The base camera at Mount Mawson in Tasmania
Sources
Earth Changes
The base camera at Mount Mawson in Tasmania
Sources
Honey bee
Dr. Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the President of the Bee Informed Partnership, says if this trend continues it could limit the food American's eat. "If we didn't have honey bees, we certainly would lose a lot of our diet," vanEngelsdorp said. He told Fox that would include blueberries, strawberries and vegetables.
The honey bee is the only insect that produces food eaten by humans. The species can pollinate over 75 percent of flowering plants and crops, making it one of the top pollinators in the U.S. That means the bee can travel up to 6 miles a day and pollinate between 50 to 100 flowers per trip. The pollination process occurs when the pollen sac from one flower sticks to a honey bee's legs and is transferred to another plant. The pollen within the sac spills out when the bee lands on the plant, causing it to be fertilized.
© Thomas Breuer/PLoS
The population of forest elephants in Gabon's Minkébé National Park—one of Central Africa's largest and most important nature preserves—has declined by a whopping 81.5 percent since 2004 due to poaching. It's considered a major setback for the preservation of this endangered species, of which less than 100,000 remain in the wild.
A discouraging new study published in Current Biology shows that 25,000 elephants were poached in Minkébé National Park for their ivory between 2004 and 2014. That's a lot more than expected, amounting to approximately six to seven elephants killed each day over a 10 year period.
At the turn of the 21st century, the 7,570 square kilometer Minkébé National Park featured the highest population density of forest elephants in all of Central Africa. Given that half of Central Africa's forest elephants, which are distinct from the more well-known savannah elephants, live in Gabon, these losses represent a major setback for the species.
The injured was identified as 70-year-old Bhagaban Nayak of Mahishapata village under Nilagiri police limits in the district.
According to reports, a bear attacked the old man's waist in the morning when he was in a farmland to answer the call of nature.
Bhagaban screamed following the attack and villagers rushed to rescue him from the claws of the wild animal.
He was rushed to Balasore District Headquarters Hospital in a critical condition where on duty doctors suggested to shift him to SCB Medical College and Hospital (SCBMCH) in Cuttack.
Later, he was shifted to SCBMCH for treatment.
© Chi Navarro
The fire rainbow above Singapore
The fire rainbow above Singapore
Observers say fleeting phenomenon lasted 15 minutes
Singapore was treated to a rare weather phenomenon as an apparent "fire rainbow" lit up the sky.
Weather watchers on the island state in south-east Asia were treated to the multi-coloured glow yesterday.
The stunning scene may also have been cloud iridescence. Both phenomena can be caused by the refraction of light through ice crystals, or in the case of iridescence, by water droplets.
For iridescence to occur clouds must be thin so the sun's rays encounter very little water.
The technical name for a fire rainbow is a "circumhorizontal arc".
The light show persisted for about 15 minutes and could reportedly be seen across the island.
© USGS
The earthquake, which struck at 10:09 a.m. local time on Tuesday, was centered about 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the town of Padilla in the Chuquisaca Department, or 143 kilometers (89 miles) east of the city of Sucre. It struck at a depth of 596 kilometers (370 miles), making it a deep earthquake.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) put the preliminary magnitude of Tuesday's earthquake at 6.5. The depth of the earthquake is likely to have minimized the effects of the quake and there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
Tuesday's tremor is the strongest tremor to hit Bolivia since November 2011, when a 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck southwest of Trinidad in north-central Bolivia.
We're working to gather more information.
© Science for Nature and People Partnership
A map showing spills sites in North Dakota over the ten years of the study
A map showing spills sites in North Dakota over the ten years of the study
Higher numbers
The rapid growth in the extraction of oil and gas from unconventional sources in the US has had a massive impact on the production and consumption of energy over the past ten years. The key to this expansion has been the use of hydraulic fracturing, the process of injecting fluids with chemical additives under pressure to crack underground rock and release the trapped resources.
However, environmental campaigners have long been troubled by the potential for this process to contaminate water supplies and the environment through leaks and spills. A study carried out by the US Environment Protection Agency on fracking in eight states between 2006 and 2012 concluded that 457 spills had occurred.
But this new study, while limited to just four states with adequate data, suggests the level of spills is much higher. The researchers found 6,648 spills between 2005 and 2014.
© Kelley Luicky
Great kiskadee on Bear Island
Great kiskadee on Bear Island
A great kiskadee - a large, "boisterous" flycatcher typically found in South and Central America, Mexico and the southern edge of Texas - was first spotted by nature photographer Kelley Luikey of Port Royal on the morning of Feb. 9.
"When I arrived at Bear Island that morning, the light and the birds were not cooperating in the areas I had planned on shooting, so I went looking for what else I could find," said Luikey, who was alone.
When she first saw the bird, her view was obscured by branches of a pecan tree, but she was able to keep tracking it because of its call, which is known to be loud and sounds like "kis-ka-dee."
"It was unmistakably something that we do not have here in South Carolina," said Luikey, recalling its bright colors.
China has a four-colour warning system for severe weather, with red being the most serious, followed by orange, yellow and blue. In Beijing, the northern and western parts of the city could see heavy snowfall of approximately 3mm to 5mm, with the remainder of the city likely to have receive between 1mm and 3mm, according to a report from Chinanews.com.
Additional images
© Glyn Sellors
Grey Partridge
Grey Partridge
Once upon a time, they were all around us - sights and sounds as familiar as the dusky skies their flocks danced in or the wind whistling through the fields. They were the tiny flashes of colour caught by the corner of your eye as you strolled in the countryside. They were the chirps, chatter, coos and caws making music in the hedgerows and the long meadow grasses. But that was before we destroyed their homes. Now, our common farmland birds are not so common.
It's an increasingly rare sight to see a Corn bunting perched on a farm fence before taking off in fluttering flight with its legs dangling, or graceful Yellow wagtail running through wet pastures on its slender black legs. The distinctive orange face and chestnut tail of the once abundant Grey partridge is now glimpsed all too infrequently. When was the last time you admired the splendid crest of a Northern Lapwing or heard the tew it of its display call? How many today would even recognise this once iconic cry? And what of the Barn Owls, Godwits, Corncrakes and Curlews? Or the Redshanks, Whinchats, Twites and Yellowhammers? For the bird lover, the farm has become the tragic symbol of paradise lost.
Comment: African elephant populations facing extinction due to hunting and poaching for ivory