. Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons. In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80% of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A congressional study said honeybees add about $15 billion a year in value to our food supply.

While not all scientists foresee a food crisis, noting that large-scale bee die-offs have happened before, this one seems particularly baffling and alarming. U.S. beekeepers in the past few months have lost one-quarter of their colonies - or about five times the normal winter losses - because of what scientists have dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder. The problem started in November and seems to have spread to 27 states, with similar collapses reported in Brazil, Canada and parts of Europe. Scientists are struggling to figure out what is killing the honeybees, and early results of a key study point to some kind of disease or parasite.

Even before this disorder struck, America's honeybees were in trouble. Their numbers were steadily shrinking, because their genes do not equip them to fight poisons and disease very well, and because their gregarious nature exposes them to ailments that afflict thousands of their close cousins.

(2007-06-05 15:45:47 SGT) [Env] Permalink

Texas Instruments to build $1 billion Philippine plant

news.yahoo.com :

U.S.-based Texas Instruments, the world's biggest maker of mobile phone chips, will build a second production plant in the Philippines for $1 billion, a cabinet minister said. The company currently has a 25-hectare complex in Baguio City in the northern Philippines.

The Baguio plant has undergone at least four expansion projects since its establishment in the 1970s and can no longer accommodate further expansion. The Baguio plant manufactures digital signal processors and digital light processors for cell phones and liquid crystal displays.

Melting Greenland ice could raise ocean 7 meters

peakoil.com -> physorg.com :

The world's oceans could rise by up to seven meters if Greenland's ice cap entirely melts because of global warming, climate scientists said. Glaciers on Greenland, the world's most icy land mass, are now melting most quickly where they are in contact with surrounding ocean, while ice in the high centre remains intact, said Garry Clarke, a professor at the University of British Columbia.

But if global warming causes the freezing level to move higher, the loss of ice would be worse than Greenland experienced in previous interglacial periods dating back hundreds of thousands of years. "It would be the complete disappearance of the Greenland ice sheet," Clarke told a meeting of scientists and journalists. "We still don't know how quickly our rendezvous with this will occur."

Canada will be the country most impacted by global warming, said the group chair Gordon McBean, a scientist and former federal government deputy minister.