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Family pit bull severely mauls woman in Pinole, California

Peter Fimrite
San Francisco Gate
Mon, 02 Mar 2015 17:17 UTC
Image

A family pet
A Pinole woman was being treated for life-threatening injuries Sunday after she was attacked and mauled by the family's pet pit bull, investigators said.

The 40-year-old resident was attacked inside the home on Silverado Drive, in the Pinole Valley area shortly before 10 a.m. and bitten on her legs, arms and face. Pinole police were able to secure the animal in the back yard before Pinole Fire Department paramedics administered "advanced life support" treatment.

The woman's wounds were so severe that she had to be flown by helicopter to the trauma center at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, said Steve Akre, the Pinole Fire battalion chief. He said there was a male resident inside the home at the time of the attack, but he was not injured.
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Cloud Precipitation

Madagascar flooding update: 19 dead and 37,000 displaced

Richard Davies
floodlist.com
Mon, 02 Mar 2015 14:33 UTC
Image

Floods in Madagascar
The flood situation in Madagascar is worsening. The latest report from Madagascar's disaster management agency, the Bureau National de Gestion des Risques et des Catastrophes (BNGRC) said that further assessments of the flood disaster that struck on 26 February show that 19 people have been killed, 36,956 have been displaced and over 60,000 affected by the disaster.

517 houses have been destroyed and 1,698 damaged in the floods. BNGRC also report that the floods have damaged 6,339 hectares of rice fields.

Three regions of the country have been affected. Over 2,000 people have been displaced in Alaotra Mangoro region. The worst affected region is Analamanga where 18 of the deaths occurred, many of them around the country's capital, Antananarivo. The remaining fatality occurred in Vakinankaratra region.

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Arrow Down

Shellfish population dying in New Zealand harbour


The New Zealand Herald
Mon, 02 Mar 2015 02:50 UTC
Pipi Die-Off
© Thinkstock
The volume of pipis on Mair Bank has slumped from 10,000 tonnes to less than 100 tonnes.
A massive pipi bed in Whangarei harbour is dying and there are fears the change could destabilise the harbour - and Marsden Point itself, Radio NZ reports.

The volume of pipis on Mair Bank has slumped from 10,000 tonnes to less than 100 tonnes, sparking fears the massive sandbank, which protects the harbour entrance, will disappear.

The sandbank, shaped similar to a shark's tooth, lies just off Marsden Point. Locals previously waded out at low tide to scoop up the daily limit of 150 of the shellfish in a couple of minutes. But no more.

NIWA fisheries scientist, James Williams, said the decline had been drastic. Over the last four to five years the pipi population has collapsed.

He said the bank had been eroding from the south and gaining height; coinciding with an apparent absence of juvenile pipi.

"There was a huge biomass there of pipi, everywhere pretty much on the bank and sub-tidally of about 10,000 tonnes and that's been reduced to less than 100 tonnes from the 2014 survey," he said.

"So, less than one per cent of what there was in 2005."
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Fish

Mass death of marine creatures at Pasir Ris beach, Singapore

Gregory Loo
tnp.sg
Sun, 01 Mar 2015 20:25 UTC
Image
© Sean Yap
A pile of dead fish, which washed up on the shores of Pasir Ris beach on Saturday.
Scores of dead marine life have been washing up on Pasir Ris beach over the weekend.

While reports have emerged about Changi fish farms suffering massive losses, it seems like wild fish have not been spared either.

Marine creatures - including puffer fish, eels, horseshoe crabs and cuttlefish - have been turning up lifeless on the island's north-eastern shores.

Image
© Sean Yap
Cuttlefish
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Arrow Down

Fallen 50-tonne rock blocks main mountain road near Moûtiers, France

Jenny Awford
Daily Mail, UK
Sun, 01 Mar 2015 19:28 UTC
Image

Holidaymakers were trapped in the French Alps after a giant 50-tonne boulder blocked a main mountain
Thousands of British holidaymakers were trapped in the French Alps after a giant 50-tonne boulder blocked a main mountain road.

Falling rocks cut off popular resorts Val Thorens, Les Menuires and St Martin and ski enthusiasts were left stranded in a 50-mile tailback.

Holiday coaches were stopped from entering and leaving the resorts in the Tarentaise Valley after authorities ruled the N117 road was too dangerous for large vehicles to use on Friday morning.

