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Fish

Two-meter long tropical swordfish beaches itself on UK riverbank

Shanti Das
Daily Mirror, UK
Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:36 UTC
Image
© SWNS
Washed up: This swordfish was found on Severn Beach, on the mouth of the River Severn
A massive swordfish was found washed up on a British tidal riverbank - an extremely rare sight in the UK.

Beachcombers saw the majestic fish - which measured 6ft in length including its bill - struggling in shallow waters but could not save it.

Experts believe the fish travelled more than 1,500 miles to Severn Beach on the mouth of the River Severn in South Gloucestershire - all the way from the Mediterranean.

Nicola Hills, 39, from Severn Beach, found the swordfish with her husband Gary.

She said: "We were walking the dog and we saw this thing thrashing about in the water.

"The first thing I thought was 'what the hell is that?' I thought it was a shark or a dolphin or something."
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Fire

Rampaging wildfire burns 6,500 acres near Anchorage, Alaska

M. Alex Johnson
nbcnews.com
Mon, 15 Jun 2015 15:34 UTC
Image
© Alaska State Troopers
The Sockeye Fire grew quickly late Sunday and early Monday.
Homes were being evacuated and fire crews from the lower 48 states were racing to a wildfire north of Anchorage, Alaska, that grew to 6,500 acres in just hours, authorities said early Monday.

The so-called Sockeye Fire, in the town of Willow, about 80 miles north of Anchorage, forced firefighters on the defensive as aircraft continually drop water and fire retardant Sunday night, the state Forestry Department said.

Residents began fleeing from a voluntary evacuation area covering both sides of a 15-mile stretch of the George Parks Highway. As of Sunday evening, more than 200 people had signed into one evacuation center near Talkeetna. But the total number of evacuations wasn't immediately available.

The fire was first reported at 1:15 p.m. (5:15 p.m. ET) as covering 2 acres and quickly grew. By 3 p.m. it had reached 80 acres, and by 6 p.m. it covered 1,077 acres along the western shore of Kashwitna Lake, the Forestry Division said. By 10:30 p.m., the fire had grown to 4,183 acres. Two hours later, it was estimated at 6,500 acres.

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Sheeple

Hundreds of sheep mysteriously die across Iceland


grapevine.is
Wed, 10 Jun 2015 08:56 UTC
Image
© Runar Snær Reynisson - RÚV
Hundreds of sheep have died across the country
Hundreds of sheep in Iceland have died off, and no one seems to know the exact cause. Research is currently underway to find the culprit.

RÚV reports that the deaths have hit especially hard in Borgarfjörður in west Iceland, Eyjafjörður in the north, and across east Iceland. The wide area over which the deaths are occurring - as well as the alarming rate at which sheep are dying off - has many farmers worried. In some cases, half of entire flocks have been lost.

Svavar Halldórsson, chairperson of the National Association of Sheep Farmers, told reporters that he believes disease may be to blame. As such, he and other farmers have begun taking blood samples from ill sheep to be analyzed by the National Veterinary Authority.

More specifically, MBL reports that bad hay may be killing the sheep.

Svavar has no exact figures on how many sheep have fallen so far, but told reporters that the deaths have "been a heavy weight on our farmers, to miss so many animals."
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Bizarro Earth

'Blizzard' of mayflies swarm bridge in Pennsylvania

Ryan Robinson
Lancaster Online
Sun, 14 Jun 2015 23:12 UTC
Mayflies
© Blaine Shahan
Swarming Mayflies caused the closure of the Rt 462 bridge between Columbia and Wrightsville late Saturday.
The Veterans Memorial Bridge over the Susquehanna River between Columbia and Wrightsville reopened Sunday after mayflies forced its closure Saturday night, police said.

Thousands and thousands of mayflies swarmed the lights on the Route 462 bridge, died and fell to the road, causing three motorcycle crashes, a fire official said. The coating of dead mayflies (also called shadflies) was about an inch thick.

At 10:30 p.m., a motorist stopped at the Wrightsville Fire Department station and reported an eastbound motorcycle had crashed on the Wrightsville side of the bridge, Wrightsville Fire Chief Chad Livelsberger said. Firefighters encountered a surreal scene.

