Earth ChangesS


Better Earth

Topsoil's Limited Turnover: A Crisis In Time

Topsoil does not last forever. Records show that topsoil erosion, accelerated by human civilization and conventional agricultural practices, has outpaced long-term soil production. Earth's continents are losing prime agricultural soils even as population growth and increased demand for biofuels claim more from this basic resource.

Bizarro Earth

Strong quake hits Afghanistan

Kabul - A strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake hit central Afghanistan Monday, seismologists said, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

The quake struck about 68 kilometres (42 miles) southeast of the capital Kabul at 3:26am local time (2256 GMT), the US Geological Survey said.

It was 35 kilometres deep, the centre said.

Butterfly

A quarter of the world's mammals risk extinction

Image
© Reuters
The Iberian lynx has seen numbers drop to between just 84 and 143 adults
A quarter of the world's mammals are at risk of extinction, the latest global analysis of threatened species revealed today.

At least 1,141 of the 5,487 mammals on Earth are under threat, largely as a result of hunting and the destruction of their habitat by humans, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Bizarro Earth

Haiti storms left 793 people dead

Haiti floods
© BBCSuccessive storms left Gonaives flooded and buried in mud
Nearly 800 people in Haiti were killed in four major storms which devastated the country in August and September, officials have said.

More than 300 people were missing, the civil protection agency said.

Hurricanes Gustav and Ike and tropical storms Hanna and Fay killed 466 people in Gonaives, the hardest hit city.

Bizarro Earth

6.6 quake hits Tibet; kills at least 30

Beijing - A magnitude 6.6 earthquake killed at least 30 people in Tibet on Monday with a number of people buried in debris, Xinhua news agency said.

Tibetan capital of Lhasa
© REUTERS/Graphics At least 30 people were killed in a 6.6-magnitude earthquake which was centered near the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, according to Xinhua, which cited the local government.
The victims were found near the epicenter in Gedar township of Damxung County, around 80 km (50 miles) west of the regional capital Lhasa, Xinhua reported.

"More people were still buried in debris and many houses collapsed," Xinhua quoted a local government official as saying.

Bizarro Earth

6.8 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Xinjiang

Urumqi -- A 6.8 magnitude earthquake shook northwest China on Sunday night, said the National Seismological Network.

So far, no casualties have been reported, XINHUA news agency reported Monday.

The epicenter was fixed at 39.6 degrees north latitude and 73.9 degrees east longitude, in a mountainous area about 100 km away from the county seat of Wuqia, Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture. The source of the earthquake was 33 kilometers underground.

Fish

Type Of Plankton -- Food Source For Many Fish -- Has Ability To Survive Climate Change

Queen's researchers have found that the main source of food for many fish - including cod - in the North Atlantic appears to adapt in order to survive climate change.

Billions of Calanus finmarchicus, a plankton species, which are just a few millimetres in size, live in the waters of the North Atlantic where the research was carried out.

It showed they responded to global warming after the last Ice Age, around 18,000 years ago, by moving north and maintaining large population sizes and also suggests that these animals might be able to track the current change in habitat.

The effect of global climate change on the planet's ecosystems is one of the key issues scientists are currently focussing on and the research has been published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a publication of the national academy of science of the UK and the Commonwealth, today.

Frog

US: Central Florida Neighborhoods Invaded By Frogs

Frog
Standing water everywhere and hot weather create the perfect situation to incubate eggs. Central Florida is being invaded, not by mosquitoes, but by frogs. The tiny frogs are too daunting -- until you multiple them by about 1 million.

"Last night there was 11 big ones on my house, jumping and hitting me in the head and stuff like that," Cindy Trumpolt said.

"I told them we should get on our knees and pray, because I think it is a plague. I do," one resident said.

Many residents are worried the frogs will get into their home or car.

Evil Rays

Strong earthquake jolts Central Asia

BISHKEK - A strong earthquake struck Central Asia on Sunday but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, officials and witnesses said.

The quake jolted an area between Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Central Asia's most densely populated corner prone to ethnic tension and instability.

The earthquake was felt throughout the region, mainly in Kyrgyzstan, but there were conflicting reports about the magnitude and epicenter.

Calculator

Math helps bees read the waggle dance

When honeybees dance to point their hivemates towards nectar-rich flowers, they waggle in a slightly different direction each time. It is sometimes claimed that this variability benefits the hive by helping bees locate new resources, but an experiment by David Tanner and Kirk Visscher from the University of California, Riverside, seems to have overturned this theory.

By observing bees trained to visit artificial sugar-traps, Tanner and Visscher discovered that rather than picking a flight path based on the angle of any one waggle, the bees flew off in a direction that more closely matched the mean angle of several waggles.

"Bees apparently keep a mental log of the directions indicated in the dance," says Tanner. "I find it remarkable that, with a relatively simple brain, they can do something so mathematically complex."