Tip: Don't Start to Smoke & Avoid "Gateway Sequence" - cigarettes & alcohol serve as gateway drugs before progressing to marijuana, cocaine, etc

Alternate orders of exposure to nicotine and cocaine were examined. The authors found that pretreatment with nicotine greatly alters the response to cocaine in terms of addiction-related behavior and synaptic plasticity (changes in synaptic strength) in the striatum, a brain region critical for addiction-related rewards. On a molecular level, nicotine also primes the response to cocaine by inhibiting the activity of an enzyme―histone deacetylase―in the striatum. This inhibition enhances cocaine’s ability to activate a gene called FosB gene, which promotes addiction. The relationship between nicotine and cocaine was found to be unidirectional: nicotine dramatically enhances the response to cocaine"
Health News - Nicotine “Primes” the Brain for Cocaine Use: The Molecular Basis of the Gateway Sequence of Drug Use for Nicotine and Cocaine: "Cigarettes and alcohol serve as gateway drugs, which people use before progressing to the use of marijuana and then to cocaine and other illicit substances; this progression is called the “gateway sequence” of drug use. An article in Science Translational Medicine by study author Denise Kandel, PhD, of the Mailman School of Public Health; and Amir Levine, MD; Eric Kandel, MD; and colleagues at Columbia University Medical Center provides the first molecular explanation for the gateway sequence.
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We should protect those areas which provide longer term refugees, where velocities are low, and where refugees from climate change may arrive

When we talk about velocity of climate change, we mean the speed and direction of movement of temperature. So when temperature increases in a particular spot, anything wanting to stay at the same temperature as before needs to move to a cooler place. In an area where there is a very flat thermal landscape, or where temperatures vary little from place to place, that cooler place could be a long way away. And so velocity of climate change would be high. Where cooler places are right next door, like up a nearby mountain range or on the other side of an oceanographic boundary, life only needs to move a short distance to follow temperatures over the same time period. So, the much flatter thermal landscape in the ocean tends to increase velocities, and therefore offsets the effect of greater warming on land to bring the velocities for the two environments closer together. By a similar process, reduced seasonal changes in the ocean tend to push up estimates for seasonal shifts to values close to those for land."
New Evidence That Climate Change Threatens Marine Biodiversity - Hans Villarica - Life - The Atlantic: "
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Update: India & China, huge users of coal. Biggest jump in global warming gases.The good news is that their economies are growing rapidly, however...

"The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing," said John Reilly, co-director of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.
The world pumped about 564 million more tons (512 million metric tons) of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009. That's an increase of 6 percent. That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries — China, the United States and India, the world's top producers of greenhouse gases. It is a "monster" increase that is unheard of, said Gregg Marland, a professor of geology at Appalachian State University, who has helped calculate Department of Energy figures in the past. Extra pollution in China and the U.S. account for more than half the increase in emissions last year, Marland said. "It's a big jump," said Tom Boden, director of the Energy Department's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center at Oak Ridge National Lab. "From an emissions standpoint, the global financial crisis seems to be over.""
The Associated Press: Biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases: "
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