"It was like a blizzard in June, but instead of snow, it was mayflies," Livelsberger said. Dead mayflies about an inch thick covered a large section of the bridge.

"It was very slick, almost like ice," the chief said. "It was hard to stop, in the engine and the vehicles." Livelsberger's pickup truck skidded to a stop. "When you go to pull out, all your tires would do was spin."

The black mayflies are close to 2 inches long and a quarter-inch wide, Livelsberger said. "It looks like a meal worm with wings."
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Sun

Cosmic rays reaching Earth increase 10% in just one month as Solar activity continues decreasing


Space Weather
Sun, 14 Jun 2015 19:55 UTC
For the past month, solar activity has been low. The last big burst of solar activity happened on May 5th when an X2-class solar flare erupted from the sun's eastern limb. Since then ... quiet. To investigate the effect of low solar activity on the atmosphere, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus have been launching helium balloons at ~weekly intervals. Equipped with X-ray and gamma-ray sensors, the balloons measure ionizing radiation all the way from ground level to the stratosphere. Here are the results:
Increased Cosmic Rays
© SpaceWeather.com
During the past month of low solar activity, ionizing radiation in the stratosphere has increased by 10%. This may seem counterintuitive, but there is a simple explanation: The radiation we measure is dominated by cosmic rays--a mix of subatomic particles, X-rays and gamma-rays that come from outside the solar system. Explosions on the sun (especially CMEs) tend to push these cosmic rays away from Earth. During the past month, however, there have been relatively few CMEs. Fewer CMEs means more cosmic rays. Yin-yang.

Cosmic rays are an important form of space weather. They matter to anyone who steps foot on an airplane. According to NASA, a 100,000 mile frequent flier will absorb a dose of radiation equivalent to 10 chest X-rays--all from cosmic rays. Cosmic rays have also been linked to cloud cover, lightning, and they may play some role in climate change.

If the sun remains quiet, cosmic rays could increase even more. Stay tuned for updates from the stratosphere.
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Beaker

DDT: The gift that keeps on giving?

Bob Musil
huffingtonpost.com
Fri, 12 Jun 2015 19:37 UTC
Image

Chemical-polluters
The DDT manufactured back in Rachel Carson's day, recent reports indicate, is still killing robins and other birds. The Velsicol Corporation that produced it is the company that threatened Rachel Carson with a lawsuit if she dared to publish her environmental health classic, Silent Spring, in 1962. Carson ignored the threats and helped spark the modern environmental movement. Velsicol continued to manufacture DDT, dieldrin, and other nasty pesticides now banned until they closed and were later taken over by the EPA in 1981.

The Velsicol legacy today is a series of toxic Superfund sites, in and around St. Louis, Michigan, north of Lansing, that are still killing robins over fifty years after Silent Spring. Recent findings from the EPA covered in a new report from Environmental Health News show that a nearby elementary school and neighborhood homes have levels of DDT harmful to birds. And they may also pose health risks to children. Although EPA sampling to date has not found levels in playing fields that are considered harmful to kids, some neighbors' yards have shown amounts of DDT that are hazardous to humans. Erring on the side of caution, the EPA is digging up the fields at St. Louis' TS Nurnberger Middle School and removing its DDT-contaminated dirt.

Comment: See also: Birds in central Michigan are dying due to decades-old DDT pollution

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Cloud Lightning

Lightning strikes kills 12 within 24 hours in Madhya Pradesh, India


The Times of India
Sun, 14 Jun 2015 19:34 UTC
Image

12 people were struck by lightning in three districts across Madhya Pradesh in 24 hours.
Twelve people were killed and eight seriously injured when they were struck by lightning in three districts across Madhya Pradesh in the last 24 hours.

While seven were killed in Chhindwara, two each were killed in Seoni and Agar districts, said police.

Those killed in Chhindwara have been identified as Rajesh Yadav 28, of Malanwada area, Ramnath Bhange, 18, his cousin Mahesh Bhange, 20, of Amarwada, Munshilal Sirkam, 28 and Sahtu Bai, 40, among others. Four others who sustained severe injuries were sent to district hospital.

