Earth ChangesS


Better Earth

HDTV reveals brainy octopus has no personality

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© Jeff Rotman/Nature Picture Library/Rex FeaturesI spurn your primitive human technology.
Octopuses make for discerning TV viewers: it seems they prefer high-definition to traditional cathode ray images (CRT). What's more, the first study using video to trick octopuses, finds that they may be the Jekyll and Hydes of the oceans: aggressive one day, shrinking violets the next.

"People have been trying for over a decade to get proper behavioural responses from octopuses and other cephalopods using videos," says Roger Hanlon, an octopus researcher at the Marine Resources Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, who was not involved in the study. "But this is the first time anyone has managed it."

Gloomy octopuses (Octopus tetricus) reacted to films shown on liquid crystal high definition television (HDTV) as if they were seeing the real thing, according to a new study by Renata Pronk at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and colleagues. "They lunge forwards to attack crabs and back off from other octopuses, much as they do in the wild," says Hanlon.

Surprisingly, an octopus that was bold, aggressive and exploratory on one day was just as likely to be shy, submissive and stationary the next. "This suggests that the gloomy octopus does not have personality," writes Pronk in the new study.

Bizarro Earth

Japan: Earthquake Magnitude 6.6 - Near East Coast of Honshu

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© USGS
Date-Time:
Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 08:08:05 UTC

Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 05:08:05 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location:
37.780°N, 141.562°E

Depth:
39 km (24.2 miles)

Region:
NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN

Distances:
80 km (50 miles) SE of Sendai, Honshu, Japan

95 km (60 miles) E of Fukushima, Honshu, Japan

100 km (60 miles) NE of Iwaki, Honshu, Japan

285 km (175 miles) NE of TOKYO, Japan

Bizarro Earth

New Zealand - South Island Magnitude 5.0 Earthquake

Earthquake
© GeoNet NZ
Date-Time:
Saturday, March 13, 2010 at 1955 UTC

Location:
45.50°S, 166.64°E

Depth:
7 km (4.35 miles)

Distances:
80 km (49.7 miles) west of Te Anau, South Island,

110 km (68.4 miles) north-west of Tuatapere, South Island,

170 km (105.6 miles) north-west of Invercargill, South Island,

300 km (186.4 miles) west of Dunedin, South Island

Region:
Likely felt in Fiordland. Possibly felt in western Southland.

Better Earth

Climate Change - Goliath's Panic Begins

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© UnknownThe higher-ups of the AGW movement, aka Goliath, sense that something is amiss.
A new editorial in Nature is startling for what it reveals, especially the fact Paul Ehrlich is a go-to figure about how hard scientists have it when it comes to media access. Ehrlich is an individual who became an international celebrity by spinning one frightening story after another (about the death of the oceans, for one thing) who maintains, with a straight face, that he and his fellow scientists have an unfair disadvantage in communicating their side of the climate debate. He is quoted by Nature as saying, regarding the aftermath of Climategate and the fact that skeptic scientists are finally getting a hearing,
"Everyone is scared shitless, but they don't know what to do."
People often forget: Goliath, right before the end, sensed that something was amiss.

For, ironically, among the most pervasive myths attending global warming is the one pitching David against Goliath, in which those touting the risks of damaging climate change are cast as David and Big Oil is Goliath. The story requires observers to ignore the facts: Media, most scientists, and governments the world over have spent and received so much money on their version of events that they have collectively become Goliath. Observers must ignore, too, the reality that skeptic scientists maintain their intellectual freedom at significant risk. Funding routinely dries up; tenure is denied them; ad hominem attacks of the most vicious variety are launched against them from the Ivory Tower of academia, from the studios of multi-billion dollar news organizations, and from the bully pulpit of government.

Life Preserver

Over 80 evacuated after landslides in south Russia

Landslides in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Dagestan have destroyed homes and caused the evacuation of 82 people, emergency workers said on Saturday.

The landslides, which are moving at a speed of 15 cm an hour, are occurring in the town of Buynaksk, some 40 km from the republic's capital, Makhachkala.

Bizarro Earth

Indonesia: Earthquake Magnitude 6.4 - Kepulauan Obi

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© USGS
Date-Time:
Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 00:57:45 UTC

Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 09:57:45 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
1.710°S, 128.051°E

Depth:
52.4 km (32.6 miles)

Distances:
220 km (135 miles) N of Ambon, Moluccas, Indonesia

285 km (180 miles) SSE of Ternate, Moluccas, Indonesia

1230 km (760 miles) NNW of DARWIN, Northern Territory, Australia

2415 km (1500 miles) E of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia

Gear

UN climate change claims on rainforests were wrong, study suggests

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© REXA new study, funded by Nasa, has found that the most serious drought in the Amazon for more than a century had little impact on the rainforest's vegetation
The United Nations' climate change panel is facing fresh criticism after new research contradicted the organisation's claims about the devastating effect climate change could have on the Amazon rainforest.

A new study, funded by Nasa, has found that the most serious drought in the Amazon for more than a century had little impact on the rainforest's vegetation.

The findings appear to disprove claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest could react drastically to even a small reduction in rainfall and could see the trees replaced by tropical grassland.

Bizarro Earth

India: Earthquake Magnitude 5.6 - Myanmar

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© USGS
A 5.6-magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale hit a northeastern Indian state on Saturday morning, but no casualties have been reported, the Indian news agency Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) said.

The shock was felt at 04:50 a.m in most areas of the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya, reported the Regional Seismological Center at Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya.

The quake triggered panic in the affected regions, and many residents hurriedly ran out of the buildings. However, no injures or deaths have been reported, said IANS.

The northeastern regions of India are in the sixth most quake-prone belt in the world, said the Indian seismologists.

The northeastern regions of India are in the sixth most quake-prone belt in the world, said the Indian seismologists.

Bizarro Earth

US: Earthquake Magnitude 3.1 - Canadian County, Oklahoma

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© USGS
A 3.1 magnitude earthquake struck southwest of El Reno in Canadian County early Saturday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

The earthquake, which occurred about 3 a.m., was 12 miles south west of El Reno and about 3 miles beneath the surface. There have been no reports of damages.

Bizarro Earth

US: Earthquake Magnitude 4.2 Near San Diego

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© USGS
Mount Laguna - A moderate earthquake with a preliminary magnitude estimated at 4.2 hit below Mount Laguna at 8:32 a.m. today, automated seismographs report.

The USGS placed the epicenter in the Laguna Mountains, 14 miles northeast of Pine Valley and 14 miles south-southeast of Julian. The epicenter was also estimated to be 48 miles east northeast of downtown San Diego.

San Diego County sheriff's Lt. Harold Turner said dispatchers did not get any phone calls about the quake, one of hundreds that have rattled the East County in recent months.

The owner of the Pine Valley Inn said he was driving and did not feel it. But Ray Abdou said a guest said "it was pretty stout. It shook the building pretty good."