Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Lightning damages Jesus statue

Jennifer Brown
Denver Post
Mon, 21 May 2007 10:11 UTC
Don't look for any religious symbolism here - it was only a freak act of Mother Nature, says Sister Ilaria.

The nuns at Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden were thanking God on Sunday that no one was hurt when a bolt of lightning shot out of the sky and struck their 33-foot statue of Jesus.



©Post / Brian Brainerd
The statue, damaged Saturday, was sent from Italy in sections in 1954. No one was hurt by the falling pieces.


The lightning bolt broke off one of Jesus' arms and a hand and damaged one of his feet, sending marble plummeting to the ground during a Saturday afternoon storm.
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USA

Magnitude 4.2 earthquake shakes Riverside County


AP
Fri, 01 Jun 2007 23:06 UTC
A small earthquake shook Riverside County on Friday, although there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The magnitude 4.2 quake struck at 10:11 p.m., about 11 miles north of Indio and about 18 miles east of Palm Springs, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

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Arrow Down

Mudslide fully changes terrain in Kamchatka's Valley of Geysers


Itar-Tass
Sun, 03 Jun 2007 13:31 UTC
A powerful mudslide has fully changed terrain at one of Kamchatka's most remarkable sites, the Valley of Geysers, eyewitnesses who observed the area from aboard a helicopter just minutes after the slide told Itar-Tass.

No one was killed or injured in the calamity. At the moment when the mudslide went down into the valley, a group of 19 tourists and six members of auxiliary personnel were there.

Eyewitnesses said the stream of mud and rocks destroyed two outbuildings in the lower part of the valley.

Mud fully covered a part of the area where the world-famous geysers are located.
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Stop

Earthquake kills three, injures 290 in south-western China


DPA
Sun, 03 Jun 2007 04:35 UTC
A strong earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale struck an area of south-western China's Yunnan province early Sunday, destroying houses, killing at least three people and injuring nearly 300.

The epicentre of the quake at 5:34 a.m. (2134 GMT Saturday) was at 23.0 degrees north and 101.1 degrees east in Yunnan's Ning'er county, near the border with Myanmar, the China Earthquake Administration said.
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Chess

Just in time for the G8 summit: Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predictions'

Geoffrey Lean
The Independent
Sun, 03 Jun 2007 00:09 UTC
Global warming is accelerating three times more quickly than feared, a series of startling, authoritative studies has revealed.
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Arrow Down

Global Warming: They call this a consensus?

Lawrence Solomon
Financial Post
Sat, 02 Jun 2007 23:51 UTC
"Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled."

So said Al Gore ... in 1992. Amazingly, he made his claims despite much evidence of their falsity.
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Cloud Lightning

Tornado Tears Through Eastern Iowa

David Pitt
Associated Press
Sat, 02 Jun 2007 05:32 UTC
Kelly Goodwin sifted through the rubble of what used to be her kitchen, dazed after a tornado ripped through eastern Iowa and flattened dozens of homes in three communities.

Hours earlier, she was spending a quiet afternoon in her home when she heard the wind howl. She glanced out the window, saw a tree rip from the ground and hurried to the basement.
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Snowman

Argentina cold snap causes energy woes

Bill Cormier
Associated Press
Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:48 UTC
A cold snap in Argentina led to electricity and natural gas shortages this week, idling factories and taxis and causing sporadic blackouts in the capital.

Beset by the coldest May since 1962, millions of residents fired up space heaters, straining Buenos Aires' electrical grid for three nights and forcing authorities to slash power supply nationwide and briefly cut domestic natural gas provisions and exports to Chile.
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Magic Wand

Frog "Juice" May Be Next Big Bug Repellent

Elizabeth Svoboda
National Geographic
Sat, 02 Jun 2007 11:43 UTC
Although the chemical known as deet currently dominates the mosquito-repellent market, nature is full of bug-banishing strategies.

Native Americans once smeared goldenseal root on their bodies to ward off bites. And today candles made with oil from citronella grass help keep the bugs away from backyard barbecues.

Now a team of Australian researchers has isolated one of the most effective natural mosquito repellents yet from an unlikely source: smelly frog skin.

Craig Williams is an ecologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia who led the research team.

"Because frogs have delicate skins designed for absorbing water from their environment, they are vulnerable to things like infections, predators, and [parasites that live in skin]," he said

"So frog skin is really a portable pharmacy" full of chemicals for keeping the amphibians healthy.
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Cloud Lightning

2007 Hurricane Season Begins, Will Be Busy, Forecasters Say

Willie Drye
National Geographic
Sat, 02 Jun 2007 11:32 UTC
As the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season gets officially under way today, residents of the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean are bracing for what weather experts are saying will be another storm-filled six months.

Seventeen tropical storms will form in the Atlantic Basin, which includes the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, between June 1 and November 30, according to Colorado State University (CSU) forecasters William Gray and Phil Klotzbach.
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