Similarly, two children were killed and three others injured when lightning struck them at Narla village of Agar district on Friday night. Children Umrao Singh (10), Balu Singh (14) and three others took shelter under a tree in Narla, 25 kms from distirct headquarters after rains started. Suddenly, lightning struck them killing Umrao and Balu on the spot.

In a separate incident a Santoshi, 14 and her sister Jayanti, 12, were killed in Seoni district. Police said they took shelter under a house when lightning struck.
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Question

Alabama rattles with swarms of earthquakes; experts say reasons unclear

Jay Reeves
Yahoo! News
Sun, 14 Jun 2015 16:59 UTC
Image
© AP/Brynn Anderson
This Tuesday, June 9, 2016, photo shows an abandoned building near Eutaw, Ala., where there have been reported earthquakes. More than a dozen weak earthquakes have followed in the seven months since in west Alabama's rural Greene County, and geologists are trying to figure out what is causing the seismic swarm in an area of the South more prone to tornadoes than earthquakes.
Jim Sterling didn't know what had hit his 156-year-old antebellum home when an earthquake struck Alabama's old plantation region early one morning last November. Startled, he grabbed a gun and ran outdoors.

In the pre-dawn chill, Sterling said, he found an odd scene: horses were galloping, cows mooing and dogs barking.

"I heard a boom and felt the shaking," Sterling said. "It really upset me."

More than a dozen weak earthquakes have followed in the seven months since in west Alabama's rural Greene County, and geologists are trying to figure out what is causing the seismic swarm in an area of the South more prone to tornadoes than earthquakes.

"It is interesting that recently there has been more activity there than in the last four decades," said Sandy Ebersole, an earthquake expert with the Geological Survey of Alabama.

Records from the U.S. Geological Survey show the first of 14 earthquakes occurred on Nov. 20, when a magnitude 3.8 earthquake was recorded about 10 miles northwest of the community of Eutaw. The second occurred in mid-December, followed by another in January and three within a few hours of each other on Feb. 19.

The tremors have continued ever since, with the most recent occurring June 6, when a magnitude 3.0 quake rattled the area. All the tremors have been weaker than the initial jolt in November, and Ebersole said some have been too slight for residents to detect.

Comment: See:

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Ice Cube

Circular rainbow surrounds the sun in Saginaw, Michigan

Daphne DeLoren
wnem.com
Thu, 11 Jun 2015 12:59 UTC
Image
© Sandie Thompson via Facebook
Several viewers have posted photos on our Facebook wall of what looks like a circular rainbow surrounding the sun.

It's called a "halo" and is caused by cirrus clouds, which are the thin, wispy looking ones around 20,000 feet or higher in the atmosphere.

They typically occur ahead of a storm, like the one approaching us from over the central plains.

Millions of ice crystals within the cloud both reflect and refract sunlight at a specific angle to your eye, which causes the cool looking circular rainbow.

Image
© wnem.com
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Wolf

Canine craziness: 23 dog bites reported in one day in Kochi, India

Neelima M
The Times of India
Sun, 14 Jun 2015 15:19 UTC
Image

Feral dogs
As many as 23 cases of dog bites were reported in the district on Saturday, fuelling concerns over the increasing instances of canine attacks that stood at 273 in June. District animal health officer, Dr Razia Konthalam allayed fears and said that all dog bites won't cause rabies. "It is not true that dogs bite only when they are rabid. Stray dogs that feed on meat waste tend to be ferocious and are likely to attack people," she said, adding that rabid dogs die within 10 days.

Veterinary surgeon for Kochi corporation, Dr Kishore Kumar KJ - who is one of the principal investigators of the local body's Animal Birth Control programme - said: "What we need is an effective waste management plan, merely sterilizing animals alone won't help matters."

He added that killing animals is the most unscientific and unacceptable method. "People should understand that when they kill dogs in a particular territory, the ones that replace the dead tend to be more aggressive and dangerous," he said, adding that the animal birth control (ABC) programme will help bring down the number of strays in the city in a span of two years. So far, 62 dogs have been sterilized at the corporation's multispecialty veterinary clinic in Brahmapuram since May 28.
      Read More...
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