Earth ChangesS

Butterfly

Hind Wings Help Butterflies Make Swift Turns To Evade Predators, Study Finds


ScienceDaily
Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:41 UTC
butterfly
© Image courtesy of Cornell University CommunicationsButterflies in flight.
New tires allow race cars to take tight turns at high speeds. Hind wings give moths and butterflies similar advantages: They are not necessary for basic flight but help these creatures take tight turns to evade predators.

"To escape a predator, you don't have to be fast, you just have to be more erratic," said Tom Eisner, a world authority on animal behavior, ecology and evolution and the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Chemical Ecology at Cornell. Eisner is co-author of a study on butterfly wings recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (105: 43).
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Binoculars

Nature Hits Back: Major spike in shark attacks on Australian beaches


ABC News
Mon, 12 Jan 2009 08:28 UTC
Shark Attacks 1
© FlickerThe victim described the shark as a bull shark
An aerial search will resume on the New South Wales south coast tomorrow for a shark that attacked a 24-year-old man.

Steven Fogarty was snorkelling at Windang near the entrance to Lake Illawarra when the shark bit him on the leg, leaving 40 puncture wounds.

He described the shark as a bull shark and said he punched the shark until it let go.
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Info

Medicinal plants on verge of extinction

Rob Edwards
New Scientist
Mon, 12 Jan 2009 05:18 UTC
The health of millions could be at risk because medicinal plants used to make traditional remedies, including drugs to combat cancer and malaria, are being overexploited. "The loss of medicinal plant diversity is a quiet disaster," says Sara Oldfield, secretary general of the NGO Botanic Gardens Conservation International.

Most people worldwide, including 80 per cent of all Africans, rely on herbal medicines obtained mostly from wild plants. But some 15,000 of 50,000 medicinal species are under threat of extinction, according to a report this week from international conservation group Plantlife. Shortages have been reported in China, India, Kenya, Nepal, Tanzania and Uganda.

Commercial over-harvesting does the most harm, though pollution, competition from invasive species and habitat destruction all contribute. "Commercial collectors generally harvest medicinal plants with little care for sustainability," the Plantlife report says. "This can be partly through ignorance, but [happens] mainly because such collection is unorganised and competitive."
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Cloud Lightning

Emergency declared in Fiji as six feared dead in severe storm, floods


Agence France-Presse
Mon, 12 Jan 2009 04:04 UTC
A state of emergency was declared in Fiji Sunday as severe storms brought widespread flooding with at least six people feared dead.

Thousands were evacuated from their homes and those living in low-lying areas were advised to move to higher ground as rivers burst their banks.

Tourists in the popular resort area of Denarau Island were trapped after the only road to the airport was inundated.

Interim Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama declared the state of emergency on the recommendation of the National Disaster Management Office (Dismac), Interim National Security Minister Epeli Ganilau said.
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Ambulance

Dozens dead in Romanian cold snap


Agence France-Presse
Mon, 12 Jan 2009 03:58 UTC
Forty-three people have died in Romania since late December due to the extremely cold temperatures, the deputy secretary-of-state for health, Raed Arafat, announced Saturday.

The dead included a three-month old baby, Arafat was quoted as saying by Newsin news agency.

Romania has experienced a major cold snap, with temperatures dropping as low as minus 31 degrees Celsius (minus 23.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in the centre of the country.
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Cloud Lightning

Storm sinks Indonesian ferry, 250 feared dead

Irwan Firdaus
Associated Press
Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:35 UTC
Jakarta, Indonesia -- A ferry capsized in a severe storm and crashing waves in central Indonesia on Sunday and officials said around 250 people were feared dead.

Eighteen survivors were rescued by fishing boats, but the fate of the others remained unclear, said Taufik, a port official at Parepare on the island of Sulawesi, where the ferry began its journey. Taufik uses one name, as is common in Indonesia.

