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Binoculars

UK: Angry Swan Named "Hissing Sid" Evicted After "River Rampage"

Andrew Hough
The Telegraph
Fri, 20 Aug 2010 02:30 UTC
Image
© MasonsThe birds were driven 40 miles away to the isolated Gallows Hill Quarry, Suffolk, where they were released and have been living in peace.
An aggressive swan known as "Hissing Sid" has been evicted from his riverbank home and moved almost 40 miles away after a series of attacks including one that almost caused a teenage girl to drown.

The vicious bird used his powerful 7ft long wings to attack hundreds of rowers and canoeists on the River Chelmer in Chelmsford, Essex, his home for the past two decades.

The 22lb swan would patrol the busy river terrorizing users on a daily basis, before attempting to drown them with his flapping wings or pecking holes in boats.

But the swan's violent behavior became progressively worse over the past year, escalating in March when he attacked a 13-year-old girl.

The teenager, who was not named, almost drowned after the ferocious swan capsized her canoe using its long wings.
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Question

UK: Rare Sighting of Inverted Rainbow Causes a Stir

Josh Taylor
Burton Mail, UK
Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:11 UTC
Inverted Rainbow
© Burton Mail
It appeared in the skies over East Staffordshire and left witnesses baffled.

The sight was so rare that few people in the UK have ever encountered one before.

What they saw was an anomaly of nature: the incredible spectacle of an upside down rainbow.

Wayne Burgess, who lives in Tutbury, spotted the remarkable sight when he was outside with his two young children during a regular, sunny afternoon on Monday.

What he did not expect to see while he was with his children was a meteorological event that rarely occurs away from the North and South Poles.

"I was playing in the garden with my children, Natalie and Zak, when my daughter said 'look at that rainbow'," he said.

"When we all looked up, to our amazement, we saw that it was upside down." The curved rays of light left Mr Burgess so dumbfounded that he photographed them using his mobile phone.
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Bizarro Earth

Global Temperature Anomalies, July 2010


NASA Earth Observatory
Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:30 UTC
Image
© NASA
In early August 2010, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) released its analysis of global temperatures for the previous month. In July 2010, GISS found, the global average temperature was 0.55 degrees Celsius (almost 1 degree Fahrenheit) warmer than climatology - defined as average temperatures for the same month from 1951 to 1980. July 2010 was practically in a three-way tie for the warmest July on record, tied with July 1998 and July 2005.

This color-coded map shows global surface temperature anomalies for July 2010 compared to average temperatures for the same time of year from 1951 to 1980. Above-normal temperatures appear in shades of red, and below-normal temperatures appear in shades of blue. Red-hued Greenland, for example, experienced above-normal temperatures while the blue-hued Pacific Northwest experienced below-normal temperatures. Gray patches indicate areas of insufficient data.

The GISS analysis found temperatures more than 5 degrees Celsius (about 10 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than climatology in the region of Eastern Europe, including Moscow, and in Eastern Asia. (Both Moscow and Eastern Siberia faced severe wildfires and smoke in July 2010.) The eastern United States also experienced unusual heat, although not as severe as the heat in parts of Eurasia.

Substantial areas, however, showed below-normal temperatures, including central Asia and southern South America. Parts of South America suffered through sub-freezing temperatures and heavy snow, leading to hundreds of cold-related deaths, ruined crops and livestock, and contaminated rivers after millions of fish froze, said news reports. Temperatures were below normal across much of East Antarctica, although they were well above normal over the Antarctic Peninsula.
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Binoculars

North Carolina, US: Police Officer Trapped in Car by 50,000 Bees

Nick Allen
The Telegraph
Wed, 18 Aug 2010 02:19 UTC
Image
© AP PhotoDeputy Brandon Jenkins sits inside the police cruiser while the bees are collected.
A police officer was trapped in his patrol car for three hours after 50,000 angry honeybees descended on his vehicle.

Sheriff's Deputy Brandon Jenkins, 31, had been called to the scene of a broken down lorry in North Carolina. The lorry was pulling a trailer loaded with 60 boxes of bees and the insects had escaped.

Officer Jenkins arrived at day break just as the bees were waking up and they swarmed him, forcing him to retreat to his car and radio for assistance.

"It was mind boggling how many bees were out there. At some point, it was hard to see out of the windows," he said.

The officer admitted using deadly force on some of the insects who got in.
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Magnify

Flashback British Scientists Study Hawaiian Happy Face Spider


The Telegraph
Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:58 UTC
Image
© CatersScientists think the spider, which has the scientific name Theridion grallator and is harmless to humans, has evolved the patterns to confuse predators.
Scientists have found themselves raising a smile when studying this creature - the happy face spider.

