Earth ChangesS

Fish

Stinging Truths About Jellyfish Blooms In The Bering Sea


Science Daily
Sat, 31 May 2008 11:53 UTC
A new study helps explain a cyclic increase and decrease of jellyfish populations, which transformed parts of the Bering Sea--one of the U.S.'s most productive fisheries--into veritable jellytoriums during the 1990s.

sea nettle
©Kevin Raskoff
A sea nettle, the Bering Sea's most common jellyfish. Its tentacles may reach six meters (nearly 20 feet).
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X

Killer elephant "Osama" shot dead in Jharkhand


Reuters
Sat, 31 May 2008 10:30 UTC
An elephant named "Osama bin Laden" that has killed more than 11 people and injured dozens over the past few months was shot dead in Jharkhand, officials said on Saturday.

The wild male elephant, had been terrorising villagers in two states, destroying their crops and homes.
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Life Preserver

Galapagos volcano eruption threatens giant turtles

Alonso Soto
Reuters
Fri, 30 May 2008 10:08 UTC
A volcano in the Galapagos islands spewed molten lava, threatening 100-year-old giant tortoises living around the crater, island officials said on Friday.

The 5,541-feet- (1,690-meter-) high Cerro Azul mountain started spewing lava on Thursday after 10 years of inactivity on the largest island of the Galapagos archipelago, which is formed from volcanoes thrusting out from the Pacific Ocean.

"If the tortoises are in (actual) danger we will have to airlift them out as we did in 1998," said Eliecer Cruz, the islands' governor and a conservationist.

"This is a natural event and we should let nature go its course, but because they have been almost exterminated by humans we have to do something."

Image
©Guillermo Granja/Reuters
A giant tortoise is seen on the Galapagos islands April 29, 2007. A volcano in the Galapagos islands spewed molten lava, threatening 100-year-old giant tortoises living around the crater, island officials said on Friday.
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Hourglass

Under Court Order White House issues climate report 4 years late

Seth Borenstein
AP Science
Sat, 31 May 2008 06:30 UTC
WASHINGTON - Under a court order and four years late, the White House Thursday produced what it called a science-based "one-stop shop" of specific threats to the United States from man-made global warming.

While the report has no new science in it, it pulls together different U.S. studies and localizes international reports into one comprehensive document required by law. The 271-page report is notable because it is something the Bush administration has fought in the past.

Comment: But, for god's sake, do not smoke!

What a bunch of hypocrites.

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Evil Rays

China rushes to avoid radioactive disaster


Agence France Presse
Fri, 30 May 2008 23:29 UTC
China rushed Friday to remove radioactive and chemical materials sitting downstream from a "quake lake" that threatens to burst and send torrents of water into heavily populated areas.

Nearly 100 unidentified radioactive sources were ordered to be removed by Friday evening from the path of the potential torrent of water, state press reported, citing the nation's environmental protection bureau.
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Cloud Lightning

Nebraska counties in state of emergency after strong storms blow through


49 News
Fri, 30 May 2008 23:20 UTC
Strong storms ripped their way through Central Kansas and Nebraska Thursday night.



Watch home video (above) of a tornado in Nebraska. You can see some debris swirling inside the vortex.

More home video shows uprooted trees and crushed cars from the storm.
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Cloud Lightning

Floods follow storms


Des Moines Register
Fri, 30 May 2008 23:14 UTC
A batch of storms and possibly seven tornadoes damaged houses and closed roads in central and eastern Iowa today as emergency responders gathered early reports of flooding.
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Better Earth

Tropical Storm Alma hits Nicaragua


Taipei Times
Fri, 30 May 2008 23:10 UTC
Tropical Storm Alma made landfall on Thursday on Costa Rica's Pacific Coast and blew through to Nicaragua, where 35,000 people were being evacuated.

The Miami-based US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said that a tropical storm warning was in effect for the Pacific Coast of Central America, including Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador.

The eye of the storm was 85km west-northwest of Managua and about 280km east-south-east of San Salvador. According to the NHC report, it was moving northward at 15km an hour and was expected to turn northwest by yesterday.

Maximum sustained winds were near 100kph, with higher gusts.
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Fish

Apocalypse in the Oceans

Anneli Rufus
AlterNet
Fri, 30 May 2008 22:19 UTC
With 150 dead zones in our oceans, some the size of Ireland, author Taras Grescoe argues that there's been a massive die out of sea life.

In pictures, on CSI Miami, and to the naked eye the sea looks the same today as it ever did: blue, green or blue-green, rolling in glassy crashing curls, tormented then serene. It will look this way tomorrow, next year, arguably for eternity. No matter what freaks us out on earth, our species takes great comfort in knowing that the sea always looks exactly the same.

From up here.
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Arrow Up

Flashback US: Against odds, glacier grows in cauldron of Mt. St. Helens

Brian Barker
KATU
Thu, 15 May 2008 17:11 UTC
On May 18, 1980, the once bucolic ice-cream cone shape that defined Mount St. Helens in Washington state disappeared in monstrous blast of ash, rock, gas, and heat.

It was one of the most powerful explosions ever witnessed by humans and the force of the blast leveled hundreds of square miles of forestland, devastated wildlife and killed over 50 people.

Almost three decades later, the effects of the eruption are readily apparent to the thousands of visitors to the observation points in the sprawling Mount St. Helens volcanic monument.

But time has also muted the effects to some degree. Trees are growing back in some areas, plants have poked up through the ash, animals move through the devastated plains once again.

Image
©KATU
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