Earth ChangesS


Health

Shark takes a chunk out of surfer's leg; fourth attack off Brevard, Florida coastline in 2016

Kiri Blakeley
Daily Mail
Wed, 22 Jun 2016 16:11 UTC
Shark attacks
A man was bit by a shark while he was wading in the waters of Pelican Beach Park in Satellite Beach in Florida.

The unidentified man, who was surfing, had 'wounds indicative of a small shark bite or similar toothed sea creature,' according to Florida Today, quoting Brevard County Fire Rescue's spokesperson.

Despite the deep and gory marks shown in photos taken on the beach, the surfer declined to go to the hospital. He was reportedly bitten on the calf, according to TrackingSharks.com.

Lifeguards first responded to the man around 2:55pm and said he was in the water when the injury occurred.

Images from the scene show paramedics treating the man's leg injuries, including the bloody bite mark on the unlucky swimmer's calf.

The waters in the area are populated with bull, lemon and other shark species. They generally latch on quickly, thinking a human leg is fish food, and then swim away.

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Bizarro Earth

Contagious cancer is spreading among marine life


Phys.org
Wed, 22 Jun 2016 00:00 UTC
Cancers shellfish
© 1. Annette F. Muttray; 2. and 3. David Iglesias Left to right:1. Mussels (Mytilus trossulus) at Copper Beach in West Vancouver, Canada 2. Cockles (Cerastoderma edule) collected in the ria of Arousa in Galicia, Spain3. Golden carpet shell clams (Polititapes aureus) collected in the ria of Arousa in Galicia, Spain
The oceans are home to innumerable and diverse species of marine life. A new paper, published in Nature, suggests that the watery medium that nourishes and protects this life may also promote the spread of certain cancers, both within and across species.

The study, performed by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center, with collaborators in Canada and Spain, examined a variety of mollusks harboring a form of cancer known as disseminated neoplasia, a leukemia-like disease that affects populations of bivalves in many parts of the world. The team has discovered that in several species, cancer cells themselves were spreading from animal to animal as a contagious clonal cell line.

"Our results suggest that direct transmission of cancer among marine animals may be much more common than once thought," said senior author, Stephen Goff, PhD, the Higgins Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Bbiophysics and the Deparment of Microbiology & Immunology at Columbia University Medical Center.
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Cloud Lightning

London flooding: Flash floods cause chaos in the capital

Ross Lydall, Ben Morgan and David Churchill
Evening Standard
Thu, 23 Jun 2016 14:52 UTC
Rescue bid: The firebrigade rescues a family from a flooded street in Romford
© Paul WoodRescue bid: The firebrigade rescues a family from a flooded street in Romford
Firefighters used rescue boats to free Londoners trapped in their homes as torrential rain brought chaos to the Tube, road and rail network.

London Fire Brigade attended more than 400 incidents after receiving 550 calls - almost two days' worth of 999 calls - in a couple of hours as extraordinary thunderstorms deluged the capital overnight.

Emergency services asked people only to dial 999 if life was at risk.

Fire crews helped residents to get to work or to polling stations to vote in the EU referendum after 60 homes in Romford were flooded when the River Rom burst its banks.


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Cloud Precipitation

Streets flood in Bangkok, Thailand after 7 inches of rain; highest rainfall for 25 years

Richard Davies
Floodlist
Wed, 22 Jun 2016 14:12 UTC
A factory worker in Bang Pu Industrial Estate in Samut Prakarn province is ferried to safety in a large bucket yesterday after the area is inundated in up to 60 centimetres of water.
A factory worker in Bang Pu Industrial Estate in Samut Prakarn province is ferried to safety in a large bucket yesterday after the area is inundated in up to 60 centimetres of water.
Wide areas of Bangkok, Thailand, were flooded on 21 June after a period of heavy rain across the city.

The flooding brought traffic to a standstill forced some schools and businesses to close. Thailand's Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) Director-General Chatchai Promlert said that heavy rains during the evening of 20 June caused flooding in 36 areas of Bangkok, leaving streets under 60cm of water in some areas.

Bangkok Governor M.R. Sukhumbhand Paribatra said that although the rain was short lived, the rainfall was as much as 200 mm and the highest for over 25 years.

Thai Meteorological Department (TMD) had reported that a low pressure area over northern Vietnam and Cambodia would result in heavy rainfall in Thailand's northeastern, central and southern regions on 21 June 2016.

Bangkok floods
Bangkok floods
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Eye 2

Man attacked by alligator in Bushnell, Florida

Tom Liddy
abcnews.go.com
Tue, 21 Jun 2016 13:52 UTC
Alligator
© Sumter County Sheriff's OfficeAlligator
An alligator attacked a man in Florida Tuesday evening -- about an hour away from where a boy was killed by a gator outside a Disney resort, according to the local sheriff's office.

The attack in Bushnell, Florida, happened around 6:30 p.m. and left the 58-year-old man with injuries to his right leg, the Sumter County Sheriff's Office said in a Facebook post.

The man's condition was not immediately known, but he was airlifted to Ocala Regional Hospital.

Police said that the gator was 8 1/2 to 9 feet long.

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Cloud Lightning

Lightning casualties increasing in Bangladesh with 261 deaths this year; on track to beat 265 total of 2015


Shanghai Daily
Thu, 23 Jun 2016 13:29 UTC
Lightning
Bangladesh has seen a near-record number of deaths this year from a phenomenon that appears to be worsening with climate change: lightning strikes.

