Earth ChangesS


Fish

Two new species of venomous jellyfish found off Australia coast


RT
Fri, 08 Aug 2014 19:35 UTC
Image
© Museum.wa.gov.au
Two new species of extremely poisonous jellyfish have been found off the coast of northwest Australia. Irukandji jellyfish are normally the size of a fingernail, but one of the specimens is the length of an arm.

The smaller of the two is the Malo bella, which was found near Exmouth. The larger one, the Keesingia gigas, was caught in a fishing net off Shark Bay further to the south.

The discovery - which was made by Lisa-Ann Gershwin, a CSIRO scientist and director of Marine Stinger Advisory Services - brings the number of Irukandji species found globally to 16, nine of which are in Australian waters. Until now, there were only two species of jellyfish found off Western Australia.

The Keesingia gigas is the length of an arm and can cause the potentially fatal Irunkandji syndrome - resulting in pain, vomiting, nausea, and in extreme cases stroke and heart failure.

Gershwin said the existence of the larger Keesingia gigas was previously known, but until now it had never been officially classified.

"It is absolutely humungous - the body is about 30 to 50 centimeters tall and that's not including the tentacles. It's an absolute whopper of a jellyfish," she told ABC Australia.
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Bizarro Earth

Millions of jellyfish-like creatures invading west coast beaches from Oregon to California


CBS News - Seattle
Tue, 05 Aug 2014 15:39 UTC
Image
© Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images
Millions of jellyfish-like sea creatures are invading west coast beaches stretching from Oregon to California.

LiveScience reports these "by-the-wind-sailors" typically live in the open ocean but when warm water and storms draw them near the shore, the wind blows them onto beaches where they die in stinking piles.

The scientific name for these creatures is Velella velella, and they are not jellyfish; they are free-floating hydrozoans. They do not sting humans but experts say you should not touch your face or eyes after handling them.

Researchers say that each apparent individual Velella velella is in fact a hydroid colony, and most are less than about 7 centimeters long.

"They sit at the surface of the ocean and have little sails and their movement depends on which way the wind is blowing," Richard Brodeur, a fishery biologist at NOAA Fisheries' Newport, Oregon, research station told LiveScience.

Comment: Mysterious jellyfish-like creature washing up on California coast

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Windsock

Hawaii, which hasn't been directly hit by a hurricane in 22 years, braces for double whammy of Hurricanes Iselle and Julio to make landfall


RT
Thu, 07 Aug 2014 14:57 UTC
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© Reuters / NASAHurricane Iselle and Hurricane Julio (R) are pictured en route to Hawaii in this August 5, 2014 NASA handout satellite image. Hurricane Iselle is expected to make landfall on Hawaii August 7, 2014.
The Big Island of Hawai'i is bracing for a double whammy of hurricanes to make landfall between Thursday and Monday, according to the National Weather Service. The last time the archipelago took a direct hit from a hurricane was 1992.

Iselle, a Category 1 storm, is forecast to arrive on Hawai'i Thursday night local time, then weaken and continue on to the rest of the islands by Friday, according to Weather.com. The storm defied expectations that it would weaken to a tropical storm over the course of the day Wednesday. Iselle is roughly 300 miles east-southeast of Hilo, on the island's eastern corner. It is moving quickly, at 15-20 mph.

"The real effects will probably be felt on the Big Island starting around noon" (6 p.m. ET) on Thursday, Norman Hui, a National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist in Honolulu, told USA TODAY. "The worst of it will be tonight. This storm is holding together pretty well."

The storm is currently weakening, and forecasters are unsure whether it will make landfall as a hurricane or a tropical storm, Weather.com reported. At 7 a.m. Hawaiian time (5 p.m. GMT), Iselle had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph, placing it in the middle of the Cat-1 range (74-95 mph) on the Saffir-Simpson scale, according to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC).
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Arrow Down

Multiple avalanches hit North Norway


thelocal.no
Fri, 08 Aug 2014 13:11 UTC
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© Dag Tore Larsen / NTB scanpixPeople trapped after avalanches occurred across Lyngen in Troms.
Around 10 avalanches struck Lyngen in Troms on Thursday, hitting roads and neighbourhoods.

The avalanches went off at around 10pm on Thursday night in Kjosen in the Lyngen municipality of North Norway. Four of the avalanches reached all the way down to where people were living and the roads.

Between five and seven houses were trapped after the three first avalanches, and most of the people were rescued by boat. Noone were injured or missing.

A rescue helicopter trying to rescue trapped people had to turn around because of lightning and thunder. At the same time, great parts of the Lyngen municipality lost power.

The situation is now under control after 22 people were trapped inside their home and cars. Police are evaluating whether the people, who had to be evacuated, can return home.
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Attention

Paddling family of three attacked by a beaver in Austria


thelocal.at
Fri, 08 Aug 2014 12:45 UTC
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© Cheryl Reynolds/Worth a DamMaybe not as cute as he looks?
A swimming trip in Schwechat, Lower Austria took a nasty turn for a family when they were attacked by a vicious beaver.

Presumably because it was defending its territory or its young, the beaver attacked a woman and her two daughters, along with their pet dog, whilst they were paddling in the Schwechat river.

Even when they ran out of the river and onto dry land it pursued them and bit their dog, taking a chunk of fur.

