Earth Changes
This is the sacred cycad forest of the Rain Queen, the hereditary ruler of the Balobedu people of Limpopo province in South Africa. Cycads grow here more abundantly than anywhere else on Earth, and the queen is said to use her magical powers to protect them. These strange plants need all the help they can get right now, magical or otherwise, to ward off the unscrupulous collectors that are plundering them. But long before the human threat arrived, the cycads faced a challenge of an altogether greater magnitude.

Healthy and dead parts of the same coral. There is no longer any shadow of a doubt about the impact of global warming on coral reefs. A rise of a few degrees in sea surface temperature induces the expulsion of essential microscopic algae which live in symbiosis with the coral.
Research work reported on recently by an international research team*, including an IRD scientist, brought out evidence of the impact on the fish communities of a mass bleaching event resulting from the 1997-1998 El Niño climatic episode. The investigation was wide in scope, focusing on more than 60 coral reef sites in the Indian Ocean, including nine located in Marine Protected Areas.

Nice kitty..."Alyona," a critically endangered Far Eastern leopard being examined by Clay Miller (right) of WCS and John Lewis (left) of Wildlife Vets International who listens for abnormalities of the heart.
The capture was made in Primorsky Krai along the Russian-Chinese border by a team of scientists from WCS and the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Biology and Soils (IBS). The team is evaluating the health and potential effects of inbreeding for this tiny population, which experts believe contains no more than 10-15 females. Other collaborators include: Wildlife Vets International, National Cancer Institute, and the Zoological Society of London.

Ants far from the coast are more attracted to a dilute salt (NaCl) solution than to a more concentrated sugar solution, probably because plant-eating ants in salt-poor inland areas are salt-starved.
Ecologists from the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) and the University of Oklahoma tested the salt versus sugar preferences of ants from North, Central and South America, using ant populations at varying distances from the ocean. While ocean spray and storms can spread salt tens of miles from the coast, areas farther inland are often deprived of salt, and the researchers suspected they might find different taste choices between coastal and inland ants.
The agency says in a preliminary report that the magnitude-6.1 quake struck the seismically active but sparsely populated island chain at 4:49 a.m. Sunday.
It was centered at a depth of about 39 miles, and 35 miles southwest of the island of Atka, which lies about 1,100 miles southwest of Anchorage.

Looking at recent observations leads to two hypothesize that imply vastly different futures; only hypothesis two is consistent with current dynamical understanding, as contained in high-resolution models.
The study explores the relationship between sea surface temperature (SST) and seasonal hurricane activity, and show how differing interpretations of the observational record can imply vastly different futures for Atlantic hurricane activity due to global warming. The two interpretations arise from assumptions of whether it is the local SST in the Atlantic in isolation, or whether it is the SST in the Atlantic 'relative' to the rest of the tropics, that drives variations in Atlantic hurricane activity.
Used to crush food, for structural support and for defense, the materials of which shells, teeth and bones are composed are the strongest and most durable in the animal world, and scientists and engineers have long sought to mimic them.

Sea urchin. The teeth and bones of mammals, the protective shells of mollusks, and the needle-sharp spines of sea urchins and other marine creatures are made-from-scratch wonders of nature.
Now, harnessing the process of biomineralization may be closer to reality as an international team of scientists has detailed a key and previously hidden mechanism to transform amorphous calcium carbonate into calcite, the stuff of seashells. The new insight promises to inform the development of new, superhard materials, microelectronics and micromechanical devices.
Dr Nigel Raine from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, and Akram Alghamdi, Ezio Rosato and Eamonn Mallon from the University of Leicester tested the learning performance and immune responses of bumblebees from twelve colonies.
The team tested the ability of 180 bees to learn that yellow flowers provided the biggest nectar rewards, and to ignore blue flowers. To test the evolutionary relationship between learning and immunity, they also took workers from the same colonies and tested their immune response against bacterial infection.
The U.S. Geological Survey reports the earthquake hit three miles northeast of Rockport and five miles north-northeast of Malvern at 9 p.m. The USGS says the earthquake started about 3.1 miles underground.
Staff believe that the octopus called Otto had been annoyed by the bright light shining into his aquarium and had discovered he could extinguish it by climbing onto the rim of his tank and squirting a jet of water in its direction.