Earth ChangesS


Fish

Study of Shark Virgin Birth Shows Offspring Can Survive Long Term

Shark pups born to virgin mothers can survive over the long-term, according to new research published Jan. 25, 2010 in the Journal of Heredity. The study shows for the first time that some virgin births can result in viable offspring.

Genetic analysis led by a Field Museum scientist working with numerous colleagues has confirmed the first known case of a virgin female shark producing multiple offspring that survived. Two daughters of the white-spotted bamboo shark are now more than five years old. Earlier research proved that reproduction occurred in two other shark species without aid of male sperm, a phenomenon called parthenogenesis, but the offspring did not survive in those cases.

Dr. Kevin Feldheim, manager of the Pritzker Laboratory for Molecular Systematics and Evolution at the Field Museum, analyzed the sharks' genetic material to rule out any paternal reproduction assistance.

Life Preserver

More Scandals Implicate Delusional IPCC Climate Scientists

Only days after the failed Copenhagen Global Warming Summit, yet a new scandal over the scientific accuracy of the UN IPCC 2007 climate report has emerged. Following the major data-manipulation scandals from the UN-tied research center at Britain's East Anglia University late 2009, the picture emerges of one of the most massive scientific frauds of recent history.

Senior members of the UN climate project, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been forced to admit a major error in the 2007 IPCC UN report that triggered the recent global campaign for urgent measures to reduce "manmade emissions" of CO2. The IPCC's 2007 report stated, "glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world." Given that this is the world's highest mountain range and meltdown implies a massive flooding of India, China and the entire Asian region, it was a major scare "selling point" for the IPCC agenda. As well, the statement on the glacier melt in the 2007 IPCC report contains other serious errors such as the statement that "Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometers by the year 2035." There are only 33,000 square kilometers of glaciers in the Himalayas. And a table in the report says that between 1845 and 1965, the Pindari Glacier shrank by 2,840 meters. Then comes a math mistake: It says that's a rate of 135.2 meters a year, when it really is only 23.5 meters a year. Now scientists around the world are scouring the entire IPCC report for indications of similar lack of scientific rigor.

Cult

Pachauri: the real story behind the Glaciergate scandal

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© STEFAN WERMUTH/REUTERSBad scientist: Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Dr Pachauri has rapidly distanced himself from the IPCC's baseless claim about vanishing glaciers. But the scientist who made the claim now works for Pachauri, writes Christopher Booker

I can report a further dramatic twist to what has inevitably been dubbed "Glaciergate" - the international row surrounding the revelation that the latest report on global warming by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contained a wildly alarmist, unfounded claim about the melting of Himalayan glaciers. Last week, the IPCC, led by its increasingly controversial chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, was forced to issue an unprecedented admission: the statement in its 2007 report that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035 had no scientific basis, and its inclusion in the report reflected a "poor application" of IPCC procedures.

What has now come to light, however, is that the scientist from whom this claim originated, Dr Syed Hasnain, has for the past two years been working as a senior employee of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the Delhi-based company of which Dr Pachauri is director-general. Furthermore, the claim - now disowned by Dr Pachauri as chairman of the IPCC - has helped TERI to win a substantial share of a $500,000 grant from one of America's leading charities, along with a share in a three million euro research study funded by the EU.

Comment: This would seem to be one of the main ways in which big government and big corporations buy off scientists. Under the cover of charities, NGOs, think-tanks and research groups, they offer large grants for the 'right type' of research. This naturally selects the 'right scientists and researchers' who are willing to prostitute science in the name of 'man-made global warming.'


Umbrella

'Climate science' edifice crumbling: IPCC report plagiarized from 10-year-old New Scientist magazine article

The United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

It based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny - and ignored warnings from scientific advisers that the evidence supporting the link too weak. The report's own authors later withdrew the claim because they felt the evidence was not strong enough.

