For Valentine's Day, night-sky photographer Alan Dyer received not red roses, but red auroras. "It was an odd display. Instead of the usual green, the lights over Manitoba, Canada, on Feb. 14th were a beautiful shade of red," says Dyer, who took this 25 second exposure using a Canon 6D digital camera and a fish-eye lens:
"The bright light at the right is Jupiter," he points out. "Later, the aurora took on the more normal appearance with green curtains topped by fringes of red."
Flooding at a PAO Uralkali potash mine in Russia's Perm region has increased four-fold in the last two weeks, and a nearby sinkhole is almost 300 feet across.
The average brine inflow to the Solikamsk-2 mine increased from 200 cubic meters an hour to about 820 cubic meters an hour between Jan. 22 and Feb. 6, the world's largest potash miner said today in a statement. A sinkhole that opened up east of the mine, swallowing local summer homes, has widened to 87 meters (285 feet) by 58 meters and is about 75 meters deep, it said.
It was stalking around town, on the hunt for prey in a secluded El Dorado Hills neighborhood overrun with trees and brush. It's the kind of environment that makes it easy for a predator on the top of the food chain to hide out.
A 50-pound bobcat did some serious damage to the community, killing 3 pets in 2 days.
"Killed one of their cats, attacked another one of their cats and tried to eat it but the cat got away. Killed another neighbor's cat, then he called us," Jeffery Duke of Duke's Wildlife Control & Removal told FOX40.
Man-animal conflict has played havoc with the lives of people in almost 14,000 villages which are located near forest areas. Figures point to the massive extent of damage, and the many lives lost. Since 2000, when the state was formed, around 400 people have died in attacks by animals. Of these, 241 were believed to have been killed by leopards alone. As for animal casualties, around 800 leopards, 90 tigers and 280 elephants have reportedly died in these encounters. However, the state forest department is yet to get its act in place. It cites shortage of staff and limited weaponry as the biggest stumbling blocks in ensuring proper patrolling of the forests.
Starving sea lion pups have been washing ashore along the California coast for the past three winters and experts have very few clues as to why this is happening.
"They're extremely emaciated, basically starving to death," Shawn Johnson of the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California told National Geographic.
Since the start of the year, almost 500 pups have been admitted to the state's rehabilitation centers, with the Sausalito facility handling 171 cases so far. Last year, it took until April for the center to hit the 100-case mark.
Officials said they are particularly concerned because they've yet to hit the peak stranding season, which is traditionally a few months away.
"We're all kind of holding our breath," said Justin Viezbicke, stranding network coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
A sinkhole in Surprise sent two people to the hospital Friday and forced an overnight road closure, authorities said.
The sinkhole on 163rd Avenue about a 1/2 mile north of Grand Avenue was about as wide as a lane of traffic. Attempts to repair the damage were underway Friday afternoon.
Two people received minor injuries when the vehicle they were in entered the sinkhole, according to a Surprise Fire Department official. The pair were taken to Banner Del E. Webb Medical Center in Sun City for treatment.
Traffic was initially moving through the area with restrictions. Officials closed 163rd Avenue overnight and the road was expected to be off limits to traffic at least through this morning.
It wasn't clear when repairs would be complete and the road restrictions would be cleared.
More than 100 pilot whales that stranded on a New Zealand beach have died, conservation officials said on Saturday, voicing grave fears for more than 90 others from the pod.
The whales beached themselves on Friday at Farewell Spit at the northern tip of the South Island, with dozens of rescuers racing to re-float the marine mammals on the evening high tide.
But Department of Conservation (DOC) spokesman Andrew Lamason said the whales had swam aground again overnight after being shepherded out to deep water.
One person was killed and at least four others were injured, two of them seriously, when a rogue wild boar went on a rampage and attacked a group of farm labourers in Odisha's Kendrapara district, a forest official said today.
The incident occurred yesterday in Hatabanapur village when the farm labourers were engaged in rabi crop cultivation, he said.
The village where the incident took place is away from forest areas and animals had not strayed into it in the past.
As the people tried to chase away the animal it turned violent and attacked the farm workers, said Divisional Forest Officer, Cuttack Territorial Forest Division, Sudarshan Behera.
A 45-year-old farmer was killed by a wild elephant in the family's agricultural field at Attingere in the taluk on Sunday night.
The victim was identified as Panchalingaiah, son of Sanjeevaiah.
On Monday night, Roopa, Panchalingaiah's daughter, went to the field to give him tea. She was shocked to find her father's body lying 200 feet away. She then returned to the village to inform her family about the incident.
It is said Panchalingaiah was sleeping in the ragi field, when the elephant came there in search of food and started eating the ragi crop.
The Authoritarian Follower believes that those in authority have the right to live by their own rules, and lying, cheating, stealing and murder in high places can thus be tolerated with a shrug of the shoulders. They will also willingly engage themselves in the same lying, cheating, stealing and murder if it is presented to them as necessary to protect their status quo.
- Laura Knight-Jadczyk
”
Recent Comments
I just met a scumbag disguised as a decent guy. We started talking and something came up about the vax and I gave him this page of this Scientist...
Comment: See this earlier report from November 2014: Sinkhole opens up near old mine in Russia's Ural Mountains