A cold snap has finally walloped much of Iran, bringing heavy snow, and leading to the temporary closure of a large section of intercity roads and schools. The cold weather has dropped as much as one meter of snow in the mountains, and sizeable inches in big cities and towns, like Tehran, where the National Weather Service says the temperature is above freezing.

The Ministry of Education says many schools have been closed nationwide and probably will remain so if heavy snow continues to cause limited visibility and freezing temperatures.

There have been no major accidents until now, thanks largely to the early preparation of the transport police, and of course round the clock snow plows to keep roads open. But the police are still urging drivers to check road and vehicle conditions before heading out.

A barge with a leaking cargo tank spilled fuel oil into a New York City waterway on Saturday, officials said.

The barge was carrying 112,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil, but it was unclear how much oil spilled into the water, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement.

The spill came from a Boston Marine Transport Inc barge due to a leak from its cargo tank, it said.

The leak occurred at Mays Ship Repair near Mariner's Harbor in the city's Staten Island borough, the Coast Guard said. It was first reported shortly after 11 p.m. local time (2300 ET) on Friday, the Coast Guard said.

Fijian authorities scrambled to evacuate tourists and residents in low-lying areas Sunday as a monster cyclone threatened the Pacific nation with "catastrophic damage" after causing devastation in Samoa. At least four people were killed when Cyclone Evan slammed into Samoa and the toll was expected to rise with a search launched for eight men missing on three fishing boats. Only one survivor has been found, said the New Zealand Rescue Co-ordination Centre, which is overseeing the search.

After crossing Samoa, Evan intensified as it ploughed through the Pacific and forecasters said destructive winds could reach nearly 300 kilometres per hour (186 miles per hour) by the time it hits Fiji early Monday. Government officials fear it could be as devastating as Cyclone Kina, which killed 23 people and left thousands homeless in 1993.

For decades, beach lovers have reported bizarre mass strandings of squids.
Thousands of jumbo squid have beached themselves on central California shores this week, committing mass "suicide." But despite decades of study into the phenomenon in which the squid essentially fling themselves onto shore, the cause of these mass beachings have been a mystery.

But a few intriguing clues suggest poisonous algae that form so-called red tides may be intoxicating the Humboldt squid and causing the disoriented animals to swim ashore in Monterey Bay, said William Gilly, a marine biologist at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, Calif.

Each of the strandings has corresponded to a red tide, in which algae bloom and release an extremely potent brain toxin, Gilly said. This fall, the red tides have occurred every three weeks, around the same time as the squid beachings, he said. (The squid have been stranding in large numbers for years, with no known cause.)

"It's not exactly a smoking gun, but it's pretty circumstantial evidence that there is some link," Gilly told LiveScience.

The Rural Fire Service is monitoring a rare underground fire beneath a lake bed to the west of Wilcannia.

Crews put the fire out several weeks ago, but it has come back this week. RFS Superintendent Chris Favelle says he has considered digging the lake up to put out the blaze, but it is safer just to watch it and let it burn out. He says he has never seen anything like it.

"What it is is a build-up of organic matter under the surface that's built up over thousands of years," he said.

"I'd say someone's lit a campfire on top of it, and it's just ignited under the ground, so there's enough oxygen under there in the soil to keep it smouldering away under there for as long as it wants to.

"A very difficult one from a firefighting perspective, I've got to tell you!"

Supt Favelle says it is creating a fair bit of smoke, but no people or properties are in danger.

"We could probably use heavy machinery to dig up the lake bed but that's not really feasible, particularly when you consider the heritage issues around the lake and so on," he said.

"So at this point in time all we can really do is keep a watching brief on it and try to ensure that it doesn't get off the lake bed itself."

The peculiar 'red rain' is a novel phenomenon for Sri Lanka. The Medical Research Institute said it contained some kind of algae. And very recently, Industrial Technology Institute also announced that it contains heavy elements such as arsenic and silver. Is it possible these elements to enter the atmospheric clouds? What kind of algae is it?

What is the real reason for such an event?

The Nation had an opportunity to ask the said questions from the principal investigator, who studied the red rain occurred in Kerala some years ago, a Sri Lankan-born British astrophysicist and astrobiologist, currently the Director of the Buckingham University Centre for Astrobiology, Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe.