The claim by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that global warming is already affecting the severity and frequency of global disasters, has since become embedded in political and public debate. It was central to discussions at last month's Copenhagen climate summit, including a demand by developing countries for compensation of $100 billion (£62 billion) from the rich nations blamed for creating the most emissions.

Fish

Study Says Dolphins World's Second Smartest Species

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© Getty Images
Study shows that dolphin brains are four to five times larger for their body size, making them the second intelligent species after humans.

New MRI scans revealed that dolphins show some skills and awareness thought to be exclusively used by humans, Discovery News reported.

"If we use relative brain size as a metric of 'intelligence' then one would have to conclude that dolphins are second in intelligence to modern humans," said neuroscience senior lecturer at Emory University Lori Marino.

Although she admitted that "size isn't everything", Marino said that there were at least two other evidence supporting her claim.

Bizarro Earth

15 Whales Die Beached in New Zealand, 33 Coaxed to Sea

Rescuers in New Zealand managed to coax 33 beached whales back out into deep waters Sunday, but another 15 of the pod died, a conservation official said.

The 48 pilot whales stranded Saturday at Port Levy on South Island, but scores of volunteers joined Department of Conservation workers to refloat them off the shallow, muddy inlet, said the department's community relations manager, Grant Campbell.

It was the third mass stranding on the New Zealand coast this summer. Some 125 pilot whales died in the two other beachings, while 43 were returned to the ocean.

Campbell said that in the latest incident, residents were quick to help after spotting the whales apparently feeding in the inlet before they stranded.

Magnify

Climategate: CRU Was But the Tip of the Iceberg

Not surprisingly, the blatant corruption exposed at Britain's premiere climate institute was not contained within the nation's borders. Just months after the Climategate scandal broke, a new study has uncovered compelling evidence that our government's principal climate centers have also been manipulating worldwide temperature data in order to fraudulently advance the global warming political agenda.

Not only does the preliminary report [PDF] indict a broader network of conspirators, but it also challenges the very mechanism by which global temperatures are measured, published, and historically ranked.

Pumpkin

Global Cooling Denial: James Hansen sez the noughties was warmest decade on Earth... ever!

Washington - The past decade was the warmest ever on Earth, a new analysis of global surface temperatures released by NASA showed Thursday.

The US space agency also found that 2009 was the second-warmest year on record since modern temperature measurements began in 1880. Last year was only a small fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest yet, putting 2009 in a virtual tie with the other hottest years, which have all occurred since 1998.

According to James Hansen, who heads NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, global temperatures change due to variations in ocean heating and cooling.

"When we average temperature over five or 10 years to minimize that variability, we find global warming is continuing unabated," Hansen said in a statement.

Comment: Given the dubiously strategic manner in which these temperatures are 'averaged' (just plain invented), NASA and Hansen can indulge their neverending fantasy until the end of time but it won't change the reality that the planet is cooling.

Comment: The most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders defines a delusion as:
A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everybody else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture.



Bizarro Earth

Bolivia, Costa Rica Hit by Strong Earthquakes

Bolivia and Costa Rica were struck by strong earthquakes with magnitudes of up to 5.3 on the Richter scale on Saturday, the US Geological Survey reported.

Bolivia was hit by two quakes within an hour, one with a magnitude 5.3 and other 5.2, the Virginia-based earthquake monitoring centre reported.

The border region of Costa Rica and Panama experienced two quakes in the same time period, one a magnitude of 5.2 and the other 4.7.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

Binoculars

Ice is "Rotten" in the Beaufort Sea

Recent observations show that Beaufort Sea ice was not as it appeared in the summer of 2009. Sea ice cover serves as an indication of climate and has implications for marine and terrestrial ecosystems.

In early September 2009, satellite measurements implied that most of the ice in the Beaufort Sea either was thick ice that had been there for multiple years or was thick, first-year ice.

However, in situ observations made in September 2009 by Barber et al. show that much of the ice was in fact "rotten" ice -- ice that is thinner, heavily decayed, and structurally weak due to a uniform temperature throughout.