About 250 passengers and 17 crew are believed to have been onboard the ferry when it went down 30 miles (50 kilometers) off the coast off western Sulawesi. Indonesians generally don't know how to swim and it was feared that most onboard would have drowned.
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Igloo

Snow continues to trap thousands at Madrid airport


Reuters
Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:16 UTC
MADRID - Thousands of passengers were still stranded at Madrid's Barajas airport on Saturday after snow kept runways closed and flights grounded.

Only two of the airport's four runways were operating, national television TVE said, citing comments by the head of communications for Spanish airports operator AENA.

An estimated 985 flights were expected to take off and land on Saturday, compared with 1,200 normally, according to AENA data.
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Cloud Lightning

Cyclone Charlotte crosses the Queensland coast near Karumba


News.Com.au
Mon, 12 Jan 2009 06:29 UTC
* Cyclone Charlotte hits Queensland
* Gale force winds, flooding expected
* Residents told to prepare emergency kits
Aus Cyclone
© BOMCyclone Charlotte ... hitting the coast of North Queensland this morning

Tropical Cyclone Charlotte has crossed the coast in far north Queensland, bringing heavy rain and damaging winds to the area.

The Bureau of Meteorology said Charlotte made land at about 4am (AEST) near the mouth of the Gilbert River, 305km north-west of Georgetown.

The category one cyclone, Queensland's first of the season, is expected to continue moving east-southeast over land while weakening.

The bureau has warned that gales and damaging winds with gusts to 120 km/h may be experienced between Cape Keer-Weer and Burketown, and extend about 200km inland. Heavy rainfall and flooding are expected in the south-east Gulf country.

Acting Emergency Services Minister Andrew Fraser said that falls of up to 300mm were expected between Cardwell and Mossman.
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People

Kenya: Scramble for relief food leaves several injured

Wangari Kanyongo and Rose Kamau
Kenya Broadcasting Corporation
Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:15 UTC
Several people were injured as they scrambled for relief food at South Alego Location in Siaya district, Nyanza Province as hunger continues to bite in the country.

The relief maize had spilled as the lorry that was transporting it overturned in a freak road accident.

Unconfirmed sources said the consignment was headed to the home of an undisclosed local politician.

It was a free for all as residents tried to scoop as much as they could of the maize with the loaders being forced to watch helplessly after unsuccessfully attempting to stop the hungry residents from scrambiling for the food.

Comment: Even though there is an ongoing drought in Kenya which is devastating the food crops, let's not forget that the government is equally to blame given that it has a long history of misspending state funds and allowing Western corporations to steal
Kenya's natural resources. The fact that the government is ignoring the violence and troubles of its peoples while stealing money from government projects to lavish on "new ministries" is unconscionable.

Throw in the U.S's bogus war on terror and the continuing, contrived turmoil this creates and there is little hope for the peoples of Kenya in this continuing situation.

For an interesting analysis of foreign government involvement in Kenya,
see the Sott article Kenya, John Kerry, Diamonds and Mossad.

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Bizarro Earth

US: 2008 Saw Notable Increase in Moderate Southern California Earthquakes

Jia-Rui Chong
Los Angeles Times
Sun, 11 Jan 2009 00:43 UTC
Los Angeles - Do you think the ground feels a little shakier these days? It's not your imagination.

Last year saw a significant increase in the number of temblors of magnitude 3.0 or greater in Southern California and the northern portion of Baja California, according to data from Caltech and the U.S. Geological Survey.

The region recorded 267 shakers with magnitudes of 3.0 and above last year, compared with 125 in 2007. Seismologists said 2008 had the highest number of such quakes of any year since 1999.

What experts don't know is whether the quake cluster is a harbinger of bigger quakes to come. The 1990s was considered a seismically active decade in Southern California, producing the magnitude 7.3 Landers quake in 1992 and the destructive Northridge quake in 1994. During the quake cluster of 1999, the region was hit by the magnitude 7.1 Hector Mine temblor in the desert and several sizable aftershocks. There were 828 quakes with magnitudes of 3.0 and above that year.

Comment: For some interesting ideas about earthquakes, see: Earthquakes, Gases, and Earthquake Prediction

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