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Question

100 Georges Turtles found dead or dying in Bellinger river, Australia


abc.net.au
Sun, 01 Mar 2015 15:24 UTC
Image
© Gemima Harvey
A sick turtle, one of many taken from Bellinger River, is examined by senior curator Greg Pickering at Dolphin Marine Magic.
An Environment Protection Authority (EPA) investigation into a large freshwater turtle kill in the Bellinger River, has given the wayterway a clean bill of health.

As many as 100 Georges Turtles have been found dead or dying in recent days from a mystery illness.

Investigation are underway to determine what is killing them.

The EPA took water samples from multiple points along the river, while vets from the Office of Environment and Heritage are examining the reptiles.

The water tests have not found any pesticides or hydrocarbons.

An EPA spokeswoman said the testing was thorough, and backs up the initial theory it was not a toxic spill that coused the turtle kill.
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Arrow Down

Record low February temperature set in Cuba


caribbeannewsnow.com
Mon, 23 Feb 2015 14:59 UTC
Image

Cubans bundle up against a record low temperature in Havana
The Cuban Institute of Meteorology reported that early Friday morning it registered a temperature of one degree Celsius (33.8oF) in the town of Union Reyes, in western Matanzas province, the lowest temperature ever recorded in Cuba for the month of February.

This temperature was due to the strong influence of a very dry mass of cold air of arctic origin, in combination with low clouds in the interior of the western and central regions, which favoured heat radiation at night and caused again another remarkably cold dawn in parts of the interior of much of the country

There were several areas with less than 10 degrees Celsius (50oF) in Cuba's western provinces. In the rest of the country the minimum temperatures were between 11 and 15 degrees Celsius, higher in coastal areas.

The previous record in Union de Reyes was set on February 18, 1996, at 2.5 degrees. The absolute record in the town for any month of the year was also one degree, and happened on January 21, 1971.
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Bizarro Earth

Noctilucent clouds, behaving strangely


SpaceWeather
Sat, 28 Feb 2015 06:43 UTC
The southern season for noctilucent clouds (NLCs) has come to an end. NASA's AIM spacecraft observed the last wisps of electric-blue over Antarctica on Feb. 20, 2015. The end of the season was no surprise: The polar clouds always subside in late summer. Looking back over the entire season, however, reveals something unexpected. In an 8-year plot of Antarctic noctilucent cloud frequencies, the 2014-2015 season is clearly different from the rest:
NLC Frequency
© SpaceWeather
These data come from the AIM spacecraft, which was launched in 2007 to monitor NLCs from Earth orbit. The curves show the abundance ("frequency") of the clouds vs. time for 120 days around every southern summer solstice for the past 8 years.

"This past season was not like the others," notes Cora Randall, a member of the AIM science team and the chair of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado. "The clouds were much more variable, and there was an enormous decrease in cloud frequency 15 to 25 days after the summer solstice. That's when the clouds are usually most abundant."
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Attention

Rare Arctic bowhead whale seen for the first time in UK waters

John Ingham
Daily Express, UK
Sat, 28 Feb 2015 21:22 UTC
Image
© Seawatch
The bowhead was spotted with a mobile phone camera
The bowhead whale was photographed on a mobile phone off Par Beach on the remote island of St Martin's by diver Anna Cawthray who immediately suspected it was special.

But it took an international exchange of e-mails between experts in Britain and the United States to identify it as a young bowhead who was 2,000 miles from home.

Anna feared the whale - which was about 25ft long - could have been stranded but she said: "After about 15 minutes it swam away.

"Seeing it was a once in a lifetime experience."

Bowhead whales normally live in the high Arctic near the ice edge and their closest population is off Spitzbergen far to the north of Norway.

They can reach up to 70ft in length, weigh up to 90 tonnes and live for up to 200 years which makes them possibly the longest lived marine mammal in the world.

They live off small crustaceans and use their large heads to smash through pack ice.

Comment: See also: King crab from Arctic waters found on Redcar beach, UK

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Attention

Wild boar attacks and injures five in Mizoram village, India

Adam Halliday
The New Indian Express
Wed, 25 Feb 2015 20:30 UTC
Image
© David J Slater
Wild boar
A male wild boar entered a village in eastern Mizoram on Wednesday morning and injured five people, three of them grievously, before villagers shot it dead.

Village leader C Lalnunpuia said the wild boar entered Saichal, within Champhai district, from the nearby woods around 9.45 am, chasing a woman who was coming from the same direction.

As it reached a house on the outskirts, it attacked a group of women sitting on the porch.

One of the women, identified as Lalruatliani, sustained wounds on her hands and arms, with several fingers broken.
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