Earth ChangesS


Butterfly

Video posted by federal agency captures wolf-bear interaction in Montana park

HELENA - A video posted on the Web site of the U.S. Geological Survey captures remarkable interaction between a wolf and a family of 3 grizzly bears in Montana's Glacier National Park.

The wolf draws close to the cubs, only to be chased away by the youngsters and, more seriously, by their mother. But the wolf is not deterred, returning repeatedly for another run at the cubs in what looks like a tease.


Star

Heatwave Scorches the Balkans

Belgrade, Sarajevo, Zagreb, Skopje - Two people have died and hundreds have sought medical assistance as a summer heat wave grips the western Balkans.

A period of extremely warm temperatures started as of this weekend and will last at least three weeks, meteorologists in the region said. They warned that temperatures - even above 40 degrees Celsius - may be set creating temperature highs not seen in the last 100 years.

Better Earth

Greece to start water shipments to drought-stricken Cyprus next week

Cyprus will start importing water from Greece next week to help ease a drought, officials said Thursday.

Agriculture Minister Andreas Polynikis said Greece has agreed to sell 8 million cubic meters (282.5 million cubic feet) of water to Cyprus. He provided no financial details.

A dry winter has reduced Cyprus' water reserves in the island's dams to 7.5 percent of capacity - a third of last year's amount. In March, authorities imposed household water supply cuts.

Bizarro Earth

Fire under the ice: Gigantic volcanic eruption discovered under the Arctic

An international team of researchers was able to provide evidence of explosive volcanism in the deeps of the ice-covered Arctic Ocean for the first time. Researchers from an expedition to the Gakkel Ridge, led by the American Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), report in the current issue of the journal Nature that they discovered, with a specially developed camera, extensive layers of volcanic ash on the seafloor, which indicates a gigantic volcanic eruption.

Gakel Ridge Volcano
©Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres
Bathymetric chart of the Gakkel Ridge at 85°E. Photographic bottom surveys were conducted along profiles shown as thin, black lines. The photo showing volcanic ashes on the sea bed were taken at the site, which is marked with a red star and the letter a.

Question

Flashback Massachusetts, US: Mysterious odor descends on Cape Cod

Cape Codders by the hundreds were asking themselves and their fire departments Tuesday night, "What's that funny smell?"

An odor variously described as burning rubber, burning electrical outlets, burning car brakes and melting plastic was reported to fire departments from Eastham to Bourne.

Firefighters in full turn-out gear from department after department searched their towns with no luck. That is until around midnight, when a radio broadcast from the Barnstable County Sheriff's Department came up with a possible answer: temperature inversion.

Simply put, a temperature inversion can occur when an oncoming cold front pushes a warmer air mass in front of it, then sits on top of the warmer air mass, said Alan Dunham, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Taunton.

Target

Greece hit by earthquake; no victims, damage

An earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale hit central Greece late Wednesday without claiming victims or causing damage, Athens Observatory said.

Phoenix

Greece: Fire Ravages Athens Forest

A wildfire swept through the outskirts of Athens, burning one of the city's last forests. Firefighters and soldiers, aided by tanker planes and helicopters, battled the wind-driven fire on Mount Hymettus, bringing it under control in about eight hours.

Cloud Lightning

Love is in the air: Amazing images of clouds from space

This is what earth looks like from above. And the spectacular pictures taken from 200 miles up show there is definitely love in the air.

Astronauts on the International Space Station took the snaps while travelling at 17,000 miles per hour during one of its 15 daily orbits. The images shows heart shaped cloud forms over the Mexican island of Isla Sorocco in the Pacific.

Every day the crew take images of the earth which show the planet in different weather. The crew also took images of enormous thunderstorms hovering over the flood-hit Midwest in America.

Image
©NASA
Love is in the air over a Mexican island

Magic Wand

Baby crocodiles chat to each other inside their eggs 'to synchronise hatching'

Baby crocodiles start chatting to one another and to their mothers just before they hatch, researchers say.

The little reptiles make an 'umph! umph! umph!' noise and scientists believe they are signalling they are ready to be born.

"Crocodile mothers react strongly to playback of pre-hatching calls, most of them by digging the sand," Amelie Vergne and Nicolas Mathevon wrote in the journal Current Biology.

Image
©Unknown
Crocodiles signal to each other just before they hatch

Cloud Lightning

Hong Kong: Tropical storm shuts schools and markets

Tropical storm Frank (international codename: Fengshen) brought more heavy rains and strong winds to Hong Kong on Wednesday, shutting down the city's financial markets, schools and courts.

Frank, which battered the Philippines over the weekend, passed through Hong Kong late Tuesday and was about 40 miles (65 kilometers) northwest of the city Wednesday morning, the Hong Kong Observatory said.