So far this year, 261 people have died from lightning in the country, putting the South Asian nation on track to beat last year's 265 deaths. Most lightning deaths usually occur during the warm months of March to July.

India has seen a similar surge in lightning deaths, with 93 people killed just in the past two days.

The problem has prompted Bangladesh's government to add lightning strikes to the country's list of official types of disasters, which includes floods, cyclones and storm surges, earthquakes, drought and riverbank erosion, among others.
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Attention

Silent 'slow slip' earthquake detected off Gisborne, New Zealand


Radio New Zealand
Thu, 23 Jun 2016 03:56 UTC
silent earthquake plotted
© GeoNetA silent earthquake's movement is plotted
A 'silent' earthquake that's been happening for a week, and could continue for months, has been detected off the coast of Gisborne.

GeoNet said today that the event, which could move faults at the equivalent of magnitude 5 or higher regular earthquakes, had just been detected and was being monitored.

The slow-motion earthquakes, also known as "slow slips", are undetectable by humans or seismographs, and are instead measured using changes in distance between global positioning system stations across the North Island.

They have been shown to be able to trigger - or alleviate - large, tsunami-generating earthquakes.


Comment: Silent slow-slip seismic events can rupture shallow faults resulting in large tsunami-generating earthquakes


Follow slow-slip motion on GeoNet

The agency said a magnitude 4 earthquake off the coast of Gisborne last week was likely related.

The phenomenon is fairly new to science and, after being discovered in the United States, was first located in New Zealand in the early 2000s.
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Cloud Lightning

Another lightning bolt kills sheep in Kyrgyzstan; 55 struck in second recent incident


eng.24.kg
Wed, 22 Jun 2016 14:44 UTC
Lightning
At least 55 sheep were killed by lightning in Kyrgyzstan. Press service of the Ministry of Emergency Situation reported.

According to it, on June 20 a resident of Almaluu-Bulak, Suzak district, Jalal-Abad region Mederbek Kaamytov drove sheep to Kurobos pasture at about 3.00 a.m.

A lightning stroke into a herd of sheep, killing them, the shepherd has managed to slaughter only 20 of them, so that they would be suitable for consumption.

Comment: See also: 120 sheep killed by lightning bolt in Kyrgyzstan

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Cloud Lightning

Lightning strikes kill at least 93 within 2 days across India


The Daily Star (Lebanon)
Wed, 22 Jun 2016 13:28 UTC
Lightning over the golden temple in Amritsar during storms in April.
© Hindustan Times Lightning over the golden temple in Amritsar during storms in April.
At least 93 people have been struck by lightning and killed in India over the past two days, disaster management officials said Wednesday, as annual monsoon rains swept the country.

Lightning strikes are relatively common in India during the June-October monsoon, which hit the southern coast earlier this month, but this week's toll is particularly high.

Most deaths occurred in the eastern state of Bihar, where an overnight storm killed at least 56 people and injured another 28, mainly in rural areas.

"The death toll has climbed to 56 and 28 are injured. Many of the victims are children and women," Anirudh Kumar, a senior official at Bihar's disaster management agency, told AFP.

Comment: Neighboring Bangladesh has seen a near-record number of deaths this year from lightning strikes, with 261 fatalities already - compared with last year's total of 265 deaths. The surge has even prompted Bangladesh's government to add lightning strikes to the country's list of official types of disasters.

The explanation provided by a physics and astronomy professor in California is indicative of mainstream science.
"Some specialists think that as the world warms up, we should expect more explosive lightning events ... rather than a gradual increase,"
Rather than 'global warming' it is the electrical nature of such phenomena that ought to be addressed. See also:

Electric universe: Lightning strength and frequency increasing

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Flashlight

Mysterious lights reported in Manchester's night sky

Adam John
Manchester Evening News
Mon, 20 Jun 2016 14:13 UTC
Ashton Manchester lights
© Mitesh TaylorShop worker Mitesh Tailor also took pictures of the 'mysterious light' above Ashton.
Residents in parts of Greater Manchester say the truth is out there... after snapping what they say were 'mysterious lights' in the sky. People living in Tameside and in Gorton claim to have seen a strange phenomenon in the night sky.

Mitesh Tailor, 31, said he was amazed to spot 'glowing lights' above Ashton-under-Lyne's Hartshead Estate on Friday evening. HR officer Mitesh first spotted the lights from his bedroom window on Friday, which he says have resumed even more brightly on Saturday and Sunday nights. Intrigued by the phenomenon, Mitesh took photographs of what he saw shortly after midnight on Sunday.

He said: "At first I didn't think much of it, on Friday I thought it was just normal but last night it was a lot brighter. "It's not the moon, that is on the other side of my house. They weren't artificial lights either, the area is really dark."
Gorton Manchester lights
© Zac Weaver
And in a separate spotting, Gorton resident Zac Weaver also snapped images which show a strong milky light coming through the clouds. Zac explained: "The light abve Gorton is back and as you can see in three of the photos there's actually a little bright light above the tree that seems to move. "This can't be the stone roses events as that ended about an hour ago. And I know it wasn't because of the event becasue the light hasn't been there the past couple of days."
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