Q. How would you explain the red rain phenomenon recently occurred in Sri Lanka?

We haven't investigated red rain in Sri Lanka yet, but I have been very closely involved in the red rain studies in Kerala, southern province of India. This took place in 2001 and 2008. Samples of that red rain were sent to me for investigation. I had a big team of investigators working with me.Although we were in possession of the samples for several years we have still not identified what sort of organism it is. It's a living organism, we have been able to replicate it and we found that it multiplies in a temperature up to 120^0C at least, perhaps more than that. I think this is a very strong case that micro organism from space made their way down to the Earth with the red rain. These organisms had probably originated in a comet or a piece of a comet that exploded in the atmosphere. This is my conclusion for the red rain in Kerala.

Sri Lanka's red rain looks similar to that of Kerala. The Medical Research Institute (MRI) says that the organisms are similar to fungal, algal organisms of earth. But I believe that the shape is the only similarity. The conclusion had not been made based on any genetic or DNA studies. But the similarity of the organism to anything on the Earth does not mean that it came from the Earth. If life originally started from the Earth then to find living organism coming from space would be very strange. There is a long culture of belief that life started on the Earth. If that is true, we have to find some explanation, which is earth based. I am sure that if life did not start on the Earth it came from space.

Climate change is one of the defining issues in twenty-first century American politics.While a solid majority of researchers and scientists believe that global warming is a direct result of human action, there are dissenting voices. Steve Goreham is one. He has written two books on climate change. In both of these he seriously challenges popular perceptions. He also began a column here at TWT Communities not too long ago.

So, what does Goreham have to say about the modern environmentalist movement's increasingly ideological nature? Why does he believe that human activity is not really the cause of climate change? In this first part of our discussion, he answers all of these questions and more.

*****

Joseph F. Cotto:Climatism is not a concept with which most of us are familiar, yet tend to hear a great deal about. How would you define it?

Steve Goreham:Climatism is the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth's climate. Climatism has become an ideology for global societal change, based on the misguided notion that man is the cause of global warming. Climate alarmists advocate a broad spectrum of remedies, such as electric cars, wind turbines, biofuels, restricting air travel, vegetarian diets, population control, green businesses, carbon taxes, and global government. It's become an "ism" just like capitalism, socialism, and environmentalism.

Visitors to Oreti Beach near Invercargill in recent days will have noticed the bodies of thousands of bluebottle jellyfish washed up on the sand. Department of Conservation biodiversity programme manager Jessyca Bernard - who said she was "99.9 per cent certain" they were bluebottle jellyfish - warned they were dangerous even when dead.

People who saw them on the beach should not touch them and should keep their pets away from them, she said. "They may remain potent for hours or even days after the death of the creature or the detachment of the tentacles." If stung an allergic reaction could follow and those affected should seek medical assistance, she said.

During the last two days, wet snow in Kyiv exceeded an index that had been recorded for 130 years of weather observations, the press service of the Kyiv City State Administration with reference to the Hydrometeorological Centre reports.

"During December 11-12, Kyiv had a complex of severe weather phenomena, including snow and wet snow on wires and trees, which had exceeded previously recorded index for the entire period of meteorological observations in the capital since 1881," the press service noted.

According to the forecasters, as of December 12, the snow depth amounted to 45 cm.

For December 11-12, the total precipitations numbered 42 mm, and in general, it has amounted to 103 mm since the beginning of December. Before that, the maximum daily precipitation was recorded in December of 1930 - 41 mm, and monthly - 116 mm in December of 1937.

According to the Hydrometeorological Centre, there will be a drop in temperature in the coming days.

Something really bad will happen at some point. Of that much we can be sure. When, what and how are the variables. One writer went and talked to some experts about what we should be worried about and what we can do about it.

Here's what the volcano guy said:

"The threat posed by volcanoes worldwide is greatly underestimated," he tells me. Today, he says, we ignore the fact that very large eruptions occur from time to time. It gets worse when he adds, "This size of eruption may occur on average somewhere on Earth every 200 to 500 years. It will occur again." And then it gets much worse: "This is by no means the largest, however." He says we can expect eruptions 10 to 20 times as powerful as the Tambora eruption, which killed 117,000 people. That eruption led to the Year Without a Summer, in 1816, otherwise known as Eighteen-Hundred-and-Froze-to-Death. Since the new eruption Sigurdsson is predicting could be 20 times worse than that, winter really is coming.

By the way, when did professor emeritus become emeritus professor?

Other things we should worry about: asteroids, pandemics, earthquakes, tsunamis. But the writer points out that the real disaster is not being knowledgeable and not being prepared.

Not that I'm ruling out the Mayan thing.

Note: The calendar pictured is Aztec, not Mayan, as a couple of totally obnoxoid people have pointed out. Somebody should tell Google.