Earth ChangesS


Info

The hard truth about animal research

A. C. Grayling
New Scientist
Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:56 UTC
An hour at the zoo is enough to convince most people that apes and monkeys are close kin to humankind. Some say that an hour watching proceedings in any parliament is enough to show that humans are close kin to monkeys. Either way, we know that the primate family is an intimate one, with the great apes - gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, orang-utans and humans - particularly closely related.
Image
© Wikimedia CommonsChimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) could soon be granted rights.

It did not take genetics to tell us this, however, nor comparative anatomy. We now know that we share many of our genes with insects too, and the anatomies of all mammals are just resized and repositioned versions of one another. The key to understanding the true closeness of apes, ourselves included, is ethology. When Jane Goodall first sat in the Gombe rainforest, giving with fortuitous naivety anthropomorphic interpretations of the chimpanzee behaviour she witnessed, she was initiating a rethink: about apes, about humanity's relationship with them, and ultimately about humanity itself.
Read More...
Red Flag

Acorns Gone; Nature Does What GOP Fails to Do

Rob Kall
OpEdNews
Sun, 30 Nov 2008 10:00 UTC
An article in today's Washington Post, Acorn Watchers Wonder What Happened to Crop reports that in many parts of America, the acorns are gone and squirrells are acting as though they are starving. The article starts,
The idea seemed too crazy to Rod Simmons, a measured, careful field botanist. Naturalists in Arlington County couldn't find any acorns. None. No hickory nuts, either. Then he went out to look for himself. He came up with nothing. Nothing crunched underfoot. Nothing hit him on the head.

Then calls started coming in about crazy squirrels. Starving, skinny squirrels eating garbage, inhaling bird feed, greedily demolishing pumpkins. Squirrels boldly scampering into the road. And a lot more calls about squirrel roadkill.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Curaçao's crude legacy

Colin Woodard
The Christian Science Monitor
Fri, 28 Nov 2008 01:49 UTC
CSM Curacao
© Colin WoodwardFriends of the Earth activists Lloyd Narain and Yvette Raveneau have campaigned against World War I-era oil refinery's pollution for 20 years.

A lake of asphalt and toxic fumes bedevil Curaçao. But who will pay to clean it up?
Read More...
Info

Antarctic islands surpass Galapagos for biodiversity

Tamsin Osborne
New Scientist
Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:22 UTC
A group of isolated Antarctic islands have proved to be unexpectedly rich in life. The first comprehensive biodiversity survey of the South Orkney Islands, near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, has revealed that they are home to more species of sea and land animals than the Galapagos.
Emperor penguins
© UnknownEmperor penguins like these are the tallest and heaviest penguins alive today

The findings raise the issue of what sort of impact climate change - already hitting the Antarctic hard - will have on this rich biodiversity.

Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and the University of Hamburg, Germany, carried out the survey using a combination of trawl nets, sampling as deep as 1500m, and scuba divers. The team found over 1200 species, a third of which were not thought to live in the region. They also identified five new species. The majority of animals were found in the sea, with most living on the seabed.
Read More...
Info

How landslides can be the key to ignition of wildfires

Kate Ravilious
Science Daily
Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:12 UTC
Can a landslide spontaneously combust? It can, if it contains the right kind of rock.

In August 2004, fire crews attending a wildfire near Santa Barbara, California, traced the source of the blaze to a recent landslide, but they had no idea how the fire got started.

A few weeks later, Robert Mariner of the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, and his colleagues visited the site. They found that the temperature of the rocks in the landslide must have reached just over 300 °C - hot enough to start a fire.
Read More...
Meteor

How Many Meteorites Have Landed In Western Canada? Prospects For The Missing Holocene Impact Record


Science Daily
Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:59 UTC
Based on the amount and frequency of meteorite falls and the formation of impact craters on the Earth, there should be over 20 impact craters in the <100 m size range that formed within the past 10,000 years, yet only five such craters are known worldwide.

