Oiled Magellanic penguins in Golfo San Jose,Argentina

During a period of 4 months prior to the 1978–1979 breeding season, a total of 157 Magellanic penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus) were found dead on 1 km of beach in Golfo San Jose, a site in the vicinity of the largest nesting colony for this species in Argentina. Sixty-two of 91 adults (68%) were oiled, but only one of 66 immatures was oil-stained. Of the penguins with oil on one side only, three times as many were stained on the left side as on the right. The absence of oiled Magellanic penguins seen at nearby nesting colonies supports the hypothesis that these birds are not fit to breed.     

Effect of Bioremediation on the Microbial Community in Oiled Mangrove Sediments

Bioremediation was conducted in the field on a mature Rhizophora stylosa mangrove stand on land to be reclaimed near Fisherman’s Landing Wharf, Gladstone Australia. Gippsland crude oil was added to six large plots (>40 m²) and three plots were left untreated as controls. Bioremediation was used to treat three oiled plots and the remaining three were maintained as oiled only plots. The bioremediation strategy consisted of actively aerating the sediment and adding a slow-release fertilizer in order to promote oil biodegradation by indigenous micro-organisms. Oil addition stimulated the numbers of alkane-degrading bacteria slightly to levels of 10⁴–10⁵/g sediment. Bioremediation of the oiled sediment had a marked effect on the alkane-degrading population, increasing the population size by three orders of magnitude from 10⁵ to 10⁸ cells/g of sediment. An effect of bioremediation on the growth of aromatic-degraders was detected with numbers of aromatic-degraders increasing from 10⁴ to 10⁶ cells/g of sediment. Active aeration and nutrient addition significantly stimulated the growth of hydrocarbon-degraders in oiled mangrove sediment in the field.     

On Vainshtein's simplest dynamo instability

The authors give reasons why an extremely simple motion, which Vainshtein recently proposed should self-sustain a magnetic field, may fail to do so.     

Aseismic base isolation: review and bibliography

The idea that a building can be uncoupled from the damaging effects of the ground movement produced by a strong earthquake has appealed to inventors and engineers for more than a century. Many ingenious devices have been proposed to achieve this result, but very few have been tried and the concept now generally referred to as base isolation or seismic isolation has yet to become acceptable to the engineering profession as a whole. Although most of the proposed systems are unacceptably complicated, in recent years a few practical systems have emerged and have been implemented. While some of these systems have been tested on large-scale shaking tables, none has to date been tested as built by a strong earth tremor. The shake testing and related static testing of full-scale components such as isolation bearings, however, has led to a certain degree of acceptance by the profession and it is possible that the number of practical implementations of base isolation will increase quite dramatically in the next few years.

This review summarizes much of the literature on theoretical aspects of seismic isolation, describes testing programmes and enumerates those isolation systems which have been used in buildings completed or under construction. It describes the characteristics of the various implemented systems with an indication of their range of applicability and some assessment of their development as backed by research. A bibliography of all papers published on the topic from 1900 to 1984 is included. The bibliography is as complete as possible, but, due to the rapid increase in research interest in the topic in the past few years, there may be a substantial degree of omission in the later years.