The spider, which measures just a few millimetres across, has developed bizarre markings giving the appearance of a smiling face.

Scientists think the spider, which has the scientific name Theridion grallator and is harmless to humans, has evolved the patterns to confuse predators.

It is under-threat of extinction in the rainforests of the Hawaiian island chain in the Pacific.

Dr Geoff Oxford, a spider expert from the University of York, said: "I must admit when I turned over the first leaf and saw one it certainly brought a smile to my face.
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Bizarro Earth

Mariana Islands: Earthquake Magnitude 6.1


USGS
Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:05 UTC
Marianna Quake_180810
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Wednesday, August 18, 2010 at 16:28:20 UTC

Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 02:28:20 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
12.210°N, 141.456°E

Depth:
43.1 km (26.8 miles)

Region:
MARIANA ISLANDS REGION

Distances:
385 km (240 miles) WSW of HAGATNA, Guam

460 km (285 miles) WSW of Rota, Northern Mariana Islands

470 km (290 miles) NE of Yap, Micronesia

565 km (350 miles) SW of SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands
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Bizarro Earth

Scientists: Rare Double Quake Caused Deadly Samoa Tsunami


Agence France-Presse
Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:56 UTC
Tonga Quake
© AFPStunned survivors search for bodies amongst the debris left by the tsanami on Lalomanu Beach in September 2009.
Wellington - The devastating tsunami which killed nearly 200 people in Samoa and Tonga last September was the result of a rare double earthquake and not one as previously believed, scientists said Wednesday.

Simultaneous earthquakes, with one hiding the other, are unusual "and almost certainly increased the size of the tsunami and its destructiveness on some Tongan islands," New Zealand's GNS Science said in a statement.

Global earthquake readings initially indicated a single large "normal faulting" quake of magnitude 8.0 had occurred, producing an extensional motion while the tsunami waves indicated a "thrust" event with compressional movement.

The scientists said they were unable to reconcile the conflicting data until six weeks after the event when measurements from a small Tongan island showed there must have been two large earthquakes.

Their findings appear this week as the cover story in the prestigious science publication Nature.

"This is a rare phenomenon," lead author John Beavan, a geophysicist at GNS Science, said Wednesday.
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Arrow Down

Mass Hippo Deaths Caused by Unlikely Culprit: Anthrax

Kathryn Yao
AOL News
Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:51 UTC
Image
© Getty ImagesA hippopotamus is seen at Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda, where 83 hippos have died since June from anthrax poisoning.
Another hippopotamus at a Ugandan safari park has died, bringing the death toll to 83 since June. Stranger still is the cause of the massive pachyderm massacre: anthrax poisoning, the London Daily Telegraph reports.

Besides being a powdery biological weapon that grabbed headlines in the perilous week following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks (when some was mailed to Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, among others), anthrax is also a soil-dwelling bacteria -- bacillus anthracis bacterium -- that is clearly harmful to both humans and animals alike. Symptoms of infection can include high fever and bleeding.
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Cloud Lightning

Severe hurricane hits Russia after deadly heatwave hell


Russia Today
Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:38 UTC
Strong winds and heavy rains are taking the place of the record heat which has been baking Central Russia since the middle of June. On Sunday, a hurricane hit north-western regions of the country, up-rooting trees and causing streets to flood. The storm swept through residential areas over-turning cars, damaging railways and electricity wires. Forecasters say the hurricane level winds will hit Moscow within the next few days. There's little respite from the extreme weather which has already endangered lives in Russia this year. Ambulance crews have been in a tough battle to get to people with the number of emergency calls at record levels.

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Phoenix

Spain, Portugal fight wildfires


News24.com
Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:30 UTC
Image
© Francisco Seco, APPeople fight a fire on the Peneda-Geres mountain near Pardela, northern Portugal.
Madrid - Officials say emergency services in Spain and Portugal are combating 19 sizable wildfires as cooler weather is now easing firefighting.

The regional government of Galicia, in the northwestern corner of Spain, says firefighters are working to control outbreaks in four areas of the province, including one "very large forest fire" in Negreira.

A fire in Barjas, in the neighbouring province of Leon, is being brought under control, mayor Alfredo de Arriba says.

Portugal's Civil Protection authority said on Sunday its forces had fought fires in 14 different areas and cooler conditions presented "a much more favourable scenario".

Comment: Footage of the fires in Portugal from Russia Today:



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