Obesity Can Hurt Kids' Hearts

A recent study shows that the obese children and those at risk for obesity show early signs of heart disease - which is a common phenomenon in obese adults.

The study, by a team at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, included 168 children ages 10 to 18. All of the children had undergone cardiac ultrasound to check on symptoms such as heart murmur, chest pain, acid reflux or high blood cholesterol. Of the children, 33 were obese, 20 were at risk for obesity, and 115 were normal weight.

The researchers used a new tissue Doppler imaging technique called "vector velocity imaging" to track the movement of the heart's muscular wall. Read More.

Hurricane Lorenzo hits Mexican coast

Lorenzo made landfall early Friday after strengthening rapidly into a Category 1 hurricane as it bore down on Mexico's Gulf Coast with powerful winds and rain, forcing authorities to evacuate low-lying coastal communities.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the hurricane made landfall along the east-central coast of Mexico, southeast of Tuxpan.

Officials canceled classes and opened more than 60 shelters on the coastline of Veracruz state Thursday, as Mexico's government issued a hurricane warning from Palma Sola to Cabo Rojo.

At least 30 communities near several rivers were ordered to evacuate late Thursday. Residents scrambled to move furniture and belongings to higher ground even as roads began to flood.

"We never expected the hurricane would hit here," said Ribay Peralta, a 33-year-old lawyer who was packing his car with televisions sets, DVD players and other appliances in the town of San Rafael, a low-lying community about 9 miles from Veracruz's coast.

"San Rafael is a town that gets flooded easily," he said by telephone.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said late Thursday that Lorenzo was forecast to strengthen further before hitting land in the "next several hours" near the small port of Tuxpan. It warned that "preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion."

Giant ocean-based pipes could curb global warming

Two of Britain's best known scientists proposed Wednesday to curb global warming by sowing the world's oceans with thousands, perhaps millions, of giant vertical pipes 100-to-200 meters deep.

"We need a fundamental cure for the pathology of global heating," wrote James Lovelock and Chris Rapley in a letter to the British journal Nature. "Emergency treatment could come from stimulating the Earth's capacity to cure itself."

As the planet's atmosphere heats up, they explained, certain cyclical processes that normally regulate climate are beginning to amplify the process of warming rather than holding it in check.

When Arctic sea ice recedes further each year, for example, sunlight falls on heat-absorbing blue water rather than white snow and ice which reflects heat back into space, accelerating the warming process.

Rising sea threatens China's south

Over 1,100 square kilometres (440 square miles) of land in economically booming southern China will be inundated by rising sea-levels by 2050 due to global warming, state press said Thursday.

"The Pearl River Delta area, a leading manufacturing hub, will be hard hit by climate change in the coming decades," the China Daily quoted Du Raodong, an expert with the Guangdong provincial weather centre, as saying.

The major cities of Guangzhou, Zhuhai and Foshan are expected to be the worst hit by sea-levels that are expected to rise by at least 30 centimeters (12 inches) by 2050, the paper said.

The findings, contained in a recent report by Guangdong weather authorities, said 1,153 square kilometers of coastline along the delta would be flooded by the rising waters, the paper said.

"Climate change will negatively affect the economic development of Guangdong, which is currently one of the biggest consumers of energy and producers of greenhouse gases," Du said.

The rising sea level will introduce salt tides that could contaminate fresh water supplies, while polluting algae blooms along Guangdong's coastal waters will further exacerbate the problem, he said.

Already the region is witnessing extreme weather with severe flooding and rainstorms in recent years partially blamed on global warming, it said.

China has been cited as one country that will be hit hard by global warming, according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

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