As of yesterday, the oil has stopped. For now. After 85 days and up to 184 million gallons, BP finally gained control over one of America's biggest environmental catastrophes Thursday by placing a carefully fitted cap over a runaway geyser that has been gushing crude into the Gulf of Mexico since early spring.

Now if it holds, we only have to worry about the remaining clean up. This will have long term impacts on the surrounding areas that make up the Gulf of Mexico. I hope that the effort is high to clean everything up or the clean up could last years. We need to continue to watch this and make sure BP knows we're watching or the effort will fizzle out. We tend to forget too quickly how bad a situation is once a fix is recognized.

Keep your eye on this one.

Hydrofluorocarbons are the chemicals that currently make the air conditioner in your car or the cooling system in your refrigerator work. These chemicals are perfectly safe in the captive environment of the equipment they operate in, however, conditions change and they escape. Cars get in accidents, and refrigerators go without maintenance too many years causing the the seals to dry out. Dry seals lead to escaped gases or chemicals.

We have very good control of these issues since the 1970s. The thing is, this new process could be cheaper and safer. The effect has already been recorded so the race is on to make it work in real world situations.

What we are talking about is a property of some substances to lose heat when they are exposed to changing magnetic fields. The process of this is called the magnetocaloric effect. Calories are a measure of heat, so the name literally means magnetic heat effect. Any time you have an exchange of heat, one material has a temperature drop while the other has a gain. Refrigeration and heating systems are all about controlling this process.

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I've said it before and I know I will say it again, wear sunblock.

Another note about the sun, it gives us vitamin D. Our vitamin D needs vary with age, body weight, percent of body fat, latitude, skin coloration, season of the year, use of sun block, individual reactions to sun exposure, and our overall health. As a general rule, older people need more vitamin D than younger people, large people need more that small people, fat people need more than skinny people, northern people need more than southern people, dark-skinned people need more than fair skinned people, winter people need more than summer people, sun-phobes need more than sun worshipers, and ill people may need more than well people.

Here are some basic tips about getting your vitamin D safely:

* Treat direct sun, (without sunscreen) like medication, using the lowest dose necessary, but don't avoid it completely.

* Always avoid sunburn.

* Get 15-30 minutes of unprotected sun exposure two to four times a week. Each of us has different needs for unprotected sun exposure to maintain adequate levels of vitamin D.

* Get frequent, short exposures. Regular short exposures have been found to be much more effective and safer than intermittent long ones.

* Note that you cannot generate vitamin D when sitting behind a glass window, because the UVB rays necessary for vitamin D production are absorbed by glass.

* After your 15-30 minutes of sun-block free time in the sun, you must protect yourself.

* Boost your "internal sunscreen" by consuming anti-oxidants and beneficial fats.

* Wear sunblock

Remember this one. It may be a reality soon. The Vision EfficientDynamics concept is a three-cylinder diesel, four-door, plug-in hybrid that generates about 356hp, 590-pound-foot output. The hybrid allows the diesel engine to drive the rear wheels directly or with assistance from a rear-axle electric motor through a six-speed gearbox and the electric motor up the front drives the front wheels. For maximum performance, all the three system can be made to run in tandem.

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In Peru, the disappearance of Chalcataya, a most important glacier, was a call for action. Then a huge chunk of Hualcan, another mountain glacier in Peru, broke up causing a lakeside tsunami.

These events led to a competition for "100 Ideas to Save the Planet." Out of 1700 entries, inventor Eduardo Gold was one of 26 winners of the World Bank-sponsored contest. Golds idea was to simply paint the mountains white, thus keeping their surface temperature down and allowing new ice to form and hopefully stay.

The paint is nontoxic. It is made from a combination of egg whites, lime, and water and it works by increasing the reflectivity of the mountain, preventing the normally dark rocks from absorbing the sun's heat.

Peru is home to 70 percent of the world's tropical glaciers, and global warming has hit them hard - nearly one-fourth of Peru's glaciers have melted in the last 30 years, threatening the continued livelihood of millions of Peruvians who depend on them for fresh water.

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