Herd et al. report the discovery of a 36-m-diameter impact crater located in a forested area near the town of Whitecourt, Alberta, Canada. Although too overgrown to be seen in air photos or satellite images, the crater is revealed using a bare-Earth digital elevation model obtained through airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR).

The crater formed in deglacial sediments, with impact ejecta burying a soil with a radiocarbon age of ~1100 years. Seventy-four iron meteorites (0.1-1196 g) have been recovered, most having an angular, shrapnel-like shape.
Read More...
Fish

Want Sustainable Fishing? Keep Only Small Fish, And Let The Big Ones Go


Science Daily
Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:39 UTC
Scientists at the University of Toronto analysed Canadian fisheries data to determine the effect of the "keep the large ones" policy that is typical of fisheries. What they found is that the effect of this policy is an unsustainable fishery.
Large mouth bass in a lake
© iStockphoto/Judy LedbetterLarge mouth bass in a lake. A fish population will produce more young -- and therefore sustain more fishing -- if it is made up of big, old fish.

In fact, the opposite policy (keep the small young ones and throw back the large old ones) would result in a more sustainable fishery. In short -- a big fish in the water is worth two in the net.
Read More...
Info

2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season Sets Records


Science Daily
Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:33 UTC
The 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season officially comes to a close on November 30, marking the end of a season that produced a record number of consecutive storms to strike the United States and ranks as one of the more active seasons in the 64 years since comprehensive records began.
Image
© NOAAA total of 16 named storms formed this season, based on an operational estimate by NOAA's National Hurricane Center. The storms included eight hurricanes, five of which were major hurricanes at Category 3 strength or higher.

A total of 16 named storms formed this season, based on an operational estimate by NOAA's National Hurricane Center. The storms included eight hurricanes, five of which were major hurricanes at Category 3 strength or higher. These numbers fall within the ranges predicted in NOAA's pre- and mid-season outlooks issued in May and August. The August outlook called for 14 to 18 named storms, seven to 10 hurricanes and three to six major hurricanes. An average season has 11 named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes.

"This year's hurricane season continues the current active hurricane era and is the tenth season to produce above-normal activity in the past 14 years," said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.
Read More...
Bug

Farming And Chemical Warfare: A Day In The Life Of An Ant


Science Daily
Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:27 UTC
One of the most important developments in human civilisation was the practice of sustainable agriculture. But we were not the first - ants have been doing it for over 50 million years. Just as farming helped humans become a dominant species, it has also helped leaf-cutter ants become dominant herbivores, and one of the most successful social insects in nature.

According to an article in the November issue of Microbiology Today, leaf-cutter ants have developed a system to try and keep their gardens pest-free; an impressive feat which has evaded even human agriculturalists.
Leaf-cutter ants transporting leaves
© Wikimedia CommonsLeaf-cutter ants transporting leaves.

Leaf-cutter ants put their freshly-cut leaves in gardens where they grow a special fungus that they eat. New material is continuously incorporated into the gardens to grow the fungus and old material is removed by the ants and placed in special refuse dumps away from the colony. The ants have also adopted the practice of weeding. When a microbial pest is detected by worker ants, there is an immediate flurry of activity as ants begin to comb through the garden. When they find the pathogenic 'weeds', the ants pull them out and discard them into their refuse dumps.
Read More...
Hourglass

Brazilian rainforest destruction on the up once more


New Scientist
Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:16 UTC
Destruction of the Amazon forest in Brazil accelerated for the first time in four years, the Brazilian government has reported, as high commodity prices tempted farmers and ranchers to cut down more trees.

Satellite images showed nearly 12,000 sq km - an area nearly the size of the US state of Connecticut - were chopped down in the 12 months through to July, Brazil's National Institute for Space Research said. That is up from 11,224 sq km last year but down from a peak of 27,379 sq km in 2004.

"Today's figures are unacceptable but the long-term trend remains positive and they show that it is possible to do something about deforestation," said Paulo Moutinho, coordinator at the National Institute for Amazon Research.
Read More...