The family were enjoying the cool water when they saw what they assumed was a small tree trunk floating past. But as their dog sniffed it, it turned out to be an angry beaver, who immediately went into attack mode.

The mother took her children out of the water - but the beaver followed them onto dry land and thumped its tail on the ground in a threatening manner.
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Attention

Stromboli volcano erupts, Italy


thelocal.it
Fri, 08 Aug 2014 12:24 UTC
Image
© Jonas Wiesand
Tourist trips to Stromboli have been cancelled this week as a volcanic eruption overwhelms the island, a tour agency for the Aeolian islands told The Local.

Stromboli, an island volcano north of Sicily, starting erupting on Wednesday afternoon, the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) said.

Tourist trips have been cancelled as the volcano remains "too active", a spokesperson for the Eolnet agency for the Aeolian Islands told The Local. Excursions may resume on Monday, depending on how the eruption plays out over the weekend.
Stromboli erupting, awestruck doesn't quite do it justice. So close I could feel the heat. pic.twitter.com/Da7JVK579U
- Jonas Wiesand (@jonaswiesand) August 8, 2014
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Cloud Precipitation

Hail the size of golf and tennis balls pummels Calgary area, Canada


CBC
Thu, 07 Aug 2014 08:46 UTC
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© @erind11/TwitterGolf ball-sized hail struck suddenly in Airdrie, north of Calgary, Thursday afternoon.

Airdrie hail storm likely caused 'gustnado' in Calgary, officials say

Environment Canada says incident was not a tornado but rather a spout from an Airdrie storm

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a - "gustnado?"While police say they did receive several reports of a tornado touching down east of Métis Trail and north of Stoney Trail, Environment Canada says the incident was rather a gustnado, or spout from a nearby storm system battering Airdrie.

The weather agency says the storm system was not over Calgary at the time of the incident and the spiral winds likely came from the nearby storm.Det. Dale Seddon with the Calgary Police Service says the incident didn't cause any damage and hit a grassy area.


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© Sarah BuistGolf ball-sized hail in Airdrie has caused damage to some vehicles and properties in the area.
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Bizarro Earth

Giant jellyfish spotted in the Adriatic for first time since Second World War

Nick Squires
The Telegraph, UK
Thu, 07 Aug 2014 03:58 UTC
Giant Jellyfish
© Gigi Paderni/ANSAThe bizarre but beautiful creature was first discovered off the coast of Dalmatia in the 1880s by a German naturalist, Ernst Haeckel.
A giant, fuchsia-pink jellyfish has been spotted in the Adriatic Sea for the first time in 70 years.

The Drymonema dalmatinum, which can grow to more than three feet in diameter, was photographed by amateur divers off the northern coast of Italy.

It is one of the rarest jellyfish to occur in the Mediterranean and had not been documented in the Adriatic since 1945.

The bizarre but beautiful creature derives its Latin name from the fact that it was first discovered off the coast of Dalmatia in the 1880s by a German naturalist, Ernst Haeckel.
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Pirates

Monsanto's 'cure' for world hunger is cursing the global food supply

Sayer Ji
Greenmedinfo.com
Sun, 03 Aug 2014 17:49 UTC
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What if the very GM agricultural system that Monsanto claims will help to solve the problem of world hunger depends on a chemical that kills the very pollinator upon which approximately 70% of world's food supply now depends?

A new study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology titled, "Effects of field-realistic doses of glyphosate on honeybee appetitive behavior," establishes a link between the world's most popular herbicide - aka Roundup - and the dramatic decline in honeybee (Apis mellifera) populations in North American and Europe that lead to the coining of the term 'colony collapse disorder' (CCD) in late 2006 to describe the phenomena.[1]

Comment: Read the following articles to understand WHY colony collapse in bee populations poses serious concerns for the planet as a whole:

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Bizarro Earth

4.5 Magnitude earthquake rattles Hawaii's Big Island

Hunter Bishop
Big Island Now
Thu, 07 Aug 2014 15:32 UTC
Image
© NSW
A magnitude-4.5 earthquake struck the Big Island at 6:24 a.m. today, the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reported.

The earthquake was located beneath the Island of Hawaiʻi and no damaging tsunami was generated.

Wes Thelen, HVO's Seismic Network Manager, said the earthquake was centered about four miles east-northeast of Kawaihae and nine miles west-northwest of Waimea, at a depth of 10.4 miles.

The USGS "Did you feel it?" Web site received more than 145 felt reports within an hour of the earthquake, HVO said. Only light shaking was reported. Most reports were posted from the Islands of Hawai'i and Maui. There were also a few reports from the Kahuku and Hickam areas on Oʻahu, over 155 miles from the epicenter, HVO reported.

Over the past 50 years, the area around Kawaihae has experienced 11 earthquakes greater than magnitude-4.0, including today's event, at depths of 6 - 12 miles. Deep earthquakes in this region are most likely caused by structural adjustments within the Earth's crust to accommodate the heavy load of Mauna Kea and surrounding volcanoes. Today's earthquake is in the general region of the 2006 Māhukona earthquake, but is not close enough to the 2006 event to be an aftershock of it.

Comment: And they have this to deal with as well: Hawaii in the path of two hurricanes, first hurricane in 22 years

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