Earth ChangesS

Eye 2

Venom is key to Komodo dragon's killing power

Kimodo Dragon
© David Hill/RexThose jaws hide razor-sharp teeth and venom glands
Far from harbouring toxic bacteria in their mouths as long believed, Komodo dragons produce venom from complex glands in their lower jaws, according to a team led by Bryan Fry of the University of Melbourne, Australia.

The study also suggests that the largest venomous creature to have ever existed was a 5.5-metre-long ancestor of the Komodo - the now extinct Megalania lizard.

Man-eating monitor

Komodos, which live on three Indonesia islands, repeatedly slash at their prey until they are weak enough to eat. They can take down a 40-kilogram Rusa deer, and kill a full-grown human.

For decades, wildlife documentaries have promoted the idea that Komodo dragons owe their success as predators to toxic bacteria in their saliva - a claim bolstered by a 2002 study reporting deaths among lab mice injected with their saliva.

Blackbox

On the Central Question of Climate Sensitivity

Monckton question on sensitivity
© Lord Monckton of Brenchley
The Honorable Joe Barton and the Honorable Fred Upton
17 May 2009

Gentlemen,

Following my recent testimony before the Energy and Commerce Committee of the House, you kindly directed a question to me via the Committee Clerks -
"Is there any dispute that, as you say, "How much warming will a given proportionate increase of CO2 concentration cause?" is the central question of the climate debate?

a) "If so, what is it?
b) "If not, why hasn't the scientific community participating in the IPCC caught the matter?"
I apologise that my reply is a little late. I have taken some time consulting scientific experts. No discourtesy either to you personally or to the Committee was intended.

The "climate sensitivity" question, as it is called, is indeed the central question, on which all else depends.
The answer to your principal question is that there is no dispute at all about whether the question "How much warming will a given proportionate increase of CO2 concentration cause?" is the central question of the climate debate. The "climate sensitivity" question, as it is called, is indeed the central question, on which all else depends. If climate sensitivity is high, as the IPCC maintains it is, then much "global warming" can be expected, whereupon the questions that fall to be answered are how much damage (if any) the warming predicted by the IPCC may cause, and whether or to what extent it lies within our power to mitigate or adapt to the predicted warming and any consequent damage, and whether the costs of mitigation might outweigh the costs of the damage the warming may cause, and whether or to what extent it would be cheaper to adapt to any "global warming" that might occur, as and if necessary.

Attention

Update: Earthquake Magnitude 4.7 in Greater Los Angeles Area

LA Quake 1
© USGS
A magnitude 4.7 earthquake struck about 3 miles east of Los Angeles International airport at 8:39 p.m. (PDT) local time, at a depth of 8.5 miles. Given that the location is in a densely populated part of the Los Angeles basin, it was widely felt.

Initial estimates from the USGS ShakeMap indicate that although strong shaking will have been felt by many people, damage is expected to be light.

Ambulance

Mudslide in Philippines kills at least 26

Manila - Mudslides tumbled down a rain-soaked mountain in the southern Philippines, burying dozens of shanties in a gold mining village and killing at least 26 people, a provincial governor said Tuesday.

A 50-member police and military rescue team headed to the remote village of Napnapan to help search for at least six people missing a day after the landslides hit, said Gov. Arthur Uy of Compostela Valley province.

Cloud Lightning

Report: Danish golfer killed by lightning

A golfer in Denmark reportedly has been killed by lightning.

The national broadcaster DR says the man in his 60s interrupted his golf game when a thunderstorm began and was walking to a club house when the lightning struck and killed him.

Bizarro Earth

U.S.: Tornadoes Hit Upstate New York

Weather service officials say two small tornadoes that touched down in parts of central New York destroyed a handful of barns and sheds and damaged numerous trees.

Steven Ippoliti, a National Weather Service meteorologist, says a tornado hit Cortland County just after 4 p.m. Saturday and moved into Madison County around 4:30 p.m. It was classified as a two on a scale that ranks the severity of tornadoes from zero to five.

Winds reached between 100 and 120 mph and a roof was torn off a house in the village of Georgetown, about 28 miles southeast of Syracuse.

Several barns and outlying buildings were destroyed and trees were uprooted.

Sun

Trends in solar spectral irradiance

The SORCE (Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment) folks have just published a very interesting paper with some surprising results about the solar irradiance over the end of Cycle 23.

As is well known, the TSI (Total Solar Irradiance) varies directly with the Sun's activity level, with an amplitude of about 0.1%. The Sun is about 0.1% brighter at activity maximum than at minimum. SORCE carries an instrument called TIM (Total Irradiance Monitor) that measures just this, but it also includes another intrument called SIM, the Spectral Irradiance Monitor. This instrument measures solar variability in six different wavelength bands, and SIM has turned up something very interesting.

Bizarro Earth

US: Magnitude-5.0 Quake Rocks Los Angeles, California

A 5.0-magnitude earthquake has just struck Los Angeles, reports CBS station KCBS-TV.

The moderate earthquake shook the Los Angeles area.

There were no immediate reports of any major injuries or damage.

Better Earth

Blue whales return for the first time in 40 years

Image
© Mike JohnsonBlue Whale
Decades after a ban on hunting the world's largest animals, the creatures have made their way back to waters off Alaska and Canada

Blue whales - thought to be the largest animals ever to have inhabited the Earth - have returned to the seas off Canada and Alaska for the first time since hunting them ceased more than four decades ago. New research suggests that they appear to have rediscovered an old migration route that they abandoned at the height of the slaughter.

The research, by US and government scientists and a private research institute focussing on marine mammals, comes as whales face their greatest ever danger in over 20 years, as key governments threaten to breach the international moratorium on commercial whaling.

It has so far spotted 15 of the blue whales, which can weigh up to 200 tons, in the Gulf of Alaska and off British Columbia, and identified four of them as having been previously seen off southern California. Long ago, before commercial whaling began, they used to migrate between the two areas, heading north in summer in search of food - they can each consume four tons of tiny crustacean krill a day. But they were hunted close to extinction, with their numbers reduced from some 200,000 world wide to between 5,000 and 12,000.

Better Earth

Andes Mountains Are Older Than Previously Believed

Image
© Carlos Jaramillo, STRISediments that gather at the base of mountains provide important clues about how and when the mountains were formed.
The geologic faults responsible for the rise of the eastern Andes mountains in Colombia became active 25 million years ago - 18 million years before the previously accepted start date for the Andes' rise, according to researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, the University of Potsdam in Germany and Ecopetrol in Colombia.

"No one had ever dated mountain-building events in the eastern range of the Colombian Andes," said Mauricio Parra, a former doctoral candidate at the University of Potsdam (now a postdoctoral fellow with the University of Texas) and lead author. "This eastern sector of America's backbone turned out to be far more ancient here than in the central Andes, where the eastern ranges probably began to form only about 10 million years ago."